A father has lost an appeal against a conviction for contempt of court after posting case information on Facebook.
In Re M, the man had been ordered during hearings about contact with his children not to post information about the case on the social networking site. He agreed to allow the courts access to his account so his online activities could be monitored.
The man did not attend a hearing into alleged breaches of the order but the hearing went ahead in his absence. He was found guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to three months in prison, suspected for two years.
The father appealed both the sentence and the decision to proceed without him, but the Court of Appeal dismissed both claims. He had already failed to attend one court hearing on the matter and evidence supported the conviction, the court ruled.
It’s really hard to believe that a country that likes to think of itself as democratic tolerates the decisions of totalitarian network of judges that abuse their power to defend a status quo. Nobody honestly believes that gagging orders are there to protect children. The are there to hide the insanity of an outdated system run by cronies.
The problem with Facebook and social networking in some cases like this is how used to posting everything about their lives some people are. Some people post a blow by blow account of everything they are up to. At times I wish certain people would keep some rather intimate life details private and not broadcast to the world.
There is a big difference between wishing that people would curb the narcissism of tweeting everything they are up to and taking the extremist decision to send them to prison for this.
In this case, I suspect that it was about whistle-blowing, in an attempt to highlight misconduct. I’m surprised the poor guy was not also framed for sex abuse or something other at the same time. Others have much bigger mouths, and do much more damage with them, but are not sent to prison. I suppose it is obvious why just the whistle blowers suffer this fate.