District judge praised by High Court for mercy towards harassing brother-in-law

A now retired district judge has been commended for taking a ‘merciful course after a lengthy and frustrating legal process’ involving harassment by his brother-in-law.

In Timothy John Hull Pattinson v Robert Ian Winsor  Mr Justice Linden granted a consent order in which Robert Winsor agreed to comply with an injunction ordering him not to contact or make any allegation against Timothy Pattinson, then a district judge in the magistrates’ court. Winsor agreed to pay the costs of the application, but Pattinson agreed he would not seek to enforce the order unless Winsor ‘unexpectedly came into some money’.

Winsor was sentenced for contempt of court in November 2024 after he was found to have breached an interim injunction on 17 occasions. The order committed Winsor to prison for four months. Its execution was suspended for two years on the condition he did not breach the final injunction which had been ordered in harassment proceedings.

Pattinson applied for the suspended committal order to be activated, and a warrant of committal issued. He claimed Winsor had breached the final injunction ‘on at least 25 occasions’.

The judge made the consent order after both parties confirmed it was agreed.

The judge said: ‘There was a strong argument for insisting that the committal hearing proceed and punishing the defendant’s multiple breaches of the court’s orders given the nuisance which he has been and the waste of scarce legal resources which he has caused.' Despite this, sending Winsor to prison would be, as another judge had previously said in an earlier judgment, 'a matter of regret, because he is plainly not in the best of health and he appears to have a profoundly distorted view of the world. No-one wants to see a man like him in prison. It is also an undesirable outcome because of the scarcity of prison accommodation'.

He concluded that the public interest would be better served 'by entertaining the (perhaps overly optimistic) hope that, having had this experience, the defendant will now behave in a rational way and comply with the [injunction]'.

He added: ‘The claimant’s forbearance in entering into this agreement is commendable and humane. The defendant’s allegations against him to all and sundry have been found by the High Court to amount to harassment contrary to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and they have repeatedly been found to be entirely baseless and irrational and, in effect, malicious and vindictive. Yet the defendant has persisted for what is now years.

‘In doing so he has ignored orders of the court and caused the claimant to incur substantial costs which, in all likelihood, will be irrecoverable. Despite the upset which the defendant has caused the claimant and his wife, they have taken a merciful course after a lengthy and frustrating legal process. I commend them for this.’