Penal notices and contempt of court — what happens if a court order is breached

REVIEWED BY: Sean McNamara on 2026-08-28

Why this guide exists

Family court orders — about contact, residence, non-molestation or asset freezing — are not suggestions. But breaches are handled by the civil machinery of committal, and the safeguards around it are strict. This page explains how a penal notice works and what realistic enforcement looks like.

What a penal notice is

A penal notice is a formal warning printed on (or attached to) a court order telling the person bound by it that disobeying the order is a contempt of court, punishable by imprisonment, a fine, or the seizure of assets. Its purpose is to make sure the recipient cannot later say "I didn't realise the court could punish me for ignoring it."

Where it appears

Penal notices typically appear on orders that require someone not to do something or to do something specific: non-molestation orders (Family Procedure Rules 2010, Part 37 and PD37A), occupation orders, prohibited steps / specific issue orders, Freezing Injunctions and search orders. The notice usually sits prominently on the front of the sealed order (or on every page of a long order) and must be drawn to the respondent's attention at the hearing or on service.

What "breach" means

Breach means disobeying an order you know about — the standard is knowing and wilful disobedience. Two ingredients matter:

1. Knowledge: the person must have been told of the order — hence the penal notice. 2. Wilfulness: simply failing isn't enough; the court must be sure the person deliberately defied or flouted the order. Honest, unavoidable mistakes (e.g. a child refusing contact, a genuine misunderstanding of the terms) are not automatically contempt.

The standard of proof: beyond reasonable doubt

Committal is quasi-criminal, so the court must be satisfied of the breach beyond reasonable doubt (the criminal standard) — not merely "on the balance of probabilities" as in ordinary family fact-finding. Because liberty is at stake, the procedure is strict: the application must set out the alleged breaches precisely (each alleged act separately numbered), the evidence must be served in time, and the alleged contemnor must be able to answer each allegation.

Safeguards built in

Permission of the court is required before a committal application can even be issued (FPR 2010, r 37.4) — usually from a judge of at least district judge level; you cannot just apply "over the counter".
Gravity filter: committal is a remedy of last resort. Judges expect proportionate, coercive steps first — a warning, an enforcement order under the Children Act 1989 s.11J (for child arrangement order breaches, after an enforcement warning is attached), a variation, or a costs sanction. Prison is for serious, persistent, deliberate defiance.
Limits: imprisonment in family committal is capped at a maximum of 2 years; a parent cannot be imprisoned solely for a first-time, technical or genuinely impossible breach.

Realistic outcomes

Most alleged breaches do not end in prison. Realistically the court may:

Find no contempt at all (evidence or wilfulness falls short);
Order a costs penalty or a variation of the order to make compliance clearer;
Make an enforcement order (unpaid work) for repeated child arrangement breaches;
Adjourn with a final warning — which itself fixes knowledge for any future application;
Committ to prison — reserved for flagrant, sustained defiance (and it is usually suspended; the point is compliance, not punishment).

If you are threatened with committal — or threatened with it

Do not ignore correspondence; a committal application is serious even if the breach is not proved.
Take legal advice immediately (see our finding-a-solicitor page) — legal aid may be available for non-molestation enforcement and for the respondent in committal proceedings.
If you genuinely cannot comply, say so early with evidence (letters, medical records, the child's own wishes) — impossibility is a defence.

Official links

Contempt of court (gov.uk): https://www.gov.uk/contempt-of-court
Family Procedure Rules Part 37 (committal): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/2955
Children Act 1989 s.11J enforcement orders: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/11J

This page is general information, not legal advice. YourFamilyCase.co.uk is an independent information directory and is not affiliated with HMCTS or gov.uk.

Content verified against the official HMCTS court directory, gov.uk forms and fees pages, and the professional body registers (SRA, FMC, Bar Council). Last reviewed September 2026.