[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] [DONATE]
	England and Wales Court of Protection Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Protection Decisions >> CA, In the Matter Of [2025] EWCOP 15 (T3) (28 January 2025) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2025/15.html Cite as: [2025] EWCOP 15 (T3)

[New search] [Printable PDF version] [Help]

IN THE COURT OF PROTECTION
IN THE MATTER OF THE MENTAL CAPACITY ACT 2005
AND IN THE MATTER OF CA

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		28th January 2025

............................. This judgment was handed down to parties remotely via email at 11:18am on 20^th February 2025.

Introduction

1. Norfolk County Council has invited the court to find Miss Caroline Grady ("the defendant") in contempt of court for breaching undertakings given to His Honour Judge Beckley on 17^th January 2024 (committal applications for breach served on 19^th April 2024 and 30^th May 2024) and breaching an injunction I made whilst sitting as a Judge of the Court of Protection on 7^th October 2024 (committal application served on 31^st December 2024).
2. The undertakings and injunctions have a number of terms which it is said that Miss Grady has breached. There are six allegations or grounds of breach which were reduced to five on the basis that today, 28^th January 2025, the defendant admitted four breaches, so the local authority withdrew ground five. The final ground, ground six was contested by the defendant and I heard evidence from one witness for the local authority and read an affidavit and other documents prepared by the defendant.
3. Mr Woolley was representing the Official Solicitor who is CA's litigation friend. He was neutral when it came to the committal proceedings. EA is a party to the substantive proceedings. He did not attend today and had no part to play in this application.

Committal - Principles

4. Pursuant to rule 21 of the Court of Protection Rules 2017, I set out below the principles I have applied:
5. The defendant has been personally served with the applications. She may have told the process server to "sod off" on 31^st December 2024 when he served the most recent application but he recognised her and she has not suggested she was not served.
6. The defendant is entitled to legal representation which she has had.
7. The defendant has had a reasonable time to prepare for the hearing. She had received the first five allegations on 19^th April and 30^th May 2024 and the sixth one on 31^st December 2024.
8. The defendant was told she can give oral or written evidence in her defence. She has given some written evidence in the form of a letter to the court and an affidavit but decided not to give oral evidence.
9. The defendant was told she had the right to remain silent and the right to decline to answer any question that might incriminate her.
10. The defendant was told she could apologise for her actions and that that apology would be taken into account by the court.
11. I have applied the criminal standard to these proceedings. Before I could find the defendant is in contempt I would have to be sure that she was in breach of the injunctions in the way alleged by the local authority.
12. If I am sure that the defendant has committed one or more than one contempt, the defendant can be punished by a fine, imprisonment, confiscation of assets or other punishment.
13. The defendant had been told that if she admitted the contempt or contempts and wished to apologise to the court, that was likely to reduce the severity of the court's punishment. As it is, the defendant accepted she breached the undertakings given to a different judge in January 2024.
14. I have told the defendant that my findings will be provided in writing as soon as practicable after the hearing.
15. I have ensured that I have sat in public to consider these applications and I have told the defendant that the court's findings may be published. Legal bloggers were in court and requested and were given the written arguments prepared by the parties and I have given permission for the parties to send their skeleton arguments. It was unfortunate that the court list did not show the defendant's name but identified her by initials, but no party suggested that the committal hearing should not proceed because of it.

Grounds 1 to 4

16. Grounds 1 to 4 relate to breaches of the undertakings given by the defendant to the court on 17^th January 2024. The defendant has admitted these breaches.
17. The undertakings given by the defendant were that she agreed first to her contact with CA to be supervised until further order and second that she would not use insulting or threating words or behaviour, or say or do anything that would cause CA upset or distress, or which may undermine the care provided to CA until further order. The undertakings were renewed on 24^th April 2024.
18. Ground 1 arose out of behaviour on 19^th February 2024 when the defendant upset CA by questioning her about why she was going to hospital the next day. That and the defendant's other questions about what CA might be asked in a capacity assessment led to CA putting the phone down because she was angry.
19. In Ground 2 it was said that on 23^rd February 2024, the defendant visited CA and caused her distress by calling her a "silly woman". The defendant then said "your bloody dementia has prevented you from remembering everything we have talked about in the last months, it's a bloody waste of my time". The defendant then said "everything will be taken away from you". The defendant stuck out her tongue at CA. CA then became distressed and hit the defendant in the face. Afterwards, CA said to the carer that she did not understand why the defendant treated her the way she does.
20. The events which became Ground 3, occurred on 24^th February 2024 at 8.30am, the day after the events leading to Ground 2. The defendant caused CA distress by asking her about a letter the defendant had given her the night before. CA could not remember it. The defendant told her she would not visit her any longer and ended the call. CA started crying and shaking and said to her carer: "she won't come around again". The carer comforted her. CA then told her carer that she wanted to die.
    
