Kathleen Danby, 72, was sentenced in her absence to three months in jail by the secretive Court of Protection in April after a judge heard she embraced the vulnerable girl, 19, against the wishes of social services

A grandmother was hauled out of a comedy show and arrested on the orders of a family court judge – simply for hugging her granddaughter.

Kathleen Danby, 72, was sentenced in her absence to three months in jail by the secretive Court of Protection in April after a judge heard she embraced the vulnerable girl, 19, against the wishes of social services and in breach of a court order.

In an extraordinary move, she was arrested on Sunday night as she watched the comedian Ken Dodd at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Last night the grandmother was being held in custody, police confirmed. She is expected to be taken to court this morning.

The girl’s father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has condemned her arrest as ‘absolutely ridiculous’.

The 37-year-old handyman said: ‘She was sat there in the concert. The usher came down and said there were people wanting to speak to her. When she got into the foyer there were two police officers and she was arrested.

‘She’s told me she’s going to fight this but I’m concerned for her in custody.

'I don’t know what’s going to happen. She’s got a liver disease so she’s constantly on medication and she was totally knackered. I’m very angry.’

According to Mrs Danby, the girl was moved into care in Derbyshire in 2007 when she was 11, a year after being taken away from her father in Orkney by social services, on what she called a ‘spurious excuse’.

He was banned from seeing her after he was convicted of ill-treatment for restraining her from running into a busy road while she was having a temper tantrum, she said.

She revealed that her son had been jailed twice for trying to contact his daughter – once for waving at her taxi as she travelled to school.

He told the Mail that he faces 18 months in prison if he leaves Orkney as there is currently a warrant out for his arrest for speaking to his daughter following a court hearing in Derby last year.

And under a draconian judgment kept secret from the public, Mrs Danby was banned from making contact with the girl, who has learning difficulties, apart from a monthly telephone call monitored by social services.

In February she was accused of disobeying court orders after social workers discovered that she had met her granddaughter at a model railway exhibition, and was caught on CCTV four days later giving her a hug outside a pub.

Speaking to the Mail from her home in Kirkwall, Orkney, in June, she insisted that her granddaughter wanted to have a relationship with both her and her son, and revealed that she had run away from care more than 170 times.

She added: ‘My granddaughter behaves like a younger child, but she is lucid in what she wants. She can decide for herself what she wants to do.’

However Judge Martin Cardinal said the teenager, named in court only as B, finds it hard to control her anger and has self-harmed.

Kathleen Danby with her granddaughter (right) and unnamed grandchild (left). Last night the grandmother was being held in custody, police confirmed. She is expected to be taken to court this morning

He explained that social workers think her distress increases after contact with her father or grandmother, adding: ‘I am sure this grandmother needs restraint.’

Judge Cardinal ordered Mrs Danby to be jailed for three months for contempt and issued the warrant for her arrest.

The same judge jailed Wanda Maddocks in secret in September 2012 for trying to free her 80-year-old father from a care home where she feared his life was at risk, without publishing her name.

She served six weeks in jail.

The case came to light more than six months later and led to new rules stopping anyone from being imprisoned without their name being published.

In an extraordinary move, she was arrested on Sunday night as she watched the comedian Ken Dodd at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

Eamonn Kelly, from False Allegations Action Scotland, described Mrs Danby’s case as ‘one of the most disturbing’ he had encountered.

He said: ‘I must have dealt with nearly 200 cases and this is by far one of the most horrific. It is heart-breaking to see what they are doing to that girl.’

Lib Dem MP John Hemming said: ‘I will be asking questions of the Justice Secretary as to whether this is appropriate. There is no question that there is a big problem involving the prosecution of people in secret.