Contempt Of Court - GOV.UK

Cookies on GOV.UK

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

Accept additional cookies Reject additional cookies View cookies Hide cookie message Skip to main content

1. Home

Contempt of court

‘Contempt of court’ happens when someone risks unfairly influencing a court case. It may stop somebody from getting a fair trial and can affect a trial’s outcome.

Contempt of court includes:

• disobeying or ignoring a court order
• taking photos or shouting out in court
• refusing to answer the court’s questions if you’re called as a witness
• publicly commenting on a court case, for example on social media or online news articles

If you’re found to be in contempt of court, you could go to prison for up to 2 years, get a fine, or both.

Publicly commenting on a court case

You might be in contempt of court if you speak publicly or post on social media.

For example, you should not:

• say whether you think a person is guilty or innocent
• refer to someone’s previous convictions
• name someone the judge has allowed to be anonymous, even if you did not know this
• name victims, witnesses and offenders under 18
• name sex crime victims
• share any evidence or facts about a case that the judge has said cannot be made public

Report contempt of court

If you’ve seen something that you think risks the fairness of a future or ongoing case, contact the court.

If you’re reporting something you’ve seen online, share screenshots of the posts if you have them.

Explore the topic

• Courts, tribunals and appeals

Is this page useful?

• Yes this page is useful
• No this page is not useful

Thank you for your feedback Report a problem with this page

Help us improve GOV.UK

Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.

This field is for robots only. Please leave blank What were you doing? What went wrong? Send Cancel

Help us improve GOV.UK

To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. Please fill in this survey (opens in a new tab).

Cancel