I have been contacted by the carer of a disabled lady who has detailed a level of misconduct from such as The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), HMCTS, Judicial Conduct Investigations Office & others that makes for shocking reading.
The lady concerned has learning disabilities and for the purpose of this blog entry and to preserve her anonymity we’ll call her Liz. She required ICO to modify their communications with her in order to assist her disabilities. ICO failed to do this, which if course made communication with them very much more difficult, and so she launched a Judicial Review. This brought her into contact with the civil court system where arguably she suffered worse discrimination than originally from ICO.
The Equality Act 2010 and the United Nations Convention on disability rights are supposed to help to enforce, protect and promote the rights of disabled people to access public services and promote equality of access to such.
However as is so often the case in modern Britain the aim falls far short of the reality. As I’ve said Liz’s issues began when The Information Commissioner’s Office failed to communicate with her in a format she could read and understand; she has limited reading and comprehension skills.
Things frequently go from bad to worse when an organisation fails to make adaptations to assist the disabled. This is true of ICO but the same issues were experienced in Liz’s dealings with The Ministry of Justice.
I should add at this point that all of the organisations mentioned in this blog entry will also have guidelines in respect of how to treat everyone equally. They have all fallen far short of this leading to mistreatment and injustice.
An email to me from this lady’s carer shows that further injustice happens from HMCTS…
“When she has attempted to request accessibility from HMCTS, regarding Judicial Reviews against The Ombudsman’s refusing to send her written correspondence, refusal to contact her by phone and when she phones their services to request accessibility, complaints responses and S.A.R’s.”
When Liz called HMCTS she was apparently verbally abused by their staff over the phone. Liz has communication difficulties and it is easy for someone to misinterpret these in a phone call. There are recordings of such calls to Manchester Civil Justice Centre.
When Liz asks for responses to her complaints due to her communication difficulties staff fail to respond appropriately or make proper allowances for her disabilities. This is of course the nub of her original complaint to the Courts in the first place! She has also been supplied the personal data of another HMCTS service user, although this is not unusual given that organisation’s haphazard approach to data protection & privacy.
Most damming of all is the response of Customer Investigations at the MoJ’s head office.
This is the final port of call to get a complaint response outside of referring a complaint against HMCTS to civil action. There are also apparently call recordings retained where Richard Redgrave, the head of Customer Investigations starts laughing and finds it funny that his original land line is inactive and been inactive for the 18 months this lady has attempted to phone him on it. There has been a similar inappropriate responses from The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
The courts have failed to provide the lady with any adaptation and assistance with access to their services with the seeming result that her civil claim failed and there are presently costs against her. Any correspondence from the Court is problematic as this lady cannot read. Again a required adaptation has not been made. Rather more cruelly a Civil Restraint Order was made against her and this of course results in further disadvantage.
I have a list of several named Court staff who have apparently treated this lady appallingly on the account given by her carer.
The adaptations that are needed for her to be able to deal with the Court effectively and understand the process are not extensive but are clear and evident. The level of learning difficulties experienced means that the Court has a higher level of duty of care towards someone who has such restrictions in their everyday life. Indeed there is a simple moral duty here also.
I don’t know why the Courts have failed Liz so badly.
I suspect that it would be more time-consuming and awkward to make the adaptations she needs and that because of speech issues phone calls from her would be very difficult to understand. This requires time and patience. It is not beyond the ability of any organisation however! It is equally not beyond the ability of MoJ to ensure that all service users are treated equally and fairly.
What looks like deliberate cruelty from several members of HMCTS staff takes considerably more explaining though.
That they have not treated Liz kindly, made appropriate adaptations to accommodate her disabilities and even at times shown outright cruelty is an indication of how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.
Hard to think of two more poorly run institution than HMCTS and it’s parent organisation The Ministry of Justice.
This is a very simple post detailing a simple but significant error. So no lengthy explanation as to what’s happened on this occasion!
HMCTS shared my personal financial details with a third party.
That’s it. That’s basically all that can be said in the post.
But wait!
Stop and think for a few moments and we can see this is matter is actually considerably more significant and serious than it first looks.
The letter from The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) finding against HMCTS can be seen below.
But the operative paragraph from it is simple and plain:
The nub of the issue.
Why should this matter?
Personal data in the care of such as HMCTS and MoJ has the potential to cause significant damage if released inappropriately. Release to a third party with no requirement for or rights to such data can and does cause significant issues.
The simple fact is that the incompetence of County Court staff knows no bounds.
Indeed the vindictiveness of their management towards anyone who has received appalling service from HMCTS also knows no bounds. In this matter an out-of-court settlement was agreed upon to be paid fourteen days from the agreement. Some three months after this agreement I was still awaiting payout.
HMCTS and MoJ are simply two organisations which have ceased to function in any meaningful way and the amount of time spent on damage limitation, denying errors have occurred and attempting to maintain an image of professionalism would be better spent actually running courts efficiently in the first instance.
The text below is the wording of a statement given to The High Court in a set of proceedings presided over by The Hon. Mr. Justice Lavender on 9.6.21.
They detail the efforts of that judge to derail straightforward civil claims and to prevent the use of the civil courts to gain material in relation to wrongful conviction.
It concerns the application of a civil restraint order against me, the grounds for this being made and the manipulation of cases and civil procedure by The Hon. Mr. Nicholas Lavender in order to protect state organisations from the effects of their own misconduct.
Interestingly the only public bodies sending representation to the hearing were those within the CJS who have the most to loose from civil actions which would force them to obey the law. Equally of interest is that I was not provided by the Court or one of these parties with a copy of their statement for the proceedings.
The statement begins:
The original CRO of February 2018 was made in respect of an application for judicial review proceedings against Humberside Police and CPS in respect of their failure to comply with The Data Protection Act request for production of data. This followed their failure to produce materials under their obligations as per The Criminal Procedure Investigation Act 1996 which led directly to my wrongful conviction at Hull Crown Court in November 2016.
The GCRO subject to this hearing was imposed for a similar claim in relation to Humberside Police. In both instances the data sought from Judicial Review and other proceedings was information withheld in Crown proceedings contrary S.8 CPIA 1996.
Both CRO’s have been imposed following civil claims to obtain data in relation to wrongful conviction. The purpose of the CRO’s has been to protect organisations within the CJS from the consequences of their own misconduct and from having to comply with such data protection regulations which would produce the materials sought. The organisation with the most to lose from being made to comply with their obligations at law is the CPS, who have also provided the longest statement in these proceedings. The statement contains a significant factual errors regarding wrongful conviction. This is very CPS. They have been asked to amend this in an addition to their statement by email 7.6.21. There has been no reply to this. Again this is very CPS.
