england-and-wales defamation compensation blackmail court-order
What can be considered a &quot;reasonable excuse&quot; when mistakenly breaching a court order?
<p>Is it too subjective to think the serious allegations made in the order had being taken out of any possible and plausible context, twisting it in such way so they could paint a really bad picture about the person the order was addressed to, triggering the person by what the order was accusing her/him of and thus making her/him overreact by breaching it mistakenly?</p>
<p>And how about a situation where the Respondent had being blackmailed and further being manipulated and taken advantage of by the Applicant shortly before the Respondent was served the order on that same day?</p>
<p>Can these examples be considered as a &quot;reasonable excuse&quot; maybe?</p>
<p>EDIT to the first paragraph:
The second paragraph relates to the first but I will try to explain it in such a way you might understand the background to my concern and question.</p>
<p>The person (Respondent) was served an order the same day the Applicant had tried to continue manipulating the Respondent by his genuine attempt to simply have a conversation. She further tried to blackmail him by saying “We can meet and talk about what have happened, but I have to focus on my business now and need some money as I am struggling financially.” I offered her to help her with some money but realised she was still playing a game with me, so I ignored it.</p>
<p>2 hours later the Respondent had been served the order at his workplace. He was emotionally so upset that he then breached the order because he felt that the points he was been prohibited from doing had no grounds. He admits that breaching the order was his mistake and instead he should have appealed the order or get legal assistance to give his own statement as he was not giving a real opportunity to explain his situation.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/canada" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;canada&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;canada&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="canada-container">canada</a></p>
<p>In Canada, it is offence to breach &quot;without lawful excuse&quot; a condition imposed under a s. 810 peace bond.</p>
<p>The burden is on the defendant to establish that they had a lawful excuse for the breach.</p>
<p>Consider a condition that prohibits a person from being within 50m of a particular other person. Also imagine that they discover at a stop light that the other person is in the adjacent car. The fact that the light is red is a lawful excuse for not immediately removing oneself from the 50m zone. See e.g. <em>R. v. Lawrence</em>, <a href="https://canlii.ca/t/1nrvb" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1995 CanLII 6022</a> (Sask. Q.B.).</p>
<p>In another case, the court held that the &quot;<strong>desire to assert the invalidity of the recognizance</strong> did not afford... a lawful excuse for [going to the prohibited residence]&quot; (<em>R. v. Kankis</em>, 2013 ONSC 471).</p>
