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LGM and CAM—Contempt continued…He ordered that two months of each term be servedconcurrently.The judge also ordered that the wife pay the husband’scosts of the contempt proceedings on an indemnitybasis. The judge found that “the wife had been complicitin an attempted fraud that was designed to move thewhole matrimonial pool out of reach of the husbandand Family Court” and that it was deliberate and premeditated.The wife appealed the judgment of 2004 which foundthat she had committed contempt of court and thejudgment of 2005 which imposed the penalty of a termof imprisonment. The judge who had made these ordersgranted a stay of the orders pending the Full Courthearing and decision. He wanted to avoid the possibilitythat the wife would be imprisoned unnecessarilywhile waiting for the Full Court to determine whethercontempts were committed and what the appropriatepenalty should be.The Full Court heard the appeal in September 2005 andfound that the wife’s appeal should succeed. It deliveredits judgment on 25 August 2006 which set aside thecontempt order and therefore her prison sentence. Thehusband then appealed to the High Court and requestedthat it look at the issue of whether or not contempt ofcourt had occurred on the part of the wife.In May 2007, the High Court (Gleeson CJ, Hayne, Callinan,Heydon and Brennan JJ) ordered that the appeal againstpart of the judgment of the Full Court of 25 August2006 be allowed and that the matter be remitted to adifferently constituted Full Court of the Family Court.It ordered that the wife pay the husband’s costs of theappeal to the High Court but that the issue of who shouldpay the costs of the Full Court proceedings up to andincluding the order of 25 August 2006 be determined bythe Full Court when it reheard the case.the wife was to serve a period of imprisonment of fourmonths which she did commencing on 14 January 2008.The order that the wife pay the husband’s costs onan indemnity basis was set aside. However, the FullCourt made orders that the wife pay 85 per cent of thehusband’s costs relating to the appeal proceedingsdetermined in January 2008 (establishing contemptand the penalty) and 85 per cent of the husband’s costsrelating to the appeal proceedings determined in August2006 (the September 2005 hearing in the Full Court) ona party–party basis.So far, this case has generated 18 first instancejudgments, seven Full Court judgments, a High Courtjudgment, a Federal Magistrates’ Court judgment and atleast 18 judges have been involved in some way in theproceedings. It has been over 10 years since the partiesfirst filed applications for a property settlement. Theorder made in 1999 restraining the wife from dealing inreal estate which was part of the assets of the marriagehas come to dominate the case with claims, counterclaimsand multiple appeals. The dominance has madeit easy to forget that the underlying property mattersare yet to be concluded. It is worth noting that duringthe period 1997–2007, there was also concurrent legalaction in the NSW Supreme Court, the Family Court andthe Federal Magistrates Court related to the parties’business interests which impacted on their family lawproperty matters.The Full Court reheard the appeal in October 2007 andhanded down its decision on 10 January 2008 thatcontempts of court had been committed. ThereforeFamily Court Bulletin | Issue 3 December 2008 3