Courts and Tribunals Observers’ Network

In February 2026, Judith Townend (this network’s co-convenor) and Daniel Clark (a member of this network) began a one-year project, “Making Justice Visible”, at the University of Sussex. A strand of that project involves identifying and analysing data gaps in the justice system.

In this document, Daniel Clark sets out a lack of data in relation to the number of people who are committed to prison following a finding of contempt of court. As he puts it, “inconsistent judgment publication combines with missing statistics to create not so much of a data gap but more of a data desert”.

The following is a summary of the key findings:

• Contempt of court is an offence that can be punished by a fine, seizure of assets or imprisonment (suspended or active) of up to two years. This document concerns the number of people who are imprisoned (“committed”) for contempt of court.
• The government’s Offender Management Statistics show that, in 2020-2022, there were 107 prison receptions for people who had been found to be in contempt of court.
• In March 2025, Lord Timpson told the House of Lords that, as at 30 June 2024, there were 9 people imprisoned for contempt of court. He referred to the Offender Management Statistics.
• Since the publication of the 2020-2022 statistics, the public Offender Management Statistics have not identified the number of people imprisoned specifically for the offence of contempt of court. This group is instead captured by the wider category of non-criminal prisoners.
• The published statistics from different court jurisdictions do not capture how many orders were made for committal to prison as a result of a finding of contempt of court.
• A scoping review of published sentencing remarks only identified 6 people imprisoned for contempt of court as at 30 June 2024. However, judgments in committal proceedings are not always published. This is despite a cross-jurisdictional Practice Direction that say these judgments must be published where an order for committal is made.
• A lack of statistical data, as well as inconsistent approaches to the publication of judgments and sentencing remarks in committal proceedings, means that we do not know how many people are imprisoned for contempt of court.

Questions and comments about this document, and the research project more generally, can be directed to Daniel Clark: Daniel.Clark@sussex.ac.uk.