By Celia Kitzinger, 14th August 2025
A mother who refused to obey court orders was sentenced to 28 days in prison, and her pre-teenage daughter was to be taken into foster care, in a case I watched in the Family Court on 11th August 2025.
The judge, Mrs Justice Lieven, ordered the local authority to send social workers immediately to the mother’s home to collect the child – and as soon as the child had been removed, the police would arrest the mother and take her to prison.
The judge made it absolutely clear that she did not want the mother to go to prison. She said she was in an “invidious position” because “I have the Court of Appeal telling me I have to send this lady to prison, effectively. I have a mother who I suspect has engineered a situation where there is nobody to look after the child, and a local authority who has effectively washed their hands of the situation”.
I’ll describe what happened, and why, and reflect on its implications for other committal cases in the Court of Protection.
Background
The parents of the child at the centre of this case are Slovakian. They separated in 2017 and shortly afterwards Anna Benciková and her daughter relocated to England without the father’s knowledge or consent, where they have remained ever since. The father, Pavel Koco, remains in Slovakia[1].
Following a protracted history of Hague Convention and Children Act 1989 litigation initiated by the father, first to try to get the child returned and then to get rights of access (both unsuccessful), a fact-finding hearing took place (in August 2021) before HHJ Lloyd-Jones – who did not find the mother’s allegations of domestic abuse to have been proved (on the balance of probability). Her application for permission to appeal that judgment was refused.
Following a final welfare hearing, the judge made a “live with” order to the mother and refused her application to terminate the father’s parental responsibility. In advance of any court consideration as to whether direct communication or contact between the child and her father was in her best interests, the judge further ordered the mother to:
(1) provide a written welfare update to the father via his solicitors on a monthly basis;
(2) allow the Guardian to meet with the child to carry out “Storyboard”/Life-story work – a therapeutic child-centered intervention led by a Guardian or social worker to help the child know the identity of her father and understand something of her life story and personal identity.
These are the court orders the mother has not obeyed, and that is why she is in contempt of court and now faces a prison sentence.
The mother is utterly opposed to complying with these orders and says that doing so would cause harm to her daughter. She says the father has told “repeated lies” and that he is “willing to destroy a child’s life for money”. She says he treats his own child as “just another victim in his life long criminal career” (he has served a term of imprisonment in Slovakia for fraud). She says: “I do not want my daughter to become comfortable with compulsive lying, destroying people’s lives and leading a criminal life”.
She has on three occasions (June 2024, August 2024 and March 2025) been found to be in contempt of court (and twice fined) for not obeying these orders. On the most recent (third) occasion, the judge adjourned sentencing to give the mother one final opportunity to comply. She said:
“Only because of [your daughter] am I going to do this. I am going to adjourn sentence for a month. In the meanwhile, I will direct that there will be life story work between the Guardian and [your daughter], and I will request the Guardian – but not direct her – to explain to you what life story work is. If having had it explained to you, you still persist in ignoring court orders, I will consider how I will sentence you. Taking into account the fines don’t work because you don’t pay them in full, and you appear to think it is right to ignore court orders, this is your very last chance.”
When the matter was listed again for sentencing on 6th May 2025, the mother had failed (again) to comply with the Court’s orders. There had been no “life story work” for the child and she’d not taken the child to see the Guardian.
At the sentencing hearing, the judge, Henke J, decided not to impose any sanction. The judge said she had concluded that imprisonment would be pointless because “sending you to prison is not going to change your mind”. A prison sentence (suspended or immediate) would, the judge said, “have no effect on the mother’s attitude or secure future compliance”, and imprisoning her would cause “emotional, psychological and financial” harm to her daughter.
The father then made an application to appeal against the judge’s decision not to imprison the mother. He argued that the judge failed to engage with the core purpose of contempt proceedings, namely to uphold the authority and effective functioning of the court.
It was heard by the Court of Appeal on 29th July 2025 and judgment was handed down the next day. You can read the full judgment here: Re B (A child) (Sentencing in contempt proceedings) [2025] EWCA Civ 1048).
The hearing I watched on 11th August 2025, back in the Family Court, was a consequence of what the Court of Appeal had decided – so the decision of the Court of Appeal is essential background to understanding why Mrs Justice Lieven felt she had no option but to make the decision she did.
Court of Appeal
The Court of Appeal found that the approach taken by Henke J in the Family Court was wrong in principle. One legal commentator[2] summarises the Court of Appeal’s decision as follows: “A court must mark serious contempts with a proportionate penalty, even where it doubts that compliance will follow – otherwise the authority of court orders collapses. The case crystallises an important doctrinal point: anticipated non-compliance is not a lawful reason to withhold punishment for proven contempt”.
