CONTEMPT OF COURTContemnor committed to prison - application to purge contempt after serving part of term - no jurisdiction to order discharge on condition that remainder of sentence suspendedHarris v Harris: CA (Lords Justice Thorpe, Waller and Mantell): 8 November 2001 The applicant was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment for contempt of court consisting of several breaches of injunctions.

After serving part of the sentence he applied to the sentencing judge to purge his contempt.

Mr Justice Munby [2001] Gazette, 19 July 39; [2001] Fam 502; [2001] 3 WLR 765 held that the High Court had jurisdiction to suspend the unserved part of the sentence and released the applicant from prison immediately on terms that the remaining term be suspended.

The applicant appealed.Mark Twomey (instructed by Thornleys, Plymstock) for the applicant.

Richard Ritchie (Treasury Solicitor) as amicus curiae.

Held, allowing the appeal, that under the Civil Procedure Rules, schedule 1, Rules of Supreme Court, order 52 as framed at present the choice of the court when sentencing a contemnor was only between the warrant to be immediately executed or a warrant to be suspended, but after the court had sent the contemnor to prison, the choice for the court when facing an application to purge the contempt was either to grant the application, to dismiss it, or to adjourn it to a future date; that to allow contempt to be purged conditionally, with the remainder of a sentence placed in suspense, would add little to the armoury of the court; accordingly, an order for the contemnor's unconditional release would be substituted.

(WLR)