It has been noted across my involvement with Lavender J that he invariably acts to protect state institutions from the effects of their own misconduct. The original CRO was entirely made to protect elements of the CJS from the exposure of their malfeasance in 1XXXXXXXX5 in the Hull Crown Court and to frustrate and complicate the process of appeal proceedings in relation to the wrongful conviction. As such the application of the CRO amounted to abuse of process in such a situation as I was in. The reasonable thing to have done would have been – if the claims at issue were indeed poorly particularised – to have allowed for an amended set of particulars to be filed. But the intention however has never been to allow a reasonable opportunity for me to use the civil system to correct such as the wrongful conviction but rather to limit, deny and frustrate the ability to do so.
CPR 3C 5.1 allows other parties to apply for CRO’s. It is noted that in relation to all of the organisations I refer to in these submissions which are outside of the CJS that no such application has been made from any of them. This suggests that they are aware that the basis of civil claims made against them are strong and that the claims themselves are properly particularised and pleaded. The difficulty comes from a judge who seeks to strike out applications made and who in the wording of his Orders in relation to such reveals a degree of personal antipathy towards me which further suggests it is unwise to allow him free reign over any application or claim in which I am involved.
The purpose of the original CRO was to protect Humberside CPS and Humberside Police from the effects of their own misconduct and the revelation of their making substantial efforts to gain a wrongful conviction. And ultimately the CRO’s have turned out to be pointless. They have has certainly created frustration, delay and difficulty but they have not prevented the acquisition of documents presently in the possession of a London based solicitor and obtained from Humberside Police via the efforts of an independent justice charity which were sought as the goal of the original judicial review proceedings. Withheld evidence showing factual innocence, documents showing the police at one point dropped the entire prosecution and that it was accepted there was no travel to the complainant on the day of supposed offences has now been obtained. Also requested now are copies of statements not provided to the Court or defence in the original set of proceedings but known to exist as these are referenced in other documents which do. The GCRO and ECRO from 2018 onwards simply has made the entire process of obtaining documents more complex and lengthy. It has required the involvement of an independent charity to obtain disclosures and arguably has lengthened the time for which I am wrongfully convicted. This in itself is a further injustice against me.
I have been involved with The All Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justice since 2018. I have also submitted evidence to The Westminster Commission on Miscarriages of Justice and am credited in their recent report for having done so. One of the areas I explore in my evidence to the Commission is how the civil system has been denied to me as a route to obtain evidence and information to enable to overturn of a wrongful conviction. I have been explicit in the background detail leading to the making of the GCRO and the ECRO and have stated that the CRO’s were imposed to prevent use of the civil system to embarrass elements in the CJS for their professional misconduct and misconduct in public office. Nor do I expect that I am the only person to have been subject to CRO’s to protect the CJS.
As stated all that the CRO’s since 2018 have done in relation to the wrongful conviction is to frustrate and delay. The evidence showing factual innocence required to enable a return to The Court of Appeal Criminal Division (CACD) is now obtained. As such the application of CRO’s in relation to matters pertaining to wrongful conviction has been a purposeful effort to cause difficulties in relation to appeal in such a way as to seek to end the appeal. As stated this has not worked and so the CRO’s in relation to wrongful conviction turn out to have been an act of phenomenal spite and vindictiveness against me personally as well as a means of attempting to protect the CJS from the effects of their own misconduct.
They have failed. Significant data showing the conviction is manifestly unsafe has been obtained. The appeal proceeds. It may be worth recalling in relation to the statement of CPS in this matter that the organisation withheld evidence of factual innocence in 2016 and continues to do so.
However Lavender J now has something of a bee in his bonnet about me, as evidenced by personal comments made regarding me in several Orders. Thus while the original purpose of the CRO’s was to prevent access to data Lavender J seeks to now prevent any other use of the civil system by them. I will now illustrate how this takes place, the injustice caused and the effects of this by considering the effects of the CRO’s in relation to other civil claims.
In DXXXXX0 the claim was issued pre-CRO yet the CRO was used as grounds to reject this running claim, the same applies for DXXXXX8. The retrospective application of a CRO to end meritorious running claims is an abuse of process and this indicates that the CRO was created for the purpose of ending meritorious claims against elements in the CJS even those which do not abut onto matters related to my wrongful conviction.
Now to consider the wider context: The civil system as a whole has fallen apart. The progress of any civil claim is met with incompetence, delay and poor service at all stages. The civil system was collapsing even before covid and is presently unable to function in any meaningful sense as a means of obtaining redress against any tortfeasor. To quote some examples from claim no. EXXXXX in the Leeds County Court. Court staff recently supplied the first defendant with my financial details in error. Kerching! Money awarded as a consequence. The claim in respect of the second defendant was delayed for over a year due to error on the part of court staff. Kerching! More money awarded. Presently a hearing due for w/c 26.4.21 has still not been scheduled… and on and on these errors go… As a consequence of all the errors made by court staff a complaint is made each time. Over the course of the last year the errors made by court staff have resulted in payments to me of just under three thousand pounds made either by the court itself of by Customer Investigations at Petty France. On one occasion a payment of £450.00 was made for one single incident.
These errors are systemic in the civil system. They show an operation in total collapse and that HMCTS is in denial about exactly how fractured and unable to function the system presently is. Hilariously the initial response to any complaint is either to deny the mistake has taken place or else to ignore the complaint. Outright incompetence, lack of motivated staff and the prevalence of administrative errors are the significant difficulties that any civil litigant ordinarily faces in using the courts to correct torts against them. The civil system has ceased to function or have any meaningful purpose when the process of taking a claim to trial becomes in itself so prevalent with frustrations and difficulties that any settlement recouped is hardly worth the loss of time and effort.
On top of these issues for me are thrown in the difficulties created by the CRO.
Now to consider the issues raised by the GCRO created almost two years ago.
The GCRO began in FXXXXX6 in relation to Humberside Police – it is odd that the judge in question makes such CRO’s following claims against the police stemming from a constabulary’s failure to act in relation to their obligations in law in order to protect their professional reputation from the consequences of their efforts to obtain a wrongful conviction. Lavender J made a GCRO which mirrored the ECRO made following the Judicial Review CO/5693/2017 in respect of the same organisation.
That in order to find material to justify the granting of a GCRO, as the claim itself had merit, the judge assessed and sifted material from as far back as 2012. This material was of course available when the ECRO was made but was not cited or used in relation to the same. This trawl through numerous past cases is odd since this material was available to the judge prior to the imposing of the ECRO in 2018. That this amounts to an incident of behaviour which chimes with some online allegations regarding the way the judge handles claims in relation to public bodies which I will discuss more further into this matter.
Thus the granting of two CRO’s in relation to proposed proceedings against bodies in the CJS gives rise to the suggestion that the Courts are acting to protect a wrongful conviction and the reputation of the CJS by the application of civil restraint orders and strike out of meritorious applications which would, if allowed to continue, provide evidence of malicious conduct, incompetence and malfeasance leading to wrongful conviction. That this forms an abuse of process and a breach of my Convention Rights as well as a manipulation of the civil system.
Let us consider one other example of how this works to create difficulties which I will confine to one case, this being DXXXXXX6.
