Victor Dami Egeneonu v Ijeoma Nkem Egeneonu
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Peter Jackson,Floyd LJ |
| Judgment Date | 15 November 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] EWCA Civ 2565 |
| Date | 15 November 2018 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | Case No: B6/2018/2554 |
[2018] EWCA Civ 2565
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE FAMILY DIVISION
Mr Justice Cobb
FD13P02234
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Floyd
and
Lord Justice Peter Jackson
Case No: B6/2018/2554
Neelo Shravat (instructed by Miles and Partners Solicitors LLP) for the Appellant
Dermot Main Thompson (instructed by Bindmans LLP) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 15 November 2018
Judgment Approved
On 5 October 2018, Cobb J sentenced Victor Egeneonu (‘Victor’) to a term of 7 months' imprisonment for contempt of court: see Egeneonu v Egeneonu [2018] EWHC 3029 (Fam). Victor does not challenge the findings of contempt, most of which he had admitted, but now appeals against the length of the sentence.
The events leading to Victor's imprisonment began in 2013 with the unlawful retention of three children in Nigeria by their father Levi Egeneonu (‘Levi’), since when they have been deprived of all contact with their mother. Judges of the Family Division have made repeated orders to secure the children's return, but these have been consistently disobeyed. This eventually led to a series of findings of contempt and sentences of imprisonment for Levi, who is currently serving a sentence upheld by this court last July: Egeneonu v Egeneonu [2018] EWCA Civ 1714.
Victor, who is a 30-year-old married man with three young children, is either an uncle or an older half-brother of the abducted children. A number of the orders required him to produce information and to assist in securing their return. It has been the mother's case that Victor has disobeyed these orders and instead done what he could to help Levi to keep the children in Nigeria. In 2015, she applied for Victor's committal and Newton J found that he had lied a number of times over several hearings in an active effort to mislead the court. He sentenced him to 3 months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months. It is plain from his sentencing remarks that the judge showed leniency on the basis of Victor's personal circumstances.
However, Victor continued in the same manner and more recently committed these further contempts:
(1) On 11 August 2017 he gave false oral evidence (a) to the effect that Levi had asked him to make arrangements to bring the children back, and (b) about the amount of contact he had been having with Levi's sister in Nigeria;
(2) On 10 November 2017, he gave false oral evidence by saying (a) that he did not know where the children were or who was looking after them, (b) that he did not speak often to Levi's sister and (c) that he had not written letters purporting to come from the children;
(3) On 28 August 2017, he caused false evidence to be produced to the court by writing out letters dictated to him by Levi so that they could be produced as being from the children, knowing that the intention was to mislead the court as to the children's wishes and feelings;
(4) In August 2017 he caused a false statement from a third party to be produced to the court by assisting Levi in the creation of a document purporting to be from a friend of the mother that accused her of scandalous behaviour;
(5) He disobeyed an order of Holman J dated 25 September 2017 requiring him to file a statement to explain his absence from a hearing he had been ordered to attend;
(6) He disobeyed an injunctive order of Williams J dated 9 February 2018 by failing to provide the mother's solicitor with a number on which he could be contacted during a visit to Nigeria.
Cobb J directed himself as to the two-year maximum term and to the relevant authorities in relation to principles of sentencing. He recorded the submissions made by Mr Neelo Shravat in mitigation, namely that Victor had made some real admissions, that there was no ongoing contempt, that he had attempted to make contact with members of the paternal...
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