Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. Solicitor General v Millinder distance to be present in court is not in itself a good enough justification for departing from the normal position that committal proceedings are held in person, and if the respondent chooses not to attend, the hearing will proceed in his or her absence. 28. However, the Divisional Court was aware that Mr Millinder was sentenced to a term of 3 months’ imprisonment by Newcastle Crown Court for harassment, which it appears he has not yet served. That means that if he does enter the jurisdiction he is liable to be arrested. That situation gives rise to a number of potential complications, including, if he were arrested, a likely adjournment of the date fixed for the hearing of the committal proceedings, whilst arrangements could be made for him to be brought to Court from prison. 29. Therefore, although (i) there was no good reason for Mr Millinder’s non-attendance in person; (ii) his absence was plainly voluntary; and (iii) (given that he had filed around 6000 pages of documents in response to the application) there was no likelihood of undue prejudice to the forensic process if the application were to proceed in his absence, the Court decided that the fairest course would be to give him the opportunity to appear remotely by CVP. This enabled him to address the Court in response to the oral submissions of counsel for the Solicitor General, and, if necessary, to advance any mitigation or seek to purge any contempt that might be proved by the Solicitor General in due course. A different course might have been taken if Mr Millinder had availed himself of the opportunity to obtain legal representation at public expense, but as he confirmed at the start of the hearing, he wished to continue representing himself. 30. A link to the hearing was sent to Mr Millinder for his personal use, which he then took it upon himself to forward to others. He should not have done so. Mr Millinder was attending as a participant in the proceedings, and an exception was being made to the usual rule for him and him alone. Whilst members of the public may apply to attend court proceedings remotely as observers, the direction which enabled Mr Millinder to attend remotely was not made under Section 85A of the Courts Act 2003, nor could it have been. No direction was sought, let alone made, under that section in advance of the hearing and none was applied for at the hearing. 31. Section 85A, which is supplemented by the Remote Observation and Recording (Courts and Tribunals) Regulations 2022 and by Practice Guidance which came into force on 28 June 2022, makes it clear that those who want to watch and listen to proceedings remotely must identify themselves to the Court beforehand. The default position is that they must provide the Court with their full name and email address. This applies unless the Court permits them to provide some other form of identification, e.g. where a family or other group of people attend from one location (s.85A(3)(b) and paras 11 and 14 of the Practice Guidance.) 32. This requirement is there to enable the Court to be confident that a person seeking remote access will not risk impeding or prejudicing the administration of justice. If the observer is outside the jurisdiction, those risks are greater, and it is harder to impose sanctions on them for breaches of the ban on filming, recording or transmitting the proceedings (which is both a summary offence and a contempt of court, see section 85B of the 2003 Act). Persons who make a proper and timely application to attend remotely as observers will be reminded by the Court staff of the 8