Mother jailed for contempt after posting family court case details on Facebook
A 54-year-old woman has been jailed after posting information relating to family court litigation on Facebook.
Sara Root, who believes her children were unfairly taken from her, published information about the children in breach of court orders.
Social services bosses at Medway Council (pictured), which is based in Chatham, Kent, had complained about her posts.
Mrs Justice Theis jailed her on Wednesday, after concluding that she had breached orders and was in contempt of court, at a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London.
She said Ms Root’s children could not be identified in media reports of the case.
Ms Root, who lives on the outskirts of London, had already been penalised for breaching orders limiting the publication of information about family court proceedings involving her children.
In August 2017, Judge Richard Polden handed Ms Root a suspended six-month jail term after concluding that she had wrongly published material on Facebook.
Then in May 2018, Mrs Justice Theis ruled that she again wrongly published information on Facebook and handed her another suspended six-month prison sentence.
Mrs Justice Theis said on Wednesday that she had decided to jail Ms Root with some hesitation.
But she said Ms Root thought she was the victim of injustice and had mounted a campaign. The judge said she continued to breach orders and that there was every likelihood that she would continue to do so.
“I was so desperate to see (my children) that I resorted to Facebook,” Ms Root had told Mrs Justice Theis.
“I am tired. I am tired of coming to court, I am tired of grieving, I am tired of living without my children. I am emotionally destroyed. I am financially destroyed. It is too much for a human to bear.
“If you want to punish me for loving my children, for trying to do the right thing for them, for always telling the truth, then punish me.”
She went on: “I am not mentally ill, I am not a cruel person. I am just a normal mother.”
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