The judges found that Henke J’s conclusion that “sending you to prison would have no effect” (based on what the mother herself had said) was wrong: until a prison sentence is actually imposed, the judge cannot know whether or not it will coerce compliance. Even if it does not result in compliance:
“It cannot be the case that a parent can repeatedly refuse to comply with orders made in the best interests of their child, knowing that a judge may well in those circumstances dismiss the committal proceedings as serving no purpose. To do so would undermine the authority of the court and have significant implications for other cases. Punishment for breach of court orders serves as an essential aspect of upholding judicial authority as well as ensuring compliance”. (§40 (Re B (A child) (Sentencing in contempt proceedings) [2025] EWCA Civ 1048)
The judgment continues: “… the judge was wrong in imposing no sanction on the mother and in those circumstances the matter will be remitted to the High Court for reconsideration of sentence” (§41 (§40 (Re B (A child) (Sentencing in contempt proceedings) [2025] EWCA Civ 1048)
So, the case was sent back for re-sentencing, and that’s what I was watching in the Family court.
The hearing
I don’t usually watch hearings in the Family Court – unlike the Court of Protection, there are rules restricting who can watch these hearings and as I’m not an accredited member of the press, or a lawyer, I have no right to attend them. This hearing was different though. As a committal hearing, it was listed as “for hearing in open court”.
The listing caught my attention as I was scrolling through looking for Court of Protection hearings because I thought I recognised the names of the two people in the list – and a quick google search confirmed I was right. They’d featured in a “Case Commentary” (see footnote 2) which I’d read because, although it related to Family proceedings, I figured the Court of Appeal judgment on committals would be relevant to the Court of Protection too.
The “Case Commentary” had emphasised the Court of Appeal’s view that (in the words of the commentator) “punishment cannot be jettisoned simply because coercion may fail”. It listed as a “Key Takeaway” of the judgment: “Courts must not abdicate the punitive element of contempt jurisdiction merely because the contemnor predicts (or even demonstrates) continued defiance”. There are often cases of “continued defiance” in the Court of Protection, so I wanted to know what would happen when this case was sent back to the High Court.
When I joined the remote platform, I realised that both parents were attending remotely, and there was also an interpreter (I think for the father, but she was asked also to interpret for the mother). The judge was in the physical courtroom (Court 46 at the Royal Courts of Justice), and so were two lawyers, who I eventually figured out (there being no introduction) were counsel for the father, and a lawyer representing the child’s Guardian. The mother was a litigant in person – although she’s entitled to legal aid, she had not been happy with lawyers who had previously represented her and chose to represent herself at this hearing.
I later learnt (when the judge handed down her decision at the end of the hearing) that the case had been before Mrs Justice Lieven a week earlier, on 4th August 2025, and that the judge had imposed a 28-day suspended prison sentence. It was suspended in order to give the mother “yet another opportunity to comply with the orders and take the child to meet the Guardian. I fixed an appointment last Wednesday for the mother to do that. However, yet again, the mother failed to comply”.[3] So now, with “yet another” last opportunity for compliance having gone by, the case was back in court. As you’ll see, there were a couple more “last opportunities” for compliance offered by the judge at the eleventh hour in the court hearing. The mother did not avail herself of them.
The hearing began at 11.13 (I was told the judge had several hearings all scheduled for 10.30am and had chosen another one to hear first). This was the opening exchange (Note: the mother spoke in English):
Judge: Why are you not here physically in court.
Mother: I do apologise. I am sorry I couldn’t make it. I do apologise. My father is not here to be with [my daughter] and there is nobody I could leave her with.
Judge: Do you have anyone to look after her?
Mother: No.
Judge: Where’s your father gone?
Mother: Slovakia
Judge: Does he know you’re going to prison today?
Mother: (pause) He needed to go back because of the doctor and he is under stress and couldn’t be here. I have informed him about my suspended sentence and the hearing today.
Judge: Have you taken [your child] to the Guardian?
Mother: No.
Judge: You have acted totally irresponsibly. You have left me with no choice but to put you in prison and put your child into care. Whereas if you had acted responsibly, none of this would have happened. This is 100% your fault. You have absolutely deliberately harmed your child. You have left me no choice but to send your child to strangers today by your irresponsible and selfish behaviour. Do you understand.
Mother: (silent)
Judge: Do you understand?
Mother: I have good reasons for that.
Judge: Well other judges have found otherwise and, whatever your reasons, the reality is that your daughter is going to have to go to complete strangers tonight and that is because of your incredibly foolish choices. Let me go to Ms King. What are we going to do?
