Judge jails husband for a year for failure to comply with divorce order

Today the Court has determined four applications made by my client Ms Marie-Therese Hohenberg Bailey for the committal to prison of her former husband, Anthony Bailey OBE, and two of his friends, Mr Cyril Woods and Ms Farley Rentschler. These were not applications that Ms Hohenberg-Bailey made lightly. Nobody wants to send the father of their child to prison.

However, Ms Hohenberg Bailey was left with no choice in the face of the continued and contumelious breaches of the court’s orders by Mr Bailey and his associates. In April 2021, the court made an order for financial provision for Ms Hohenberg Bailey, which would allow her to buy herself and the parties’ young child a new home. Since then, notwithstanding the court’s findings as to Mr Bailey’s substantial wealth (including a Portuguese Property worth of EUR4,000,000), Mr Bailey and his associates have failed to implement the terms of the Court Order.

Throughout these proceedings Mr Bailey has lied repeatedly and deliberately sought to mislead his ex-wife and the Court. He has lied to the Court about his whereabouts, fabricated medical evidence, doctored bank statements and has needlessly dragged other people into the litigation in a failed attempt to give credence to his lies. Notwithstanding the court order prohibiting him from obtaining any means of leaving this country, upon service of said court order, Mr Bailey promptly fled from this jurisdiction, in a further attempt to defeat Ms Hohenberg-Bailey’s claim. He then sought to persuade the court that he was too ill to attend the committal hearing, but he had in fact been enjoying multiple holidays in Europe and in the USA. He ultimately failed to present himself to the Court to be cross-examined despite having been ordered (twice) to attend personally.

His repeated willingness to lie and the blatant contempt that he has shown to Ms Hohenberg-Bailey and the Court are entirely inconsistent with his self-propagated public image of a practising Catholic who lives his faith, including through his involvement in the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, Delegation for Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and who has been awarded an OBE for his work as an interfaith campaigner.

Having found that Mr Bailey’s behaviour “evinces a disregard for the welfare of [his] wife and child” and that he has shown “no remorse” for his actions Mr Justice Peel added: "His behaviour displays wilful obstruction and broad-scale contempt for the court. It is a shameful spectacle deserving considerable opprobrium" and committed Mr Bailey to prison for one year; with Mr Woods and Ms Rentschler each being committed for four months.

Whilst this outcome is far from satisfactory for Mrs Hohenberg-Bailey, who would far prefer to receive the funds which she and their child need, to which she is entitled under English law, it does at least mean that Mr Bailey and his associates will have to seriously consider their position, should they wish to return to the UK at any point in the future. Ms Hohenberg-Bailey very much hopes that all three respondents will now comply with their obligations which would allow her and Mr Bailey to move forward with their lives.