Falconer found guilty of contempt

Lord Falconer was today found guilty of contempt of Parliament over the disciplining of a whistleblower who gave evidence to MPs.

The Lord Chancellor was rebuked by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee after he suspended Judy Weleminsky from the board of an official child protection agency.

However, the MPs accepted he had not intended to penalise her for giving evidence to the Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee and recommended no further action be taken against him. The findings followed an investigation into the disciplining of mother-of-two Ms Weleminsky, 53, after she told MPs about the failings of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service, which protects young people in custody cases.

Evening Standards and Privileges Committee also found that the former CAFCASS board chairman, Anthony Hewson, and a senior official in Lord Falconer's Department for Constitutional Affairs, David Crawley, had been in contempt of Parliament.

However, the MPs again recommended no further action against either man. The case was referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee this year after the Constitutional Affairs Committee complained that Ms Weleminsky's suspension from the CAFCASS board constituted a "prima facie breach of Parliamentary privilege".

In its report today, the Standards and Privileges Committee said a letter sent by Lord Falconer on 11 December suspending Ms Weleminsky, who lives in Kew, had given the "unfortunate impression" that she was being punished for giving evidence to MPs.

"A subsequent apology is not, however, sufficient to undo the original damage and it has been demonstrated in earlier cases that it is not necessary to establish malicious intent to find that a contempt has been committed," the report said.

"Whatever the intentions of ministers and officials in this case, they themselves conceded that the letter of December 11, with its enclosures, could be interpreted as a punishment for giving evidence to a select committee of the House."

The report said that without Ms Weleminsky's "vigilance" in bringing the matter to the attention of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, the impression may have been created that she was being dismissed for giving evidence.