the Court may issue a warrant for the arrest of the contemnor and his detention in custody until he is brought before the Court to answer the charge, unless he, in the meantime, gives security in such manner and in such sum as the Court directs, for his appearance in person to answer the charge and to submit to the judgment or order of the Court."
3 The Defendants were brought back to New South Wales and delivered into the custody of the Sheriff. It was obvious that the Sheriff would probably have to detain them in custody, at least overnight, until the matter could be dealt with by the Court. I have been informed that the necessity to detain persons in custody for any time after arrest pursuant to Pt 55 r.10 is so rare that the appropriate procedures have not been developed by the Sheriff's Office or by the Court.
4 Commonly, when a person is charged with contempt under Pt 55 Div 3, which deals with contempts other than those in the face or hearing of the Court, that person appears before the Court without having to be arrested. There being no apprehension that the person will fail to appear at the trial for contempt, the person is allowed to go free without having to give security for his or her attendance to answer the charge. The possibility of a sentence of imprisonment for contempt is usually enough to secure obedience to the Court's directions.
5 Far less commonly, a person charged with contempt under Pt 55 Div 3 is arrested pursuant to a Bench Warrant issued under Pt 55 r.10. Usually, when the alleged contemnor is brought before the Court, he or she is released the same day on the provision of security specified by the Court.
6 However, where there is a high probability that the alleged contemnor, even after being arrested, will abscond if given the chance, release on security may be inappropriate in the first instance. In such a case, the person should be detained in custody for sufficient time to ensure that proper safeguards against his or her absconding are put in place.
7 In circumstances which I will recount shortly, the Defendants were arrested, taken into custody by the Sheriff, and brought before the Court on 3 December, 2004. The Sheriff's Officers then informed the Court that there were no procedures in place whereby the Defendants could be held in custody overnight or for any length of time beyond that day: the Sheriff's Office had nowhere to put them and the Department of Corrective Services would not take them except upon some order of the Court, duly made in accordance with law. Neither the Sheriff's Office nor the Plaintiff, Australian Securities and Investments Commission ("ASIC"), knew by what authority the Court could order alleged contemnors to be detained in the custody of the Department of Corrective Services, after they had been arrested under Pt 55 r.10.
8 The Defendants had been arrested as they were about to board a flight leaving the country after allegedly having committed very serious contempts of court. There was a high probability that if they were released on security, they would endeavour to abscond. The Court was now faced with the possibility that the Defendants would be allowed simply to walk out of Court because the Sheriff of New South Wales, having taken them into custody, did not know what to do with them.
9 Some fevered research produced an answer to the dilemma, which enabled the Defendants to be kept in custody by the Department of Corrective Services until the charges of contempt were heard and determined on 20 December 2004: ASIC v Michalik (supra). It is regrettable that a procedure for detention in custody was not already known to both the Sheriff's Office and the Department of Corrective Services, so that it could be implemented without difficulty or delay.
10 Occasions for recourse to the arrest and detention procedure under Pt 55 r.10 are rare but not unknown. To my knowledge, exactly the same situation as has occurred in the present case arose in August 2001 when alleged contemnors had to be taken into custody and detained by the Sheriff's Office to answer contempt charges: Fitts v Froome [2001] NSWSC 965. The Warrants for Arrest were issued on a Friday. On the following Monday, the then Sheriff attended upon the Court to advise that the alleged contemnors had not been arrested in accordance with a warrant issued under Pt 55 r.10 and that, even if they had been arrested, the Sheriff had nowhere to put them over the weekend.
11 Again, in another proceeding which came before me as Duty Judge in late November 2004, the defendant, in clear breach of asset preservation orders made only days before, withdrew a very substantial amount from a bank account, allegedly with the intention of going immediately overseas. A warrant for his arrest and detention was issued under Pt 55 r.10. When the motion for contempt was returned in Court, the Sheriff's Officers again advised that the defendant had not been arrested. Fortunately, the defendant voluntarily appeared in Court with his solicitor. Exactly what had happened to the money withdrawn by the defendant was not yet known. I made orders that the defendant surrender his passport to the Registrar in Equity and remain in the custody of the Sheriff until further order to answer the charge of contempt, unless he provided security in the amount of $150,000.
12 The defendant was then taken by the Sheriff's Officers to the Downing Centre. He was kept there overnight and released the next morning. Neither he nor anyone else had provided security in accordance with the orders which I had made. The defendant had simply walked out of custody, in breach of the Court's orders, without let or hindrance from the Sheriff. I have not yet discovered how this happened.
13 It would seem that there is something seriously amiss with the procedures in the Sheriff's Office for enforcement of the Court's orders in aid of contempt proceedings. If proper proceedings for enforcement are not put into place, the community will quickly learn that the orders of the Supreme Court may be disobeyed at will and that the Court is helpless to do anything about it.
14 Accordingly, it seems useful now to record the practice and procedure of the Court for arresting and detaining in custody persons charged with a contempt under Pt 55 r.10 SCR.
15 Before doing so, however, it is desirable to set out the circumstances which brought this matter into Court.
The contempts