“Woman banished from the island after hitting her partner with a pool cue” is following a well-trodden path off the Isle of Man.

In October 2018 Jayne Mitchell was made the subject of a five year exclusion order. Requiring her to leave and remain outside of the Isle of Man for five years, magistrates were acting in line with centuries of Manx criminal practice.

By customary law exile, or abjuration of the Isle, might be offered to a condemned felon as an alternative to execution. This sanction was better developed in the Island than in England, where it was usually applied only to those in sanctuary. The abjured person was required to leave the Island within a specified time and, if they returned without pardon, forfeited life and limb.

By 1674 the English innovation of exile plus mandatory labour in a set place had begun to influence Manx law. For nearly a century this combination of abjuration and transportation co-existed with the older form of abjuration, but from 1741 the older form fell into disuse, except where offered as an alternative to a full trial.

The Code of 1817 placed exile, or rather transportation, on a statutory basis. After a difficult period, during which Manx law allowed the punishment but English law did not, the later Code of 1872 replaced transportation with the more flexible punishment of penal servitude. Both punishments were abolished in 1963, by provisions based on an English model.

The ability of the court to create conditions on discharges, however, allowed for the recreation of this ancient sanction for misconduct. In Daly (1991) a defendant normally resident in the United Kingdom was given a two year conditional discharge – part of the condition being that he leave the Island as soon as possible and not return for at least two years. This judicial creation was given a statutory basis in 1998, with the Criminal Justice (Exclusion of Non-Resident Offenders) Act 1998. Under the Act, the maximum period for an exclusion order is five years – as received by Ms Mitchell. Unlike the historic penalties, however, the modern exclusion order has exemptions for those with strong ties to the Isle of Man. Had Ms Mitchell been in a marriage or civil partnership with a Manx resident, for instance, no exclusion order could have been made.