The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN couple who vowed they would never obey a court order were jailed for contempt in December, with newly released reasons from the Supreme Court revealing the full extent of their defiance.

Philip Arlington Mitchell received a two-year sentence and his wife Brenda Mae Mitchell one year after Justice Carla D Card-Stubbs found they had wilfully violated court injunctions prohibiting harassment of judges and legal counsel. Though the ruling was delivered orally in December, the court has outlined why the sentencing was necessary in a written ruling this month.

“It is a contempt to disobey a court order,” Justice Card-Stubbs wrote. “The law of civil contempt serves to deal with persons intent on breaking the law by disobedience to court orders and who, by such course of action, impede and obstruct the course of justice. Such acts carry with them the risk of undermining confidence in the justice system.”

The court found that despite multiple binding orders, the Mitchells escalated their conduct, sending inflammatory emails to judges and attorneys in August 2024 that included scandalous allegations and threats to publish further accusations. The messages included an eight-page letter and a 33-page intended complaint to the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, accusing judicial officers and legal professionals of “theft, corruption, misconduct, and ethical violations”.

One statement read: “We no longer intend to honour any unlawfully obtained gag or restraining orders designed to suppress our constitutional rights and cover-up acts committed by your client RBC Finco, Charles JA et al. It is in the public interest to publish these matters, supported by primary evidence we will release on the publication date.”

The written ruling notes that the Mitchells had been under a permanent injunction since July 2021, which barred them from harassing or threatening anyone involved in their original mortgage dispute. Nonetheless, evidence showed they had continued to breach those terms, with emails sent as recently as August 2024.

The court had warned them explicitly of the consequences. An interim order from August 16, 2024, reiterated the prohibitions and included a penal notice outlining the risk of imprisonment for violations. Despite being served notice by email after traditional service methods failed, the Mitchells did not attend the October contempt hearing or the December sentencing.

Justice Card-Stubbs noted that the court afforded them every opportunity to respond.

“The Defendants were at liberty to appear and to show cause why they ought not to be committed,” she wrote. “They made no appearance.” With no engagement, no remorse, and no mitigating circumstances, the court determined that immediate imprisonment was warranted.

The couple’s legal conflict dates back to 2009 when the Finance Corporation of the Bahamas Limited sued them over a mortgage default. After losing at every level of the court system, including the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council, the Mitchells began targeting judges and lawyers with increasingly hostile communications, the court heard.

An interim injunction was first granted in 2021 by Justice G Diane Stewart and later made permanent. It forbade the Mitchells from making defamatory or threatening remarks via any medium, including social media. Justice Card-Stubbs accepted evidence that the couple not only ignored those orders but intended to continue doing so.

Given the sealed nature of the case file and the private hearings under Rule 51.4 of the Civil Procedure Rules, the written judgment avoids repeating the most inflammatory allegations. It refers instead to the content of the Mitchells’ messages as “scurrilous and unfounded.”