21. In Ground 4, the defendant had unsupervised contact by telephone on nine occasions on various dates in March and April 2024 when she had given an undertaking that her contact would be supervised. From the evidence it was clear that on those dates the defendant ensured that any phone calls that she and CA were having were not on speaker mode, contrary to the order of the court.
22. In one of the calls taken off speaker mode, the defendant told CA to call the Official Solicitor's representative and tell them she now had capacity. She said if CA did not prove that then "you will end up in a bloody home with no relatives".
23. Other examples of things said which led to Ground 4 are two other unsupervised distressing calls which were made on 13^th and 27^th March 2024. After the call on 13^th March 2024, CA seemed sad and she told the carer that the defendant had told her she would be going into a home. She said she didn't know why the defendant treated her so badly. On 27^th March 2024, CA said at the end of the call that the defendant did not seem happy with her. CA said the amount of information that the defendant wanted her to retain was too much for her.
24. In an early response the defendant admitted to having private calls with CA contrary to the order of the court but said she did not realise supervised contact included telephone calls. I did not accept that was the case. The defendant was told repeatedly by the carers to put the calls she was having with CA on speaker phone. There was no suggestion that she did not understand that. Furthermore in a written commentary to one of the statements in the bundle, the defendant said she knew it was not conforming to the court order but the defendant did so to discuss CA's medical treatment. The implication was that it was CA's decision to have private telephone calls not the defendant's. In most of the telephone calls that was simply not the case.
25. On 22^nd April 2024, the defendant responded to the four grounds with partial admissions. More recently in a letter to the court dated 5^th November 2024, she made what she called a "sincere and unreserved apology for the incidents which had given rise to the committal proceedings". In the detailed letter she sent to the court the defendant said she did not know telephone calls had to be supervised and on loudspeaker phone. This ran contrary to other evidence.
26. At the beginning of the committal hearing the defendant admitted the four breaches (grounds 1 to 4).

Ground 5

27. This ground was withdrawn by NCC.

Ground 6

28. On 7 October 2024, I made an injunctive order against the defendant. The third term of the injunction was that the defendant was not to lie to CA. The sixth term was that the defendant "shall not mention or threaten to send CA to a care home or to Switzerland".
29. Ground 6 is that on 13^th November 2024, contrary to those two terms of the injunction order made, the defendant lied to CA when she said that the local authority might take her to a care home. The mention of a care home was also contrary to the sixth term of the injunction.
30. The witness supporting Ground 6 was one of CA's carers, BB.
31. BB was a recent member of the care team working for the care agency. She could not remember exactly when she started working with CA, but thought it was 8^th November 2024 but then said it may have been earlier.
32. She was criticised by the defendant for not making notes of what the defendant had said to CA in the carers' log. She explained that she considered it was confidential and therefore told her manager when she saw them at the care agency the following day. She then typed out her notes in an incident report form which was dated 14^th November 2024.
33. The witness said that on 13^th November 2024, the defendant was at CA's house, and she told CA that the council would take over CA's property, that the council may take CA away to a care home and that the defendant would then not be able to see CA regularly. The defendant started crying. She said that CA should try to do things to prevent being seen as lacking capacity. The carer described CA as "emotional". The carer had to reassure and calm CA.
34. The defendant did not give oral evidence but it was clear from her written evidence that she rejected the allegation being made by the local authority although she did not set out the detail of her dispute with the local authority evidence.
35. Mr Goodman on her behalf relied on the lack of mention of the particular conversation in the carers' logs on 13^th November 2024. He pointed out that it was an hourly record of the defendant's visit but there was no mention of the particular conversation alleged to have taken place.
36. I accept that there was no mention of the conversation or of the defendant being in tears in the carers' log, but having said that, I saw no reason why BB would have lied about this. She made the notes in the incident report form the following day. She had no prior knowledge of any issues that there had been with the defendant. There may have been a note that careful observations had to be made but it seemed to me she was clearly honest in her account.
37. I am sure BB's account recorded as it was within 24 hours of the events she was recounting is a truthful one. She could have no reason to lie or make this up. Why would she? Furthermore what she was describing is what the defendant has repeatedly done in the course of these proceedings. She has said before that the local authority wants to put CA in a care home, when there is not a shred of evidence to that effect and indeed it has been said repeatedly that the local authority is not planning to do that. The defendant has said before she will see CA less if she were to be in a care home. The defendant also has had unusual sudden emotional outbursts at times in court, which pass within seconds of their arrival. She has repeatedly told CA to regain her capacity.
38. Everything noted by BB had happened or been noted by other carers. I am sure that BB's evidence is truthful. This is evidence of the way the defendant puts emotional pressure on CA in an inappropriate way.
39. I reject the evidence of the defendant. The defendant knew, because I had told her repeatedly in court and it was set out in writing in an injunction, what she could or could not say to CA, but she nevertheless breached the two terms of the injunction. She told a lie and raised the question of a care home which as she would know would be upsetting to CA.
40. I find ground 6 proved. The defendant has disobeyed the law and is in contempt.

