In the case of Office of the Public Guardian v Stalter [2018] EWCOP 27, an application was made by the Office of the Public Guardian to commit the Protected Party’s partner to prison due to him disclosing information that was in breach of a transparency Order.
The Protected Party had been diagnosed with dementia in March 2016, from October 2016 to January 2018, the Protected Party’s partner, named Mr Stalter, had communicated with a number of different people in a certain way which lead to a breach of the transparency Order. The transparency Order stated that ‘proceedings were not to be published, nor were the identities of other parties to be published, nor was any information tending to identify those individuals as a patient or parties to be published, nor were their addresses or contact details to be published.’ During this communication to various individuals, Mr Stalter advised that the Protected Party was in fact subject to the Court of Protection proceedings and further advised on the individuals that were parties to the proceedings, which included himself. Mr Stalter further disclosed personal details, which was in fact prohibited by the transparency Order, therefore the Protected Party’s partner had breached the Order. The Office of the Public Guardian therefore wished to bring a committal Order.
Mr Stalter was found to be in contempt of Court, however the Court determined that no Order for his committal needed to be made having regard to the fact that he did confirm that he would abide by the Order. The Courts were of the opinion that no punishment would be appropriate for this case due to the fact that Mr Stalter had already suffered as a result of the situation.
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