In relation to the appeal into wrongful conviction fresh evidence has periodically been obtained from 2017 onwards even before the involvement of an independent justice charity who have since done astonishing work. Legally privileged material is created in the pursuit of appeal into wrongful conviction and legal advice is obtained which is also privileged. Periodically West Yorkshire Police attend my home to seize such materials which are removed and never returned bar on one occasion. Again as with the original CRO and its later incarnations the purpose of this removal is to frustrate and delay the process of appeal to assist the CJS. DXXXXXX6 was begun to obtain the return of devices and materials seized by police contrary to common law. The claim proceeded for some two years until the point where it met Lavender J who decided to strike out a civil claim which had been before three previous judges and which pre-dated any CRO. The grounds for this were that the claim apparently had no merit. If this were the case then it would have been struck out long before.
In the matter of DXXXXXX6 part of the claim was for the removal of and failure to return electronic devices. Even though no proof of wrongdoing in relation to the same is produced or subject to criminal proceedings devices are routinely not returned, replaced or compensated for. Assurances were given that I would be recompensed by West Yorkshire Police which were recorded in the judgment striking out that matter of October 2019. And immediately reneged upon by them. The purpose of the CRO’s in full can be seen here: that they work to deny access to the civil system at the same time as allowing tortfeasors to carry on towards me with whatever level of malfeasance they wish safe in the knowledge that Lavender J is prepared to act as a gatekeeper to the civil and criminal system to prevent the outcome of their behaviour from having any consequences for them. Consequently I have been subjected to what amounts to theft of electronic devices, legally privileged materials and also breach of agreement made before the judge. This has created additional work to recover LP / LPP materials and financial loss. These are the fruits of the CRO.
It is noted that Mike Percival of West Yorkshire Police was the person offering assurance before Lavender J in respect of the return and repayment for devices. He has made a statement for these proceedings but failed to attend in person as he would be liable to be questioned over the failure to act in accordance with his assurances. Thus any matters raised by West Yorkshire Police in relation to the continuation of a CRO must be understood in the light of this behaviour. Recent correspondence with Percival over the matter of the return and replacement of devices included a direct threat to me from Percival over his intended actions in the event that I did not drop the matter. Copies of all such emails have been retained. At para. 4 of his statement he refers to correspondence with PSD which PSD has not been responded to in line with The Police Reform Act 2002 and that matter is presently before IOPC. Percival fails to mention this. Indeed there is a great deal Percival fails to mention as this does not suit his aims of protecting his force from the consequences of their own misconduct. Sufficient materials available easily online from investigative journalists such as Neil Wilby will give reasons for disquiet regarding the integrity and reliability of Percival. It is noted that when a pre-legal letter arrives from a firm to West Yorkshire Police their first reaction is to conduct a harassing doorstep visit and this has taken place twice now on the days following pre-legal correspondence being sent to West Yorkshire Police. It is in the light of this that the reliability of the statement of West Yorkshire Police in these proceedings should be considered. Indeed since the end of DXXXXX6 there have been several other instances of WYP removing legally privileged material or newly located evidence to the extent that any such in relation to appeal proceedings is now immediately retained wholly by firm instructed in appeal proceedings and not by myself.
Incidents such as those I have described above lead to my acceptance that regardless of the extent of the misconduct practiced against me that I now cannot seek assistance from the civil courts on the basis that any claim will be funnelled to straight to Lavender J who will dismiss the claim at the first instance. Again this is the fruit of the CRO. Whilever a CRO is in place it is an invite for misconducting organisations to bully, harass and commit torts against me. I now look at the efforts of Lavender J to interfere and end running claims not related to the CRO and which have been before other judges. In EXXXXXX4 I was surprised that a document from late 2019 from Lavender J should suddenly appear. This was claimed to be produced in November 2019. It was however supplied in the claim in March 2020 I further do not believe the account from the Court in an email of 4.3.20 (which alerted me to this document) that document was drawn in November 2019 and lost by the Court for some four months. The document is sealed stating 4.3.20. It was sent to me on 4.3.20 at 12:22.
Now on the day before this three applications in claim no.’s GXXXXXX8, GXXXXXXX7 & EXXXXX5 were sent 3.3.20 at 16:32. Each of these applications referenced materials located online which questioned the integrity of Lavender J . The content of these materials roughly mirrored the experiences I have had with Lavender J. As the site stated that he sought to close down any claim against a public body regardless of the merits of the claim. I have retained a full copy of this site.
The wording of the Orders produced in response to the applications made on 3.3.20 almost veer into personal attacks on me as a claimant. This is clearly anger on the part of Lavender J in relation to the materials found online and my reference to them in the applications. Then the sudden, mysterious appearance of an Order in a separate claim, which the Court stated was produced some four months late which strikes out the claim.
The three applications were that that the judge recuses himself from dealing with me in future, that prior judgments made by him are peer reviewed and that no further civil restraint orders are imposed by this judge. That the Orders of 5.3.20 in relation to the application seemed to suggest intemperance on the part of the judge as the online references may well have touched a nerve.
I then find that an Order comes through the following day from the same judge to delay and frustrate an existing claim and which is claimed by the Court to be from November 2019. The Order claimed to have been drawn in November 2019 was in fact not created at that point but rather by the judge in a fit of pique in relation to the content of the three applications entered with the Court on 3.3.20.
Is it reasonable to assume that an Order would be made and lost for some five months by the Court? Since the case file will have been accessed several times since October 2019 in relation to applications made in the case and hearing dates set etc. the assertions that the Order was drawn and “lost” are not credible. It is too much of a coincidence that it is claimed that this document was located so soon after the 3.3.20 applications and the intemperate responses to these applications in Orders. Thus the claims regarding the Order being created in 2019 amount to misconduct in public office, and abuse of process as does the drafting of the Order itself. That this amounts to misconduct in a public office by judiciary and members of HMCTS staff.
That the judge at issue would – it is hypothesised – have wished to act to cause difficulty for me in a separate claim on the basis of the comments made regarding materials found online which were contained in the applications in GXXXXX8, GXXXXX7 & EXXXXXX5 of 3.3.20.
Of course this gives additional grounds for concern regarding the actions of the judge at issue and for this reason the applications in respect of this judge recusing himself etc. are reinforced by the actions described.. An application was made to request the judge recuse himself from any future involvement with me in those three applications. This was refused. The production of the Order referred to is an abuse of HMCTS’ staff, systems and processes for an improper collateral purpose. In this instance to frustrate the process of justice in relation to ongoing claims.
And yet when Lavender J is not involved with claims they work remarkably well. Consider HXXXXXXX1 in The Queen’s Bench Division. Over a running period of two years this claim was successful and achieved its goal. Before both Master Davison and Mr. Justice Eady none of the particulars were deemed to be inadequate in the way that applications via Lavender J are deemed to be as justification for early strike-out, or more often a late strike out of ongoing claims. The claim achieved its goals and progressed smoothly. Indeed such as DXXXXX6 also progressed smoothly until referred by HHJ Kelly to Lavender J who proceeded to strike out a claim which had been running for two years prior, doing so on spurious grounds.