Sentence

41. After giving my decision on ground 6, I heard from the local authority which had set out the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in their skeleton argument. I heard mitigation from Mr Goodman for the defendant. He also set out her financial situation as the local authority was of the view that the breaches did not reach the custody threshold and would be contrary to CA's best interests for the defendant to be imprisoned.
42. Mr Goodman in mitigation said that the defendant tried to promote CA's best interests. Nothing she has done was for her personal gain, it was always to assist CA. He pointed out that grounds 1 to 4 related to a period between February and early April 2024 when the defendant was ill. Between that time and November 2024, the defendant was seeing CA very regularly and the records of the supervised contact showed that her behaviour was appropriate.
43. Mr Goodman submitted that the breaches could be considered at the bottom end of the contempt level. He pointed out that recently contact had started to be unsupervised regularly and there was no evidence of any repeat behaviour. This had included six hours on Christmas day and six hours on CA's birthday although it had been supervised by the defendant's partner.
44. In terms of the defendant's earnings as a golf professional, last financial year she made about £13,500 pre-tax profit. She fitted her work around seeing CA. She has a very modest income although she had savings of £25K which she uses to supplement her income.

Sentence

Aggravating and mitigating features

45. The features in this case which aggravate the penalty are the following:

• In saying what she had to CA the defendant had caused harm to her by upsetting her. The undertakings and injunction were put in place to prevent the defendant saying or doing things which would upset CA.

• The mention of a care home to CA is more serious because of the frequent occasions I have told the defendant not to say that to CA.

• As regards to the unsupervised telephone calls, I have rejected the defendant's account that it was CA who did that. It was the defendant who manipulated CA into taking the telephone off speaker mode. This was not an accidental breach by the defendant.

• The final aggravating feature related to Ground 6, this was committed soon after I had made the injunction.

46. In terms of mitigating factors, I take into account the following:

• There are no previous findings of contempt made against the defendant.

• The defendant was seriously ill during the period when the contempts in Ground 1 to 4 were committed.

• The defendant made some partial admissions and in the end admitted being in contempt as set out in the first four grounds.

• The defendant apologised for her behaviour set out in grounds 1 to 4 although I noted there was not a full acceptance of what she had done.

• I accept that the breaches and contempt found do not pass the custody threshold.

• The defendant's income is not such that she could afford a large fine which arguably she deserves.

47. For grounds 1 to 3, there will be a £50 fine on each count. On Ground 4 the fine will be £100 as there were a number of unsupervised telephone calls made by the defendant that should not have taken place.
48. For Ground 6 there will be a fine of £250 because the defendant committed this contempt soon after the injunction had been imposed.
49. The total of the fines is £500. It is to be paid within 14 days.
50. The local authority did not seek its costs. There shall be no order for costs.