Ms King represented the child’s Guardian. She said that the LA had previously (in connection with earlier hearings) done a telephone assessment with the mother about what arrangements were in place to care for the child in the event of a prison sentence, and the LA “was satisfied that the maternal grandparents would look after the child”. She added that “The Guardian was always concerned about that because there had been no face-to-face meeting – only telephone”. The local authority was not in court.
Judge: The grandfather has gone back to Slovakia. I’ve no reason to believe the grandmother is here. Where is the Guardian?
King: She’s in another hearing.
Judge: I am now feeling I have been put in an invidious situation. I have the Court of Appeal telling me I have to send this lady to prison, effectively. I have a mother who I suspect has engineered a situation where there is nobody to look after the child and a local authority who has effectively washed their hands of the situation. If I issue a bench warrant, then the police will go round. They will arrest the mother. They will take the child into emergency protection and then deliver her up to the local authority. Am I right?
King: Yes.
Judge: Are you saying I should do that?
King: I have no instructions.
Judge: You represent the child. I need to know what you think I should do.
King: The Guardian recognises that the mother is in contempt of court. If the mother is to go to prison, we say the LA is to go and collect [the child] first – not witness her mother being arrested.
Judge: Absolutely not.
King: The only other option is to make an Emergency Protection Order
[…]
Judge: So, Ms Benciková, can you hear me
Mother: Yes
Judge: So, unlike you, I am thinking of the best interests of your child. I do not want police to go round and arrest you and then put [your child] in the back of a police car. I do not think that would be good for [your child] – she’ll remember that for the rest of her life. I’m going to adjourn until 2.30. I order [the local authority] to attend, and the Guardian, at 2.30. And effectively at 2.30, I’ll order the LA to go round with an Emergency Protection Order. And you’ll be arrested at 3 o’clock. Or 3.30. Do you understand?
Mother: No.
Judge: Ask the interpreter to say it in Slovakian.
(interpreter speaks)
Mother: The judge is going to make this order for 3.30?
Judge: What that means is you have one last chance. The Guardian is in [city] – you can get in the car, or on a bus, and you can go and meet her with [your daughter], or you will go to prison and [your daughter] will go into care with total strangers. Are you going to take her now or are you going to prison this afternoon and let your daughter go into care? It’s your decision.
Mother: I don’t….
Judge: You are acting in as stupid, selfish and self-centered way as any parent who has ever come in front of me. You must now take responsibility for your own actions.
Mother: Can I have five minutes.
Judge: You’ve had YEARS, Ms Benciková. This has been going on for years. I will leave the court and return in five minutes.
When the court resumed, the judge asked “So, what are you going to do?” and the mother replied that she wanted to talk to a solicitor. The judge said it was “too late, far too late for that”. It was coming up to midday and the judge said she would adjourn until 2.30pm. On returning to court, she wanted the local authority there “and they have to be ready to take the child into care immediately – they should have been engaged already but we didn’t know the grandfather had gone abroad”. To the mother she said: “Get ready to go to prison this afternoon. The police will come round and arrest you. And be in no doubt, if you leave the house with [your daughter] we will arrest you somewhere else. For the first time for a long time, will you think of the harm you are causing [your daughter] and try to minimise the harm to her and make it as little painful as possible.”
She double-checked with counsel for the father that he was still seeking committal (yes), and left the courtroom.
When the hearing resumed, shortly before 3pm, a representative of the local authority had joined the link, and so too had the Guardian. The LA reported that an emergency placement had been found for the child until 18th August – and they would find somewhere for her after that date as required. The Guardian was asked for her view as to what the court should do and confirmed that “it’ll be in [the child’s] best interests to be removed from her mother’s care prior to her mother being taken in to custody”. The judge moved on to the question of how soon the Guardian could visit the mother: 15th August, she said (i.e. five days later) – but she hadn’t (it seemed) taken into account that the mother would likely be in prison by then. The judge was focussed on “how in practice is she going to purge her contempt and get herself released? I’m into practicalities here?”. This took some explaining – I don’t think “purging contempt” is language accessible to most people – and it was agreed that a video-link with the prison would be feasible if the mother wished to provide the updates about her daughter ordered by the court.
Finally, the judge asked if there was anything the mother wanted to say. (The mother spoke in English throughout – using the interpreter to understand what others, especially the judge, was saying.)
Mother: How long will you put [my daughter] away from me?