At present any application in an existing claim or application to commence proceedings are referred, under the CRO to Lavender J who immediately acts to strike these out. Often this is done on the grounds that the particulars are insufficiently pleaded. However if HXXXXXXX1 can progress successfully at QBD where the standards of written particulars are higher then I would suggest to you that the pleadings made in claims are not at fault so much as the desire to strike out claims of merit to protect such the MoJ, HMCTS and suchlike. Several other claims have been issued in the last few years prior to the GCRO and have progressed to a successful outcome. Therefore it is not that I as a litigant in person cannot draft a set of particulars or issue unmeritorious claims but that claims against bodies in the CJS are stated to be this way as grounds for strike out.
Where it is not possible to strike out a claim on the grounds of merit or such a matter is outside of the field of Lavender J to interfere other means are deployed to try to dismiss claims. Consider EXXXXX7 which was a data protection act claim in relation to Doncaster Children’s Services. In January 2020 a hearing was held in Doncaster County Court before DDJ Nix. Produced for this hearing from Judicial Office was a copy of an incorrect certificate of conviction (doubtless the same that CPS refer to in their statement for these proceedings, corrected since). At the same time a copy of the GCRO was supplied to the Court by judicial office together with the claim that the case impinged upon the Order and thus stood to be struck out. The claim pre-dated the GCRO and did not impinge upon it. Of more serious significance was the production of the certificate of conviction since it was factually incorrect and clearly produced in order to sway the Court’s opinions. In an email from Jane Yoxall at Sheffield Combined Court the source of this malicious data was stated to be the judiciary. The purpose of the supply of both of these documents was to stop the trial due to take place. The claim was eventually won by me as the judge agreed that the GCRO was not relevant to the claim and a copy of the correctly worded certificate of conviction was supplied to the Court by me. But interference in relation that claim from judicial office is a matter of exceptional seriousness and shows the extent to which certain parties will go in order to delay and deny access to justice. The person responsible at judicial office has never been located as judiciary hide behind the fact that they do not operate under data protection or data access legislation. However I am reasonably confident that I am sure in myself as to who was responsible for this outrageous and unacceptable behaviour.
Another odd thing to have happened was the inclusion of the judgment of Mr., Justice Butcher on CaseMine. It is odd that a case which had no significant features which would have resulted in it being included on such a site and indeed clearly set no precedent should have found its way into such a public forum. Perhaps because the judgment mentioned the wrongful conviction so prominently and significantly there were reasons why it was submitted by someone for inclusion on the site. A few persuasive arguments from me to CaseMine and it was just as quickly removed from the site. It remains removed from the site. However the appearance of it online in the first instance is perturbing: both of the above incidents suggest that suggesting that there is someone prepared to act in a cloak and dagger manner unbecoming to their position.
Lavender J is of course familiar himself with embarrassing material appearing online. I was notified in March 2020 of a specific website hosted by WordPress which is:
I do not intent to repeat all of the content of this site here suffice to say that if correct then the handling of any claims and applications by The Hon. Mr. Justice Lavender J together with judgments and Orders made in respect of me are ripe for review. The site alleges that this judge mishandles claims against public authorities such as the cases referred to above and states a possible motivation for the judge to do this. This site and one other site contain allegations of perverting the course of justice by Lavender J particularly it seems in cases in which Police or local authorities are involved. I believe the site was produced by someone in the Norwich area. The judge has declined to comment on this matter in the judgments given of 5.3.20 in relation to claims at GXXXXX8, GXXXXX7 & EXXXXX5. This fails wholly to address the issues brought within the applications that the judge may be disinclined to allow meritorious applications and claims to proceed against public authorities for reasons best known to himself but which are stated in the sites quoted. However it is noted that in addition to myself at least one other person has reached the conclusion that this judge will dismiss claims made against public bodies despite the strength of the case. In several Orders now the wording of the Orders rejecting the application made – often in proceedings that pre-date the Order tends to run the same. It is likely that there is a template pre-prepared in relation to this! I would be interested to see the wording of other Orders in relation to persons subject to a CRO from Lavender J to see if the wording is the same. The wording “Mr. KXXXXX wastes public costs and had done so for years” always appears at a set part of the Order. Likewise other identical comments appear in the same position in other parts of the Orders.
In cases such as DXXXXX6 & FXXXXX4 applications were made in the expectation of a 14-day turnaround as HMCTS’ standard. Both of these applications before Lavender J took six months before a response was received: in both instances the purpose of the application was lost because of the time taken to respond. Again this represents an injustice and the time taken to respond to matters is simply a further way of delaying and denying justice. This cannot be accidental. The six months taken to responds in respect of DXXXXXX6 & FXXXXX4 did not apply however in relation to those three claims I mentioned earlier, being GXXXXX8, GXXXXX7 & EXXXXX5. In the applications for each of these I mentioned the WordPress site I had been notified of which carried the allegations in respect of Lavender J skewing judgments in favour of state organisations and striking out such claims. These three applications did not take six months to action: they took three days. And the Orders issued in relation to them contained language which verged on the intemperate. It is clear from the wording that Lavender J was rattled and angry by the mention of the sites discussed and that this contributed to the wording of the Orders and the dismissal of the claims. The style of the wording used in the Orders issued in GXXXXX8, GXXXXXX7 & EXXXXX5 has formed the template for any Orders issued since which I discussed a moment ago. This consists of allegations regarding my conduct and character which are not supported by reference to the facts or to the manner in which I conduct myself in proceedings: they are comments designed to upset and distress me as a claimant and to create prejudice and bad feeling in any other party who reads them. The contents of these Orders show a degree of personal antipathy the existence of which is re-enforced by the other issues I have raised in these submissions. It is undesirable that a person who holds such feelings should be able to make significant decisions on these claims or that the CRO the they have imposed should remain. My opinion in relation to these matters is this behaviour from Lavender J amounts to targeted discrimination.
At this point you may well of course throw your hands in the air and profess that these are ludicrous accusations
[Following section redacted from online publication as concerns ongoing investigation into third parties not concerned with this matter.]
The relevance of this in relation to these matters are that judge’s can engage in actions which are ethically questionable and sometimes for personal reasons.
Despite what is written scurrilously in various Orders from Lavender J I neither relish nor enjoy the process of bringing civil claims. There are many other more worthwhile things to do with my time and in every instance I give the other party sufficient chances to avoid any form of proceedings before they begin. However the existence of such as a CRO, if the other party is aware of it as several I have cited in this statement are, means that they are less likely to settle an issue pre-action as there is no incentive for them to do so if they can cite the existence of a CRO as part of grounds for striking out a claim at an early stage. While I do not enjoy the process of civil claims if this is the only means by which I can obtain redress then I will not allow an injustice to sit. This is rather the purpose of the civil system, is it not? To allow a person to obtain satisfaction for torts committed against them. In judicial review CO/XXXX/2017 – another successful claim properly particularised and with merit – the purpose was to obtain a copy of the court file in relation to my wrongful conviction. The court initially and wrongfully denied access to this. The judicial review proceedings once issued obtained it. Another instance of my bringing a case which has merit and is successful. Had such an application for the Court file been made today it would have been denied by Lavender J on some obscure basis and the data of value to appeal would have not been available to me.
