The Claimant v Jason Rees Evans

1. In these proceedings I have directed that the identity of the Claimant shall be protected, as shall the identity of the Claimant and Defendants’ child, who is subject of the family proceedings. Neither the Claimant nor the child are to be identified in my court order or in my transcript of judgment.

2. The Claimant appears today representing herself. The Defendant, Jason Rees Evans, is also unrepresented. He has failed to attend at this hearing today.

3. At a hearing on 23 February 2026, I found the Defendant, Mr Evans, to be in contempt of court having breached a Specific Issue Order made on 2 January 2026 which directed the Defendant to return the child to the Claimant immediately upon the Defendant being served with the court order. The Defendant was served with that Specific Issue Order on 6 January 2026, but failed to return the child to the Claimant’s care. It was therefore necessary for the Court subsequently to make a Search and Return Order, which was made on 20 January 2026, and for the child to be returned to the Claimant’s care by the police.

4. The Defendant lives in South Wales, the Claimant lives in the North East, and so it was necessary for the police to bring the child from South Wales up to the North East of England in order to implement the order of the court.

5. I adjourned sentence for the breach that I found on 23 February to the hearing listed before me today. The Defendant has not attended the hearing. I am entitled to proceed in the Defendant’s absence, should I consider it fair to do so. In reaching my conclusion in that regard, I bear in mind that the liberty of the subject is potentially at stake.

6. It is relevant for me to consider the history of the proceedings this year. The order of HHJ Murray dated 2 January, which contained the Specific Issue Order to which I have referred, contained a direction that that order was to be served personally upon the Defendant by bailiff service. However on 5 January, when the bailiff attempted to serve the Defendant personally with the order of 2 January, the Defendant declined to accept personal service. The Court accordingly made an order for a substituted service on the Defendant by authorising delivery of the order of 2 January and accompanying court documents through the letterbox of the Defendant’s home address. Service was effected in that way at 1.50pm on 6 January this year.

7. Service through the Defendant’s letterbox was clearly effective as reflected by the fact that on 7 January the envelope containing the documents which had been delivered through the Defendant’s letterbox on 6 January, including the order of 2 January, the application for an Enforcement Order and the order of 6 January giving permission for substituted service, was received by Swansea Civil Justice Centre with a message written on the back of the envelope purporting to be from the Claimant and Defendants’ child, who is the child to whom the Specific Issue Order relates. The message says: “My name is [the name of the child]. Please leave me alone and my dad, you have ruined my life for ten years, so kindly bugger off and leave me and my dad alone. I’m happy living in Wales. Bye, [the name of the child].” So the Defendant had clearly been effectively served with the court order of 2 January 2026 on 6 January 2026, having then deposited the order and accompanying documents at Swansea Civil Justice Centre the next day.

8. Having been served on 6 January, the Defendant then failed to attend two further hearings within the family proceedings that were listed at this court on 8 January and again on 20 January, despite having been given the opportunity to attend those hearings by video link.

9. In respect of the orders of the court made on 8 January and 20 January in the family proceedings, repeated but unsuccessful attempts were made for personal service of each of those orders by a court bailiff, necessitating the Court to authorise substituted service by letterbox of each of those orders.

10. The hearing on 20 January was listed before me. At that hearing I made directions within the family proceedings for both parties to send statements to the court and to each other. It is clear that my order of 20 January, which was delivered by letterbox service, and which was also emailed and posted by the court to the Defendant, has been received by the Defendant because, although he has not filed a witness statement as directed, the Defendant has subsequently emailed this court referring to the content of my order of 20 January.

11. I have set out the above matters in detail to explain the factual basis on which I am satisfied that, despite what I find to be the Defendant’s clear attempt to evade personal service within these proceedings, substituted service by letterbox, in combination with the court orders also being emailed and posted to the Defendant, has clearly been successful, as evidenced by the Defendant having responded to the orders of 6 January and 20 January.

