Bellanger & Wemble (No 9) [2025] FedCFamC2F 1883 (17 December 2025)

1. The transcripts of the contravention application hearing and the penalty hearing in this matter have been made available to the appellant, Ms Paige.

Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court's records.

Note: This copy of the Court's Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 10.14(b) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 10.13 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).

Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) makes it an offence, except in very limited circumstances, to publish an account of proceedings that identify persons, associated persons, or witnesses involved in family law proceedings.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under a pseudonym has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

1. These are the settled reasons of a judgment delivered ex tempore. These reasons were delivered orally. These settled reasons have been corrected from the transcript where appropriate to correct grammatical errors, to add citations, passages of authorities and evidence, to add observations inadvertently omitted due to the pressure of time and to attempt to make the orally delivered reasons easier to read. The substance is unchanged.
2. The matter of Bellanger & Wemble comes before me this day, 17 December 2025, for the hearing of an application to stay the orders or, rather, some of the orders that I made on 7 November 2025. Those orders were as follows:

1. The contraventions proven against the First Respondent, [Mr Wemble], of the orders of this court made on 16 August 2021 be and is adjourned to a date to be fixed. 2. Count three (3) of the contravention application against the Second Respondent, [Ms Paige] be and is dismissed. 3. The Court having found beyond reasonable doubt that the Second Respondent, [Ms Paige], has contravened the orders of 16 August 2021 without reasonable excuse, pursuant to sections 70NFB(2)(e) and 70NFG(2)(a) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ('the Act'), as applicable prior to 6 May 2024, it is ordered that;

(a) [Ms Paige] be imprisoned for a period [...] commencing 42 days from this day; and > > (b) On Friday 19 December 2025 at 9.00 am, [Ms Paige], attend at courtroom 2K at the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Div 2) at 305 William Street Melbourne for the purpose of commencing that sentence of imprisonment.

1. For the purposes of Order 3 herein, a Warrant of Commitment be issued in the usual form. 2. That [Ms Paige] be and is restrained from leaving the Commonwealth of Australia until [...] 2031 (the day before the 18th Birthday of the child [Y]) ('the restraint on the Grandmother leaving Australia'). 3. The Court requests that the Australian Federal Police give effect to this order by placing the name of the Grandmother, [Ms Paige] born [...] 1967, on the Family Law Watch List in force at all points of international arrival and departure in the Commonwealth of Australia and maintain the Grandmother's name on the Family Law Watch List for the said period, or until the Court orders its removal. 4. The Marshal and all officers of the Australian Federal Police and of the police forces of the various States and Territories are requested and empowered to take all necessary steps to give effect to these orders. 5. In the event the children, [X] born [in] 2011 and [Y] born [in] 2013 ('the children'), are returned to the care of their mother, [Ms Bellanger], in the Commonwealth of Australia, the parties do all acts and things to cause the Court to be notified and these proceedings to be listed at short notice before Judge O'Shannessy for the purpose of considering whether, pursuant to section 70NFG(5)(a) of the Act, the whole of the sentence of imprisonment or any part remaining unserved, should be suspended or discharged, and/or whether pursuant to section 70NFG(8) the Grandmother should be released from imprisonment, and whether the restraint on the Grandmother leaving Australia should be discharged or varied.

1. On or about 5 December 2025 (but, it appears to me, within the 28-day standard appeal time), the second respondent to the contravention application, Ms Paige ('the Grandmother'), lodged a notice of appeal against my decision, as she is legally entitled to do. It is unnecessary that I enter into that notice of appeal and the strength of it for the following reasons.
2. The Grandmother, in support of her application for a stay, filed an affidavit. The stay application and the affidavit were filed and served on Monday 15 December 2025. The sentence of imprisonment was to commence on 19 December 2025. The ordinary course of a stay application is that it is expected to be heard by the judge that made the orders, if that judge is available. Hence, notwithstanding it is my decision that is impugned, the application for the stay comes back before me this day.
3. The affidavit of the Grandmother in support of the stay application places significant emphasis on the circumstance that were a stay of the imprisonment order not granted, the benefit of the appeal to which the Grandmother is legally entitled would be rendered nugatory. For the stay application, she retained solicitor and counsel and was assisted by an interpreter provided by the Court.
4. There was a slight glitch in the matter proceeding as listed because of availability of the legal representatives for the mother, Ms Bellanger ('the Mother'), and, in any event, for whatever reason, an interpreter was not available until shortly before 10 o'clock this morning. At about 10 o'clock, I dealt with the two other part heard final hearings that are listed before me and then, at about 10.30 this morning, got to the matter of the stay.
5. Before counsel for the Grandmother, Mr Lethlean, further addressed me, I inquired of counsel for the Independent Children's Lawyer ('the ICL') and solicitor for the applicant in the contravention application and respondent to the appeal, the Mother, who appeared by her solicitor, Ms Makuei, whether the stay application in regard to orders 3(a), 3(b) and order 4 (herein referred to as 'the imprisonment orders') was opposed.
6. In the circumstances of the seriousness of the penalty and the risk that a successful appeal would be rendered nugatory or pointless, sensibly, the ICL and the Mother did not oppose the stay of the imprisonment orders sought. That leaves the restraint on travelling overseas and what is called the "watch list" order in place.
7. The Grandmother, in her supporting affidavit, had highlighted that she had, in writing, when pressing a stay between solicitors, undertaken to prosecute her appeal in a timely manner. After discussion with counsel and solicitor appearing, there was no opposition to my adding to the bare stay order sought by the Grandmother a further condition being placed on that stay. That condition was that the Grandmother would do all acts and things to prosecute her appeal with all due diligence and expedition.
8. I also note that in the unusual circumstance of the Grandmother being a litigant in person for much of the proceeding and requiring an interpreter, the Court had made available for the purpose of the penalty hearing the transcript of the contravention proceeding itself. Further, I understand that the transcript of the penalty hearing has been made available to the Grandmother and her advisers. The provision of that transcript, in my view, removes what is usually the most likely impediment to the timely prosecution of an appeal.
9. I am proceeding on the basis, and I am currently satisfied, that the Grandmother will prosecute her appeal with all due diligence and expedition. I also note that the two children the subject of the contravention application and the subject of the final orders that that relates to remain, in contravention or apparent contravention of those orders, in Country D. That proposition, that the orders relating to those children are within jurisdiction, is of course challenged in the appeal.
10. For all those reasons, I am satisfied that I should stay order 3(a), 3(b) and 4 of the orders of 7 November 2025, the imprisonment orders, and I will so order.

I certify that the preceding twelve (12) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the ex tempore Reasons for Judgment of Judge O'Shannessy.