I will give one more example of the extent to which the existing CRO makes me an aunt sally for all and sundry. On 18.5.20 MoJ mistakenly sent me materials intended for The Metropolitan Police in respect of a POCA application regarding a man in the Kent area. The data sent to me in error contained every significant personal detail of this man and his bank accounts etc. the data would have proved gold for anyone of criminal intent. I informed ICO of this on the grounds that it formed a significant data breach. MoJ took exception to this and so sought to have me arrested. Subsequent data obtained from subject access requests shows that the Data Security Manager at MoJ suggested the need to “give him a shock” rather than because of any wrongdoing on my part. Indeed I was arrested in relation to this matter and – you’ve guessed correctly – any devices containing LP / LPP materials were again taken breaching common law. This is standard West Yorkshire Police practice to ignore such common law rights. Much in the way of proceedings could stem from this: the malignancy of MoJ for wanting me arrested due to the embarrassment caused to them (and of course this is another glimpse into a malfunctioning justice system), the predictable removal of LP / LPP without triage and of course wrongful arrest and detention and the loss of liberty. However is there any point in bringing any form of proceedings in a situation in which all and any grounds for a claim will be struck out by Lavender J at the first opportunity? Well yes as the same rights in relation to protection from such as wrongful arrest and loss of liberty apply to me as everyone else but the process for pushing the claim forward becomes considerably more complex and costly financially and in terms of time. There is no incentive for either MoJ or WYP to settle this matter amicably or at all since both are well aware that the ultimate sanction in the event that pre-legal negotiations were to fail is not open to me. Thus they can and have compounded their initial torts by failure to respond in any meaningful way to complaints made. Both can do this – and indeed they are not the only bodies to fail to engage with issues raised – as they are aware that my ability to cause them discomfort and inconvenience via legal action is severely limited by a CRO. This is the reason for Percival wishing the CRO to continue: they wish to evade civil proceedings for wrongful arrest. Thus if you are considering extension of any CRO you need to consider if the Order is likely to extend a period in which I am prejudiced against and mistreated by such as MoJ because of such as the proceeding appeal or – as I have stated – due to their own malice. I would say that there are sufficient examples I have given you here of injustice caused by the CRO that it cannot reasonably continue. The aim of the CRO in the first instance was to prevent Humberside Police and CPS producing material which would show they obtained a wrongful conviction by abuse of process so the very basis of the initial CRO and the later GCRO was in itself to perpetuate an injustice. Sufficient material for appeal has now been obtained via an independent campaign group.
This hearing was originally set for 17.5.21. I could not make that date as I have to act as advocate in medical matters for a vulnerable family member who had a medical review that day and informed the Court of this. The response came back from Lavender J on 12.5.21: “The judge is prepared to adjourn the hearing currently fixed for Monday 17 May 2021, on the basis that general civil restraint order will be extended until the adjourned hearing.
CPR states at PD 3C:
4.9 A general civil restraint order –
(1) will be made for a specified period not exceeding 2 years;
4.10 The court may extend the duration of a general civil restraint order, if it considers it appropriate to do so, but it must not be extended for a period greater than 2 years on any given occasion.
The judge has in effect attempted to issue an Order (that the CRO is extended beyond two years) without putting such into a formal Order and without formal proceedings. Such an Order made properly could be challenged via appeal. But I cannot challenge formally challenge at Court a decree issued via quotes in emails. This thus represents a further injustice. Issue of an edict by email with no Order has no legal validity and the extension was originally for an unspecified period.
In an email of 15.5.21 I stated my concerns with Orders issued via emails quotes and not in the normal way.
Since a judge can extend a CRO for up to two years beyond the initial Order and there are no reasonable grounds to do so the opinion of other organisations has been sought in Schedule 2 of the Order of 7.5.21. These are invariably (with one exemption) organisations in the CJS who have misconducted themselves in relation to me and thus have most to loose from the removal of the CRO. It is noted that other bodies subject to proceedings have not been contacted and this re-enforces the idea that the purpose of the CRO is to protect bodies and persons in the CJS from the consequences of their own actions as well as protect the reputation of the CJS.
Little surprise then that two organisations happy to put their opinions into these proceedings are two with the most to lose from the removal of the CRO: CPS and West Yorkshire Police. Let us consider the former to begin with. In relation to the wrongful conviction at Hull Crown Court in November 2016 it is known that some 30 documents were purposefully withheld. These included ANPR evidence showing no travel to the complainant on the date of the supposed offences and two additional statements from the complainant which are referenced in other documents but which were not produced for the Court or the defence. CPS were subject of an application for Judicial Review of their refusal to produce these documents under relevant information right law. They have much to lose from being forced to produce the documents: these will show systemic misconduct on the part of CPS to obtain wrongful conviction. The assertion that there has been no contact with CPS over the duration of the CRO made in their statement is wrong: I have attempted to obtain a copy of consent to prosecute over supposed indecent images which has been denied. I have also attempted to confirm that an MG6B was supplied to CPS detailing the prior misconduct of an officer in the case who claims to have carried out digital forensics work, a DC Julian McGill, given that we are now aware of prior disciplinary offences for computer misuse. One further thing regarding the CPS statement. It is noted that this is written by the wife of the head of CPS for Yorkshire and Humber and someone together with their husband Gerry will stand considerable reputational damage from the forthcoming appeal proceedings. As with the West Yorkshire Police statement, the accuracy of which I will mention, the material you are being presented with by CPS is not factually accurate or the whole picture. Here at para. 6 I am claimed to have been found guilty of meeting a child following sexual grooming. This is not an offence I have been convicted of but they are happy to put this data before the Court. That’s very CPS: incompetent, careless and inaccurate.
It would appear also that the complainant in the Crown Court case and her mother have been contacted in relation to these proceedings and invited to offer an opinion. That neither is willing to take part is not a surprise. LXXX TXXXXX has since been outed in the national media as a serial sex offence complainant and compensation seeker following her attempt to target BXXr RXXXXn, or Viscount RXXXXn of CXXXXXa as he is known, son of Lord GXXXXe. The press articles on this 2018 incident are still plentiful on the internet. One thing a serial compensation seeker needs to carry out their work is anonymity and it it known she has targeted at least one other male between myself and the Viscount. Little wonder she is not prepared to take part in these proceedings as she’s taken the money and run each time.
