Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. Solicitor General v Millinder 1. The court should adopt an approach analogous to that in criminal cases, where the Sentencing Council’s Guidelines require the court to assess the seriousness of the conduct by reference to the offender’s culpability and the harm caused, intended or likely to be caused. 2. In light of its determination of seriousness, the court must first consider whether a fine would be a sufficient penalty. 3. If the contempt is so serious that only a custodial penalty will suffice, the court must impose the shortest period of imprisonment which properly reflects the seriousness of the contempt. 4. Due weight should be given to matters of mitigation, such as genuine remorse, previous positive character and similar matters. 5. Due weight should also be given to the impact of committal on persons other than the contemnor, such as children or vulnerable adults in their care. 6. There should be a reduction for an early admission of the contempt, to be calculated consistently with the approach set out in the Sentencing Council’s guidelines on Reduction in Sentence for a Guilty Plea. 7. Once the appropriate term has been arrived at, consideration should be given to suspending the term of imprisonment. Usually the court will already have taken into account mitigating factors when setting the appropriate term such that there is no powerful factor making suspension appropriate, but a serious effect on others, such as children or vulnerable adults in the contemnor’s care, may justify suspension. Although that was a case of criminal contempt, these factors have since been adopted and applied in cases of civil contempt such as the present. 79. The purposes of a committal order are to punish the offender and to deter further conduct of a similar nature. For a first offence or series of offences, deterrence should be the paramount consideration. Committal is a sentence of last resort. 80. The breaches of the section 42 Order were undoubtedly serious and deliberate. The culpability is high. The harm is the serious prejudice that repeated and deliberate flouting of court orders causes to the due administration of justice. In this case the order that was breached was imposed as a last resort to restrain vexatious litigation, both civil and criminal, when the ECRO and GCRO proved to be no deterrence. It was expressly designed to preclude Mr Millinder from continuing with his objectionable behaviour. There is no question of Mr Millinder acting under any pressure. He made it clear from the onset that he had no intention of obeying the order, a position which he persists in maintaining. He has shown no remorse and offered no apology. He refuses to acknowledge the authority of the court. Those features are sufficient in and of themselves for the conduct to cross the custodial threshold. A fine would not be an adequate response. Mr Justice Adam Johnson so held in Rowland v Stanford [2022] EWHC 1713 (Ch), a case in which, like Mr Millinder, the defendant “appeared to persist in the fiction that the order is null and void and has no application to him.” 21