Judge : Well as long as you are in prison. […] And effectively, Ms Benciková, you have chosen to go to prison, because I have given you every opportunity to comply with the order. Effectively you have chosen to go to prison and chosen to put your child into state care. Even this morning, I gave you another opportunity, but you haven’t taken it. So you will be in prison for 28 days and [your child] will be in foster care for 28 days.
Mother: Please don’t do this to my child. She, she, she’s innocent. Please don’t do this to my child.
Judge: Well Ms Benciková, I’m not doing it. You’re doing it. Even this morning-
Mother: Don’t do this to my child. She is absolutely innocent about anything. She doesn’t know anything about anything. Please, don’t do it. She is innocent, she is a happy healthy child.
Judge: Well Ms Benciková, you have not helped her AT ALL. This is entirely 100% YOUR fault. I am forced into a position I do not want to be in and I’m extremely unhappy about it. But you have given me no choice. Because even this morning I gave you a choice to go and see the Guardian and you refused to do it. So is there anything else you want to say and then I will make the order.
Mother: I do not understand when she will be- She will be taken away from me today or when is it going to be?
Judge: Yes. It will be in about 55 minutes.
Mother: In 45 mins you’re going to take her away from me (distressed, hyperventilating)
Judge: Yes.
Mother: Please, please, please don’t do this to her (hyperventilating). Please, she-
Judge: Well, Ms Benciková, will you take her to see the Guardian tomorrow morning? (yet another, final, “last opportunity”)
Mother: (hyperventilating) Please give me more time.
Judge: No. No more time. Will you take her to see the Guardian tomorrow morning
Mother: Please, please!
Judge: No, I’m sorry. You can’t keep begging me but not agreeing. That’s the point of the court.
Mother: Sorry I couldn’t hear this – can you translate somebody to me.
Judge: Translator, can you ask her again whether she will take the child to see the Guardian tomorrow morning.
Mother: It’s going to be harmful for her. It’s going to be very harmful to her. In a psychological-
Judge: I’m really sorry, Ms Benciková. I’ve heard all that before. I am now going to make a ruling. [Your daughter] will be taken into care and you will go to prison.
And with that, the judge delivered her judgment.
It was brief. The judge was “intensely conscious that the mother is in the hearing, extremely distressed, and that the upshot of this situation is that I’m about the send the mother to prison this afternoon, with the result that [the child] will be placed in foster care, away from the mother this afternoon”. So, she referred to the background to the case as set out in the Court of Appeal judgment and said “I will not repeat it”. She briefly outlined the case and said:
“I am in the situation where the mother has consistently and persistently refused to comply with court orders. That is a matter that has to be closely considered by the court. I am also of the view that the only way the Guardian will get to meet the child is by sending the mother to prison and placing the child with foster parents who will take her to meet the Guardian. In those circumstances, I consider I have no choice but to lift the suspension and send the mother to prison for 28 days. […] I am inclined to agree with Mrs Justice Henke that it is unlikely that sending the mother to prison will take us any further forward in the long term to end with better re-establishing the relations between [the child] and the father. However, given the mother’s total refusal to comply with court orders, I would ask the mother to consider firstly, the harm that SHE has caused the child by refusing to comply with orders. Second that the child will meet the Guardian, as I told the mother would take place last week. I’m concerned that the mother should not be taken to prison in front of the child, so I am asking [the local authority] to ask the social workers to go round and collect the child now and then the police to go and arrest the mother once the child has been removed. I should say at the end that the mother is not represented today, but at our last hearing I explained to her, yet again, that she was entitled to legal representation but she said she had previously had lawyers who had not represented her properly, and she said she did not want the opportunity to get lawyers. I have also gone to great lengths to explain the process to the mother and to try to persuade her to comply with the orders, so that the case would not reach this unhappy conclusion. The mother has absolutely refused to listen to the advice the court has given. That’s the end of the judgment.”
During the judgment, the mother was weeping, shaking at times, had her head in her hands and looked extremely distressed. It was upsetting to watch what was happening.
Reflections
Court orders are binding. Wilful breach will be punished, whether or not this is likely in the long run to compel compliance – because otherwise the authority of the court is undermined. That is necessary for the proper operation of justice, says the Court of Appeal. This is how it looks in practice.
The implications of this Court of Appeal judgment are exactly the same for the Court of Protection as for the Family Court: if people repeatedly breach orders they will eventually be sent to prison even if that isn’t going to make them comply.
It’s interesting though, to note the difference between this Court of Appeal judgment and another case heard nine years ago, concerning Teresa Kirk – who was in contempt of court for breaching court orders by taking her brother, who had dementia, to a care home in Portugal (where he was born) and refusing to return him to England, despite the Court of Protection having determined that this was in his best interests[4]. The Court of Appeal judgment is here: Devon County Council v Teresa Kirk [2016] EWCA Civ 1221.