Thus the existence of the CRO’s – publicised online contrary to such as the Right to Privacy – for all to see enables organisation with whom I come into contact to be able to act with whatever level of misconduct they wish towards me secure in the knowledge that they can cite the CRO in relation to any proceedings which might miraculously get as far an initial hearing as justification for an early strike out. This has taken place in relation to the actions of the First Defendant in EXXXXX4. The CRO creates prejudice in the mind of any district judge that a claim is before.To revert to my earliest comments in relation to the CRO’s: the original of these was made to frustrate the goal of obtaining data from Humberside Police pursuant to their failure to provide the same contrary their obligations at law.
There’s an interesting power dynamic going on here. A High Court judge who seems to have a maligant interest in a litigant in person and who seeks to end any application or claim he makes by whatever means possible. The judge at issue will act to end meritorious claims against public authorities, has done so in the week the 7.5.21 Order for these proceedings was made and would appear to be doing so for reasons incompatible with his judicial oath, duty of care or the interests of justice
If an application has no merit then it can be struck out by the first judge who it comes before, often at the paperwork stage or around the point of issue. The system thus exists already to strike out unmeritorious, vexatious or hopeless claims outside of the existence of CRO’s. There is no requirement for a CRO except to limit and restrict me personally. Indeed as stated many of the claims I have issued in the last four years have gone to be successful and I have cited examples of these. No. The purpose of the CRO is to protect the CJS from applications in the civil system to obtain data and information which may be of value to appeal proceedings at CACD. This can be seen in the strike out of claims related to CJS matters by Lavender J which pre-date the CRO and have clear merit, having been before other judges prior. This is the reason all but one of the organisations invited to contribute to today’s hearing are in the CJS. They have the most to lose by further correct use of the civil system to obtain satisfaction or enforce legal rights. No other organisation outside of the CJS has an opinion on today’s proceedings: those who routinely practice misconduct and malfeasance within it of course do.
I have raised serious issues regarding the conduct of Lavender J. Full materials in relation to the same have been retained and I would expect any Court before which these issues are raised to consider proper investigation of the matters as appropriate.
A request was made in August 2020 for data from a subdivision of The Ministry of Justice. The response (issued outside the time limits for such in law) stated:
This is actually a two-headed matter. A complaint of poor service thrown in with a data access request for the data which proves the grounds of the complaint are correct and that multiple errors occurred. Needless to say the subdivision ignored the complaint and requested I make the data access request to London, as seen above.
You will see how this letter refers me to Data Access office as being the correct source of the data required. So Data Access were contacted in late September 2020 and the data again requested from them.
Some five months later and several chase-ups by email and Data Access deny they are the source of the data. The data is apparently best obtained from the office I originally wrote to.
There is little that can be said for this game of piggy-in-the-middle except to say that I will not play it.
The source of the apparent information that they cannot fulfil this data access request are unnamed “senior managers” whose details I have requested. Odd how it’s always some unnamed person as the source of an instruction that sends the public on a wild goose chase.
The disclosure team for MoJ are ultimately responsible for the production of data access requests made to sub departments within MoJ. The requests made in mid-2020 are indeed data access requests. They seek specific data and this is clear from the requests themselves. It is the job of Disclosure Team to work with the sub department of MoJ I first communicated with to obtain the data from them and then relay it to me.
It looks very much like both offices are attempting to evade the production of data via a game of piggy-in-the-middle and delay. Unsurprisingly the subsidiary office originally contacted has failed to respond to the initial complaint linked to this data request.
This request has been before Data Access office since September 2020 and has only just received the response of “go back to the start”. Taking this delay in response alone as a single issue would render the handling of the request wholly unacceptable and a breach of the relevant law.
By seeking to frustrate the request in this way The Ministry of Justice has earned itself a referral to The Information Commissioner’s Office.
Was going to write a length diatribe on how badly served we are by Civil Appeals Office at The Royal Courts of Justice but a short explanation, a couple of screenshots and a reproduced email do the job just as well.
This is a blog entry about how a civil appeal matter has received suboptimal service by HMCTS staff, how it’s taken some five months to identify claimed issues with documents supposedly not being sent, but in fact these documents were supplied. How is this related to the shady post of Dismissal List Manager which HMCTS dislike revealing the details of?
To start with here are the screenshots. I’ve been waiting for a response from Civil Appeals Office on this matter since November 2020, their last communication to me prior to this taking some two months to be sent.
Joseph Goswell states his position is in the Case Management Section at Civil Appeals office. He writes:
What is stated to be wrong with the application… Rather a tight time limit for a letter sent to an Applicant on 11.2.21!
In actual fact none of the stated errors with the application exist. All the documents required in the matter were supplied in September 2020. See the reproduced email below.
One thing Joseph Goswell doesn’t tend to advertise is his other job at HMCTS – Dismissal List Manager. This is certainly not the post he mentions in the above letter.
It is noted that HMCTS are very shifty and refuse to answer reasonable data access requests for what a Dismissal List Manager actually does. For more on this bizarre refusal to address a perfectly legitimate question see the link below:
Ludicrously it is claimed no data exists on the role and the responses given to the data access request above are so vague as to be meaningless. In a position paid for out of the public purse why such coyness unless there’s a vested interest in keeping the data secret.
However we can theorise that this role may be someone within HMCTS whose purpose is to frustrate claims at an administrative level for the purpose of enabling them to be dismissed. This seems to tally with the letter content written above in which non-existent issues are identified with a bundle. Of course if HMCTS would like to explain what this role actually is then I’d be happy to include the data here.
My email in response to the letter from Civil Appeals Office states:
I refer to your email below.
I note the delay in response to any issue arising out of this matter and that there has been no communication from your office since November last year. I note that the email prior to that took some two months to receive a response.
The core bundle was filed and served on 2.9.20. Since that point CA have not identified any issue with the bundle which would make it non-compliant.
You state that there is no index. A copy of the index was supplied (index.doc). This shows the reference number for each of the following documents which corresponds to the number starting each document. As was a copy of the sealed order being appealed against (4). The Judicial Review claim form is at (12) and the grounds for JR both follow on from this. In other words all of the grounds you give for the bundle being in error are in fact present and correct and have been with your office since September 2020.
I note further that there has been no communication from CA since September 2020 in relation to the bundle supplied. We are now some five months gone from September 2020. Perhaps you could explain why this is so if there are thought to be errors? For your convenience I have attached a copy of all correspondence so far with CA office.
To go from September 2020 to February 2021 without identifying errors in a bundle and reverting to the Claimant five months later and only at the point at which the Claimant chases the matter up represents an unacceptable service level failure for which I now make a formal complaint to The Court Manager. The errors you state exist with the bundle are not present, as I have shown.
It is further poor service that the attached letter of 11.2.21 states you require these errors correcting by 18.2.21 when you have been sat on these issues for so long. However as stated above each of the documents you claim not to be present is in fact present within the bundle.
A further copy of the bundle is attached to this email.
