Lots of us remember having to study Charles Dickens books at school and learning that his father had been sent to the debtor’s prison. We probably all vaguely know that you can’t go to prison now for not paying a debt…. or can you?

Hassain v Vaswani [2020] is one of those cases which appeals to the inner geek in us. We came across it while we were doing our updates and thought we’d share it with you.

The Debtor’s Act 1969 prevents someone from going to prison for non-payment of a debt, but it is possible to send someone to prison for contempt for failure to abide by a court order or undertaking (CPR 81.4). It has been unclear for some time as to whether the sanction for contempt can be applied where the breach of the court order relates to a payment. The Court of Appeal has now cleared this up.

The reasoning used by the court is (predictably) neat. There are two kinds of undertaking relating to the payment of money. The first is where the undertaking to pay secures some other advantage (one example would be the stay of court proceedings), the second is a simple undertaking to pay. In the first case the sanction of imprisonment for contempt can be applied. In the second it cannot. Simples!

Is this case of any use to you? It could be relevant if you have to answer a question on judicial interpretation. It is clearly bang on point if you are being asked to comment on contempt of court in relation to failure to make a payment. It’s also a good reminder that you can go to jail for a civil wrong as well as for committing a crime. Lots of people probably don’t know that – it might even help you out at a pub quiz sometime. Here’s looking forward to the day when we can all be back in pubs. Cheers!