Breaching a Court Embargo on a draft judgment leads to contempt finding but no further punishment (R (Glaister and Carr) v Assistant Coroner for North Wales)

Dispute Resolution analysis: A solicitor and Publicity and Media Manager at a large law firm have been found to be in contempt of court following the disclosure of an embargoed judgment to members of the press prior to being handed down. The contempt enquiry itself was found to have provided a significant learning experience for the deeply apologetic individuals and no further punishment was imposed.

R (Glaister and Carr) v Assistant Coroner for North Wales

What are the practical implications of this case?

This represents yet another reported case arising out of the non-malicious breaching of the Court Embargo in relation to circulated draft reserved judgments. The judgment is helpful and instructive in particular in the way in which it notes the existence of both the Court Embargo and the Journalism Embargo and highlights the important differences between them. The judgment also sets out why the Court Embargo is important and why breaches of it are serious matters. The judgment also carefully breaks down the various actions taken by the individuals in relation to the circulation of the CEDJ to identify the specific breaches by way of future guidance. Finally, the judgment clearly emphasises the importance of steps taken in response to the initial breaches in effective and urgent investigation of the matters and showing contrition and humility to the Court can avoid the imposition of further punishment.

What was the background?

Members of the Leonard family were represented during a judicial review by Fieldfisher. A Confidential Embargoed Draft Judgment (“CEDJ”) was circulated to the parties by the Court on 20 January 2025 at 10:23. Hand down of the finalised judgment was scheduled for 10:00 on 30 January 2025. On 29 January 2025, journalists began to contact representatives in the proceedings, indicating that they had in their possession a draft embargoed copy of the judgment ahead of official publication and seeking comment. What the journalists had was, in fact, the CEDJ. Fieldfisher conducted urgent enquiries which revealed that a Publicity and Media Manager at the firm had been responsible for the leak. The Court conducted a dual enquiry to establish the full details of the circumstances in which the CEDJ had been circulated as it had in breach of the Court Embargo and to establish whether any consequences by way of findings of and punishment for contempt of court should flow from it.

What did the court decide?

The Court identified shortcomings on the part of both the Fieldfisher solicitor who acted on the matter and who first sent the CEDJ to the Publicity and Media Manager and on the part of the Publicity and Media Manager herself. In broad terms, the solicitor was an experienced solicitor albeit had a practice which seldom involved the receipt of CEDJs. She was not familiar with the requirements of the Court Embargo, failed to establish what it required of her and failed to advise the Publicity and Media Manager (a non lawyer with a job which required interaction with the press) what restrictions were imposed upon her used of the CEDJ by the Court Embargo. The Publicity and Media Manager was also not familiar with the Court Embargo but was familiar with a different concept, that of a Journalism Embargo which prohibits publication of stories by the press until after a certain point in time. The Publicity and Media Manager had confused the concepts of the Court Embargo and the Journalism Embargo and had sent the CEDJ to the press (subject to the Journalism Embargo but in breach of the Court embargo). Both the solicitor and the Publicity and Media Manager were found to be in contempt of court. However, no further punishment was given to either individual. The process was held to have represented an important learning exercise for both individuals and no further punishment was either necessary or proportionate.

Case details

Court: High Court of Justice, Administrative Court

Judge: Mr Justice Fordham

Date of judgment: 30 April 2025

Article by Phillip Patterson, originally published by LexisNexis here.