Please inform me of the progress of this matter, and the progress of the complaint alongside the name of the Court Manager to whom the matter has been referred.
Email of 12.2.21 ends.
So there are the following issues arising here:
Let’s assume there WERE errors in the bundle supplied to The Court of Appeal… why does it take five months for these to be identified?
More to the point why wait until an Applicant emails the court five months later before informing of these?
..and then give a total of seven days in a pandemic (five if we discount the weekend) for these to be corrected when these matters have been left to lay on file for five months now?
Admin staff can see that all of the documents they claim were not supplied were in fact attached with the original bundle. So why do they claim they were not?
Why has there been no communication on this claim for some three months?
Why is there seemingly no data on the post of Dismissal List Manager which can be made public?
Why does Joseph Goswell not use his correct title in the letter to me of 11.2.21?
Suspect the answer to the above questions can be found in the shady and little-stated other position of Joseph Goswell as “Dismissal List Manager”!
Is the handling of this matter standard HMCTS incompetence or is the role of Dismissal List Manager a shadier one than we can imagine and one in which civil claims are subject to interdiction and mishandling to frustrate them?
As always anyone or any organisation cited in this blog post has a right to corrections which I will be happy to make on receipt of relevant evidence.
UPDATE TO THE ABOVE: 19.9.21.
I have today been contacted by email by another person who has had a very similar experience with the same people in the same department as I have.
The experience relayed by this person is interesting. Goswell’s position as “Dismissal List Manager” suggests a specific purpose: does HMCTS have a policy of purposefully frustrating and delaying certain types of claim which might prove embarrassing or politically sensitive to the organisation? More data needed but at least three persons to my knowledge have had experiences which suggest so.
Has someone ever asked you “Does my bum look big in this?”. Did you feel inclined to answer honestly or fib a little to offer some comfort and solace while still being truthful?
The simple fact is that lots of people lie on an almost daily basis. The majority of these are “white lies” which are popularly thought to do no harm, but despite this have a habit of coming back and affecting us in all sorts of ways.
However we used to expect more from people in public positions. The popular myth of the lying politician has of course been around for generations. But often this was more a matter of an MP having been caught out when circumstances rapidly change, or they were simply poor communicators, as opposed to them directly seeking to deceive. Once being caught out as a liar would end a political career either via resignation or sacking. Not any more.
I have dealt with public bodies for the best part of thirty years now and I have detected a drop in standards from state-run organisations which roughly parallels the drop in standards in public life generally.
Sorry to ruin your day by reminding you of these mendacious b******* (pt. 1)
Here’s my theory.
When Tony Blair’s New Labour came to power in 1997 and Blair walked into Downing Street for the first time there appeared to be – to the casual observer – a public demonstration of joy as people lined Downing Street cheering and waving flags. Hooray for the new dawn for Britain!
Except that this wasn’t the case. Those people were all Labour Party activists and not members of the public. But we were supposed to think these were happy Londoners expressing gratitude. Thus the New Labour Goverment of 1997 – 2010 started its term in office with a cynical little deception.
And so it continued. The rise of political spin and outright deception marred any beneficial policies New Labour brought. The 1997 cohort of MP’s still present in opposition continue to practice the same spin and evasion when caught out not doing their jobs that they’ve practiced for years. For more details of the long term effects of this spin and deception ask the average Iraqi citizen.
Some time past mistakes made by organisations such as HMCTS in handling claims were few and far between. Staff were trained, diligent and in a job more or less for life. When a mistake was made an apology was issued and a correction made quickly. Thus mistakes were learning experiences which made staff better employees and future errors less likely. However from 1997 onwards I remember I detected there was a shift: mistakes became something to be covered up like guilty family secrets. Court Managers became adept at avoiding addressing the key aspects of a complaint (“we have investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong”) in order to avoid blame.
This is entirely parallel to the New Labour age of spin and public relations managment style Government. Anyone remember “A good day to bury bad news”? That one was a big hit back in 2001.
Arguably in the last few years the efforts made to avoid admitting clear errors have mutated into something far more corrosive. Such as Court Managers and Area Directors now deny – in the face of clear documentary evidence – that an error in a claim has occured at all.
The rise of political lying has been very well documented in the last few years and started in ernest with Tory Chancellor George Osborne and Michael Gove who clearly sought to decieve and deployed mendacity as a deliberate political weapon. It seems we now have a Government who are happy to issue untruths on a daily basis secure in the knowledge that the world moves on so fast that by the time their comments have been fact-checked and the truth known that the public will largely have swallowed the lie.
So it is now with public bodies. In many cases the organisation – and I speak of such as MoJ and HMCTS etc. – as I have the majority experience of these two – are so chaotically run that more and more daily errors occur and it is impossible to catch all of these and correct them. For example case files are returned to storage incomplete and disordered as staff run around a a blind panic with no clear idea what they are tasked with.
Sorry to ruin your day by reminding you of these mendacious b******* (pt. 2)
The end result of all this is clear. Any trust remaining in public institutions vanishes. No learning from an error occurs and so it is repeated.
Management cannot address every error as it occurs and so they outright deny such a problem has happened, even when it is clear the whole system is close to collapse. The rise of political lying gives them an example to follow and once again sets the tone for how those employed by the state act. It’s Nelson putting the telescope to his eyepatch and saying “I see no ships”.
This blog is in danger of becoming a post largely carping on about service level failures by court staff at HMCTS.
Having said that the errors they make are sufficiently numerous and serious in consequence that they’re like busses: there’s always another one along in a minute. This makes it very easy to produce material for this blog. Although I’m likely to get bored of telling you about all of these errors long before HMCTS stop making them.
Doncaster: the County Court here fails to serve the people of the city well.
The kind of service level failures court staff specialise in would – in any normal workplace – result in disciplinary proceedings. But HMCTS is presently sufficiently desperate to retain any form of staff to keep at least a semblance of function in civil courts that even the most spectacularly gaff-prone employees are retained. Better the devil you know than someone even more slackly incompetent.
The end result of this for court users is of course loss of time, expense and waste of effort.
And so it has been today in relation to a claim at Doncaster County Court, (already noted for more than its fair share of errors in handling this particular claim) at which yet another service level failure has take place.
In several occasions in the past both parties have been all set for trial only for the trial to be cancelled when all are in attendance. Grounds: over-running of a prior matter, file in poor condition etc. On one occasion the file was even lost!
There’s always an excuse for appalling service but the basic grounds ultimately come down to two things: an inability on the part of court staff to administrate claims properly and the failure of District Judges to deploy appropriate oversight of a case or to get a grip on case management issues.
An application in this claim was made in April 2020. Estimated time to hearing was 12 weeks, which of course came and went without any Notice of Hearing.
Two other hearings In the same claim took place in October and November at which the application could have been scheduled to be heard. Needless to say it wasn’t even though the District Judge made clear she was aware of its existence.