In the Teresa Kirk case, the Court of Appeal (specifically LJ McFarlane) wrote as follows:
“I am bound to record that I find the circumstances of this case to be of significant concern. The Court of Protection has sentenced a 71-year-old lady to prison in circumstances where the lady concerned is said to be of previous good character and where, as the judge acknowledged, she has been acting on the basis of deeply held, sincere beliefs as to the best interests of [her brother] MM for whose welfare she is, as the judge found, genuinely concerned. The ultimate purpose of her incarceration is to achieve the removal of an 81-year-old gentleman, who has suffered from dementia for a number of years, from a care home in one country to a care home in Devon which is near his longstanding home and within a community where he is well known. Those stark facts, to my mind, plainly raise the question of whether the COP was justified, on the basis that it was in MM’s best interests to do so, in making an order which placed Mrs Kirk in jeopardy of a prison sentence unless she complied with it. (§27, my emphasis, Devon County Council v Teresa Kirk [2016] EWCA Civ 1221)
Where, as was apparently taken to be the case before Baker J, it is said that the move could only be secured by placing Mrs Kirk under threat of the sanction of imprisonment, it is arguable that the very question of whether Mrs Kirk should be put in that position and face the prospect of a prison sentence for non-compliance should have been addressed by the COP in the context of [her brother’s] MM’s welfare. In short terms, that question might be ‘is the move to Devon still in MM’s best interests if it may only be achieved by sending to prison someone whose interests he could be expected to have at heart, had he the capacity?‘ (§33, my emphasis, Devon County Council v Teresa Kirk [2016] EWCA Civ 1221)
By analogy, the stark facts of the case I watched before Mrs Justice Lieven raise the question of whether the Family Court was justified, on the basis that it was in the child’s best interests to do so, in making an order which placed her mother in jeopardy of a prison sentence unless she complied with it. The question that, perhaps, should have been addressed was: “are the welfare reports to the father and the “story board” work still in the child’s best interests if they can only be achieved by sending her mother to prison” – when it’s clear (as the judge said) that this would cause the daughter “emotional, psychological and financial” harm. Those issues may perhaps have been addressed – I don’t know, since none of the earlier judgments seems to have been published.
I’ve seen the same dilemma emerge in many committal cases I’ve watched in the Court of Protection. Attempts to prevent family members from acting in ways the court considers contrary to P’s best interests lead to orders with penal notices. But family members have their own opinions about what is in the best interests of the protected party, and they act in accordance with their own views rather than comply with (what they see as) the misguided version of P’s best interests promoted by the court. When court orders are breached, family members are at risk of prison sentences – but having their family members put in prison is rarely in the protected party’s best interests, so these orders can sabotage the wellbeing of the very people they are designed to protect.
The new Court of Appeal judgment which led to the Family Court hearing I’ve described here clearly increases the pressure on judges to punish contemnors (“I have the Court of Appeal telling me I have to send this lady to prison, effectively”). It upholds judicial authority and the rule of law – but can in doing so cause harm to children and protected parties, thereby amplifying the dilemma at the heart of these cases.
Celia Kitzinger is co-director of the Open Justice Court of Protection Project. She has observed more than 600 hearings since May 2020 and written more than 100 blog posts. She is on LinkedIn (here), and also on X (@KitzingerCelia) and Bluesky @kitzingercelia.bsky.social)
Footnotes
[1] This was a public committal hearing and the names of both parents are already in the public domain as applicant (the father) and defendant (the mother). There is a reporting restrictions order protecting the name of the child and some other details.
[2] “No-order is not an option”: The Court of Appeal re-states the duty to sanction contempt in Family proceedings – Commentary on B (A Child) (Sentencing in Contempt Proceedings) [2025] EWCA Civ 1048
[3] All extracts purporting to be direct quotations from the hearing are based on contemporaneous touch-typed notes. They are unlikely to be completely accurate, but they are as accurate as I could make them (and it was somewhat less challenging than usual to take notes at the time in this hearing compared with some others because speech was slowed to accommodate the interpreter).
[4] The Teresa Kirk case was widely reported in the media and was mobilised as a cause celebre in some of the early calls for transparency, having come (said the Daily Mail) “to represent all that is wrong with Britain’s shadowy Court of Protection”. There’s a characteristically incisive analysis of the case by barrister Barbara Rich in a blogpost for the Transparency Project, here (“Teresa Kirk and the Court of Protection – the end of an ‘astonishing story’”).
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