12. The committal proceedings were listed before me for directions on 23 February. The Defendant failed to attend that hearing. In the judgment I gave at that hearing, I explained why I was satisfied that it was fair for me to proceed in his absence on 23 February, why I was satisfied that it was fair for me to proceed to determine at that hearing whether the Defendant was in contempt of court, and why I found the Defendant to be in contempt of court.

13. I directed that the court order of 23 February 2026 be personally served on the Defendant, but in light of the history I have set out above, I gave permission for the Defendant to be served by letterbox if attempted personal service were ineffective. I directed that in addition, the order was to be emailed and posted to the Defendant. I am aware that the court emailed and posted my order of 23 February to the Defendant on 5 March and I have seen a certificate of service from a bailiff indicating that the Defendant was served by letterbox on 6 March. That constitutes good service in accordance with the terms of my order of 23 February. I am satisfied therefore that the Defendant has had proper notice of this hearing listed before me today but has simply chosen not to attend and not to participate in the proceedings.

14. Within my order of 23 February, I made plain to the Defendant that he was encouraged to seek urgent legal advice and representation should he wish to do so. The Defendant was made aware that the Court’s powers to punish him for contempt of court could include a fine, imprisonment, confiscation of assets or other punishment under law. He was told in the order of 23 February that if he admits the contempt and wishes to apologise to the Court, that would be likely to reduce the seriousness of any punishment imposed. He was also made aware of his right to appeal against the finding that he is in contempt of court.

15. My order of 23 February made clear that I would consider sentence at this hearing listed before me today. The Defendant was directed to attend the hearing in person and to be present at court no later than 10.00am. It is now 11.25am. My order warned the Defendant that if he failed to attend the Sentencing Hearing today without reasonable excuse, the Court would proceed in his absence and would impose a penalty upon him in respect of his contempt of court in his absence.

16. I am satisfied therefore that the Defendant has been properly served with my order from the last hearing finding him in contempt of court, that he has been warned that the Court would proceed to determine sentence in his absence if he failed to attend today, and that it is proportionate and fair for me to proceed to consider sentence without the Defendant being present at court.

17. When considering how to deal with the contempt which I have found Mr Evans to have committed, I bear in mind the guidelines set out in the reported decision of Hale v Tanner [2000] 2 FLR 879 , as applied in the subsequent decision of Wigan Borough Council v Lovett [2022] EWCA Civ 1631 . I am aware that the objectives of the Court in determining an appropriate sentence are firstly to ensure future compliance with orders of the Court and secondly to punish the contempt that has been committed. The range of powers available to the Court are an immediate order for the Defendant’s committal to prison, a suspended order of imprisonment with conditions attached, imposition of a fine, adjournment of consideration of penalty to a future date, or the making of no order. When considering committal to prison, I must consider whether prison is appropriate in respect of the breach found by the Court, and if so, what length of sentence would be appropriate, having regard to the fact that there must be some degree of proportionality to the 2 year maximum period that I am able to impose. If I decide that a period of imprisonment is appropriate, I should then go on to consider whether that period should be suspended. Factors which I need to consider are my determination of the degree of culpability of the Defendant, as well as my analysis of the harm which has resulted from breach.

18. I consider in this case that the Defendant has shown a high degree of culpability. The Defendant deliberately sought to evade personal service of the Specific Issue Order by refusing to accept service. I find that his actions, once served on 6 January, in depositing the court order and accompanying documents at the Swansea Civil Justice Centre the following day were intended to deliver a clear message that the Defendant had no intention of complying with the order of the court and sought to respond to the court order only on his own terms. This was despite the Defendant having been given the opportunity to engage properly within the family proceedings at a hearing on 8 January, which had been specifically listed for the purpose of providing him with the opportunity to make representations should he have wished to do so. When the Defendant failed to attend the hearing on 8 January, listed a further hearing on 20 January to give the Defendant a further opportunity to reflect, to comply with the Specific Issue Order of 2 January, and to give him a further opportunity to have his voice heard by the Court. But the Defendant chose to take up neither of those opportunities to engage with proceedings in the appropriate way.

