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Old May 3rd, 2013 #6
Bev
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Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: England
Posts: 38,898
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Quote:
Senior judges are to ban the secret jailing of defendants for contempt of court, the Daily Mail can reveal.

The decision comes after emergency talks over the way a woman was given a prison sentence for trying to take her father out of a care home.

Wanda Maddocks, 50, was handed a five-month jail term by the Court of Protection in her absence – and without being represented by a lawyer.


New instructions for judges will lay down that no one should be sentenced to prison for contempt of court behind closed doors.

A judge ruled that Miss Maddocks’ efforts to remove her 80-year-old father from the care home where she believed his life was in danger amounted to wilful defiance of the court.

The sentence was imposed by Judge Martin Cardinal at the Court of Protection in Birmingham without naming any of those involved.


No record of his ruling was published, and secrecy rules forbade anyone to name Miss Maddocks, her father, the local council that asked for her to be imprisoned or the social worker who gave evidence against her.

Judge Cardinal opened his court to the public for the sentencing, but the unlocking of the courtroom doors was announced only to passers-by who happened to be in the corridor outside.

The Mail’s report of the Maddocks case provoked a major row over the Court of Protection, which decides on the affairs of individuals too ill to make decisions for themselves. The Court habitually sits in secret and few of its hearings have ever been subjected to public scrutiny.

The depth of political concern became clear yesterday when it emerged that Justice Secretary Chris Grayling wrote to Sir James Munby, the judge in charge of family justice, to ask him to include the Court of Protection in a review currently under way into the workings of the family courts.

The family courts – which handle cases of divorce and child custody, and which rule when children are taken into care or put up for adoption – are rarely open to the public and usually publish only anonymous details of judgements. Sir James is currently exploring ways to make them more open.

The talks on the Maddocks case and secret imprisonment involved both Sir James, who is head of the Family Division of the High Court, and Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, who is the head of the judiciary.

Their decision to ban secret sentencing for contempt was taken before Sir James received the Grayling letter.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...g-scandal.html


Never mind just banning secret jailings - ALL of it should be up for public or at least independent scrutiny.
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