This is a critical fact: that staff failed to schedule the application in a way that would have dealt with it reasonably at an appropriate time within the claim, saving the parties time and effort. Having acknowledged receipt of the application they simply forgot all about it
…until the point I sent them a timely reminder in relation to the application. This brought a further hearing date. Which again drags all the parties over to Doncaster for what ultimately ends up as a futile exercise.
When the matter of the application could have been heard within other hearings in the same claim but wasn’t because court staff forgot about it we have clear evidence that the civil court system has collapsed and cannot now administrate in even the most basic respects.
How do many legal professionals react to their cases being so poorly run? Often by keeping their heads down and accepting the situation. To speak out in public or in the court itself would perhaps cause damage to careers and lead the judiciary to take against them on future appearances. And so nothing in the civil system improves.
HMCTS service standards are… well not very good at all really!
A Freedom of Information Act request to The Ministry of Justice produced the following data.
Payments made for poor service from HMCTS increasing year on year.
The data largely speaks for itself. Payments made to court users for poor service increase year on year as HMCTS falls apart.
Poor customer service by HMCTS is costing at least £292k per year in payments made to disgruntled court users. This is of course not counting the time taken to correct errors they have made which also counts as a loss to the public purse and creates delay overall in the system.
Most importantly if you’ve been in receipt of poor service from a court make sure you complain. And don’t be fobbed off: they’re experts at dissembling and denying. Of course at every stage also request to be compensated. It’s only when the budget for payment of compensation exceeds what The Ministry of Justice is prepared to pay out that service standards will improve.
Being an example of how HMCTS commit critical errors in handling civil claims and how they then evade responding properly to complaints.
Street of Shame: HMCTS are currently based in the old Home Office building in St. James’, London.
The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) are a company noted for the provision of dodgy software to the NHS. Errors in systems provided by TPP resulted in the biggest data loss in NHS history. In that incident in 2017 / 2018 hundreds of thousands of people had their medical history sold to US companies, despite having signed to confirm they did not wish their data to be shared, breaching every conceivable data protection principal.
A claim was started by myself into this significant data breach as my own data was amongst that shared against my express written wishes that it should not.
Here’s where the fun begins.
Because the standards of service at Leeds Combined Court are uniformly awful a claimant has to struggle against both the ineptness of the court’s handling of a claim as much as they have to fight to prove their case. Like many other areas of modern Britain the State by a combination of ineptness and avoidance makes everyday tasks significantly more complex and difficult than they need to be.
The results of an investigation into the errors made by the court by HMCTS Customer Investigations speak for themselves. An extract from the letter is below but to summarise (and include detail HMCTS failed to, you’ll not be surprised to learn), the errors made in the claim include – but are not limited to:
1. Fourteen months to action a Directions Questionnaire put in by the Defendant TPP. This failure by court staff to manage the claim in the most simple and basic way effectively brought the claim to a grinding halt.
2. Despite emails from myself chasing the progress of the claim within those fourteen months no action was taken by the court. In effect emails chasing progress of the claim and requesting updates on what was happening were simply ignored.
3. The court should have referred the matter of the Directions Questionnaire to a judge within a matter of a few weeks of it being received. They failed to do this. No other system in their offices alerted staff to the fact that an ongoing claim was stuck in stasis and no-one seemed to both to check on its progress.
4. Consequently this delay breached one of the Overriding Objectives in the Civil Procedure Rules to deal with cases justly and swiftly.
5. Naturally this generated a complaint from myself.
The first stage response of this was mendacious, evasive and effectively sought to deny any errors had been made. The excuses offered by the court were barefaced and failed to fit the facts such that a child could have picked holes in their logic.
6. I appealed and requested a second stage complaint response from the Court Manager at Leeds Combined Court, the reliably slippery Joanne Town.
7. And reliably slippery is what she proved to be. Or maybe she was embarrassed to have to answer for the significant error made by staff. No communication came back from her as a second stage complaint response. This was chased several times over the course of some months. See the footnote at the bottom of this blog entry.
By this failure to respond HMCTS sought to kill the complaint and I presume they believed I would walk away and forget the thing.
8. But I didn’t. Consequently the matter was referred to The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) as a complaint along with several other matters that HMCTS refused to address through their own complaints process. These other matters are presently ongoing.
9. When PHSO requested a response and data from HMCTS on this matter and the several others before the Ombudsman HMCTS decided to settle this matter immediately via a cash offer to myself. Likely they didn’t want PHSO poking around to discover some of the things that go wrong in court offices. Or maybe they simply knew that the game was up as the errors made were too great to ignore.
10. This cash offer and admittance of fault came from HMCTS’ Customer Investigations head Richard Redgrave. Normally Redgrave and his team deploy complex tautology to evade response, avoid admitting fault and avoid paying compensation.
An extract from the letter admitting fault. Edited to remove the compensation amounts paid in the past.
The interesting thing to note is that this all represents not an unusual pattern of mishandling of a civil claim by HMCTS. These are everyday errors in a court system in which case files are in exceptionally poor shape and staff morale is at rock bottom.
Nor is this way of handling a complaint unusual or out of the ordinary. My experience of dealing with HMCTS staff has proven to me that the deny – ignore – avoid tactics are the standard response to complaints. Consequently the service standards never improve as they are unable to accept any wrongdoing has occurred.
The usual friendly customer service from HMCTS!
Footnote: in July 2019 HMCTS issued some new guidelines for its staff.
HMCTS decided it was, ‘the human voice of justice’. Based on three commitments, HMCTS said it will listen to you, explain everything clearly and guide you. ‘It’s a useful approach we are starting to apply every time we communicate – whether it’s when we speak, write or connect with the people who use our courts and tribunals, or the people we work with.’
A superb example of how the civil courts in the UK operate.
Laurel & Hardy-ish levels of incompetence from staff at Leeds Combined Court.
A hearing was set for last week and the appropriate Notice of Hearing was sent out for that case.
However what the merry pranksters at civil section failed to point out was that there were two other pending civil cases to be heard by the same High Court Judge at the same hearing on the same day.
No Notice of Hearing document was sent out in relation to these other two cases. Equally no Order in relation to them was made ahead of the hearing. In short no notification of these two other claims being in play that day at all.
Therefore there could be no case preparation for these other two claims as I was blithely unaware that these were due to go ahead in the same hearing as a claim that I was notified about.
This is pretty much par for the course with HMCTS these days: an organisation in which the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.
The consequence of this overall for court users is delay, confusion and ultimately injustice.
The consequence for your poor bloody correspondent is of course more time, effort and expense spent correcting the errors made by court staff.
Twist ending to the tale: an application in respect of this matter was sent to the court just a few moments ago with an inquiry as to what the fee would be to file this. The answer was returned almost immediately.
However a complaint about the poor standard of service in the failure to notify me of two cases to be heard hasn’t been answered at all.
Conclusion: HMCTS is more interested in taking your money to correct service level errors they’ve made than they are in responding to legitimate and justified complaints.
Legal Babble 