19. Those factors demonstrate the Defendant’s failure to comply with the Specific Issue Order by failing to return the child to the Claimant’s care once the order was served on him on 6 January 2026 to be a deliberate breach of the order of the court. That failure by the Defendant to return the child immediately to the Claimant’s care continued for a period of over two weeks. It was as a result of that sustained failure to comply by the Defendant that I considered it necessary on 20 January to make a Search and Return Order.

20. In terms of the Defendant’s culpability, it is worthy of note that the Defendant’s deliberate and sustained breach of the order of 2 January took place against a background of previous findings of contempt of court made against the Defendant in earlier family proceedings relating to the child. On 17 December 2019 within previous proceedings the Defendant was found to be in contempt of court, for which he was sentenced to 9 months’ imprisonment. On 2 December 2020 he was found to have committed further contempt of court, for which sentence was adjourned. On 30 April 2021 he was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years. On 1 October 2021 he was found to have committed further contempt of court whilst awaiting sentence for the previous breach, for which contempt he was sentenced on 25 October 2021 to 12 months imprisonment. The Defendant’s deliberate breach of the order of 2 January 2026 was thus committed in full knowledge and disregard of the court’s powers. For the above combination of reasons, I therefore consider the Defendant to have shown a high degree of culpability.

21. Turning to the question of harm, the child to whom the Specific Issue Order relates is a 16 year old child who has some vulnerabilities in light of his moderate learning disability. I am not, in this judgment today, going to stray into welfare considerations in respect of that child. Suffice to say that the child has experienced a long history of acrimonious court proceedings.

22. If the Defendant had complied with the Specific Issue Order of 2 January once served on 6 January, he would have been able to arrange for the child’s return to the Claimant’s care in a child-focused way. The harm which flows from the Defendant’s contempt of court is that the Defendant’s failure to comply made it necessary for the child’s return to be achieved by means of police involvement, which would have been highly intrusive to the child because of the level of state intervention required. The child needed to be transported by the police from South Wales to the North East of England, and I accept the evidence that I heard that the child arrived home in the middle of the night. That is likely to be an experience that will not easily be forgotten by the child.

23. I consider that the level of harm which flowed from the Defendant’s breach is at a medium level.

24. When I analyse those factors in considering how to sentence for breach, I bear in mind the continued non-engagement of the Defendant with these committal proceedings, which I consider is a stance in which he simply shows no respect for the Court. He has made no admission of breach of the order, nor has he sought to apologise for his breach of the Court’s order.

25. When I remind myself that the purpose of any sentence that I impose today is to ensure future compliance by the Defendant with the court orders and to punish the Defendant for the contempt shown to the Court, I consider that Mr Evans’ behaviour warrants a sentence of imprisonment. I bear in mind my duty to keep any sentence I impose to a minimum necessary to achieve those objectives. I bear in mind that the Defendant has previously been sentenced for contempt of court, albeit the last sentence was over four years ago. In this instance today, I am sentencing in respect of one breach, albeit that breach continued over a two week period. The decision that I have reached is that the appropriate and proportionate sentence of imprisonment that is warranted for the breach found by the Court on 23 February, is a sentence of 3 months’ imprisonment.

26. I have specifically considered whether I should suspend that period of imprisonment, however, I bear in mind that this is not the first breach committed by the Defendant. I find him to have acted deliberately in contempt of court against that history of previous breaches and against his knowledge of the potential consequences of breach. For those reasons, it seems to me that a sentence of immediate custody is justified in this case. I therefore issue a warrant of committal and the sentence that I impose upon the Defendant is one whereby he will be committed to prison for an immediate sentence of 3 months’ imprisonment. That is my judgment. This Transcript has been approved by the Judge. The Transcription Agency hereby certifies that the above is an accurate and complete recording of the proceedings or part thereof. The Transcription Agency, 24-28 High Street, Hythe, Kent, CT21 5AT Tel: 01303 230038 Email: [email protected]