Historically cases of alleged non compliance with a contact Order were difficult for the Court as the available sanctions, fines, imprisonment and change of the child’s place of residence, were not always deemed to be beneficial to the welfare of the child.
A new penalty, unpaid community work, was introduced some years ago but in reality this has not frequently been used by the Court.
Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, the former President of the Family Division, expressed concern that all too frequently parents were failing to comply with Contact Orders with no real consequence.
In a recent interview she said that when a party has failed to comply with an Order more should be done to enforce that Order and the to ensure that the non complaint party faces “unpleasant” penalties.
Baroness Butler-Sloss said:
“I would like to see I must say, mothers who flout contact orders required to do all sorts of things that don’t actually send her inside … I should like to see her penalised in all sorts of inconvenient ways as long as it doesn’t have any impact on her care of the child.”
“[T]here is no reason why she shouldn’t be required to go and clean the streets, whatever it may be. I would make her do something really unpleasant so that she understands the consequences of this.”
Although Baroness Butler-Sloss was in favour of ‘unpleasant’ penalties for non compliance she made it clear that she did not advocate the use of prison as a punishment. In her view prison time would be “counterproductive” in these cases as it could lead to the child becoming resentful of the father, being “the man who has sent [the child’s] mother to prison”.
If you have any questions about compliance with an Order and how to make an application to the Court for enforcement then you should contact our friendly and experienced family team on 02920 470909.
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