Man sentenced to 10 months imprisonment for breach of interdicts

On sentencing, Lord Doherty made the following statement in court: “I require to deal with your admitted breach of the interim interdict pronounced on 31 July 2012, as varied on 26 September 2012, and your admitted breach of the interdict pronounced on 6 December 2012.

“Those breaches demonstrated a wilful defiance of the court’s orders and a disregard for the consequences which your conduct would be likely to have on the petitioners.

“In relation to your involvement with a company which competed with the petitioners, Mercantile Recovery Solutions Limited, and the other respects in which you have admitted competing with the first petitioners in breach of the court’s orders, your breach was both wilful and of a repeated nature between 31 July 2012 and 18 January 2013.

“In relation to your divulging of confidential information relating to the first petitioners on 2 November 2012, your breach was wilful and was calculated to cause damage to, and difficulty for, the petitioners and their parent company.

“I consider the breaches to be very serious indeed. I have listened to all that has been said on your behalf, and I am mindful in particular of your previous good character; but I am clear that only a prison sentence would adequately mark the gravity and circumstances of the breaches.

“In your favour I take account of the fact that you partially admitted the conduct complained of in your answers to the petition and complaint; and that you made full admissions when the Minute of Admissions was received on 19 September 2014.

“By doing that you avoided the need for there to be a proof on the petition and complaint and the answers. Had you not tendered the admissions you did at the time you did the sentence which I would have imposed would have been one of 15 months imprisonment.

“Having regard to the admissions which you made, and the consequent saving of time and expense, the sentence which I do impose is one of 10 months imprisonment which will run from today’s date.”