March 14, 2025
The Court of Appeal (Lewison, King and Coulson LJJ) has given judgment in Barclays Bank plc v. Mason [2025] EWCA Civ 265, dismissing the bulk of an appeal by Jack Mason against findings of contempt of court and declining to vary his sentence of 22 months imprisonment, imposed by Mr Justice Rajah in October last year. The sentence of imprisonment followed a trial at which Mr Mason (alongside David Antrobus) was found to have committed four counts of contempt in connection with breaches of various freezing injunctions. Mr Mason fled the jurisdiction before the sentencing hearing and has yet to serve any of his sentence.
Although Mr Mason succeeded in persuading the Court of Appeal that one count (which attracted a much shorter sentence) was unsafe as the result of a late amendment, the Court upheld the findings of contempt in respect of the other three, more serious, counts (with Coulson LJ describing Mr Mason’s wholesale attack on Rajah J’s findings of fact as “hopeless”).
The Court of Appeal’s decision is perhaps most notable for the resounding calls by King and Coulson LJJ for the automatic right of appeal granted to contemnors (by s.13 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960) to be revisited – a timely call in the light of the review by the Law Commission as to the potential reform of this area of the law which is currently underway.
James Knott and Karl Anderson acted for Barclays Bank Plc before the Court of Appeal (James also having acted at first instance, led by Anthony Peto KC, and in an appeal by another of the Defendants, Scott Dylan). They were instructed by Mark Cooper and Tom Parry at Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP.
Read the judgment.
