Tarmac Driveway done by Tom Diggins Stockport Driveways, judgment plus costs - ***WON***

[smithy49]

The reason the DF gave for submitting his evidence late was that he was "trying to gather receipts" and said he was sure it would be ok as "the court date is ages away"

[BazzaS]

I’d put the altered email as the most prominent for the court to consider, followed by the invoices dated before the work was started.

 

Don’t call him a liar. Do a supplemental WS, and state that “those statements are, at best, factually incorrect, because ….”

Then highlight for the court that the email appears to be missing a key phrase that was clearly present in the original…. (You can attach both to be put both side by side for comparison!)

and then highlight the date issue on the invoices, giving the date the work started, again showing the discrepancy.

 

Then highlight the lack of statement of truth, asking that his WS be disregarded if he isn’t willing to attach a statement of truth …. The court might decide they’ve had enough of his games, or might ‘give him some rope to hang himself with’ ……

 

Then you can state that, in your recollection, Person X wasn’t present on <date>.
All the better if you have any notes to back that up (but don’t despair if not!).

 

Your aim is to have the judge reach their own conclusion D is a liar, so by the time it comes to deciding who remembers if Person X was there or not, the judge already knows who to believe!.

 

If Person X is then foolish enough to come to court and perjure themselves …. Their lookout.

If they won’t come to court, then ask the court to disregard their statement.

 

The judge will know you are calling him a liar, but in such a way you can prove that which is provable, letting the court reach its own conclusion. 

[smithy49]

Thank you for your reply.

 

If I submit a supplement WS, will the Judge see this before the court date or just on the day when he reads through everything before the hearing?

[BankFodder]

Standby for a reply later

[AndyOrch]

If you could also scan redact and upload a copy of your Notice of Allocation which contains the directions and by dates that would be helpful.

 

Andy

[smithy49]

Order of the court Redacted.pdf

[AndyOrch]

As you can see from the Notice of allocation any party that fails to comply with the order the case would be struck out or sanctions imposed or make a formal application to the court before any deadline imposed upon a party expires.

 

The defendant did neither and I know you have informed the court of their lack of compliance but they have yet to confirm what sanctions may be applied. Therefore as suggested above I think a Supplemental Witness statement is essential priortising their none compliance and requesting that their defence be struck out pursuant to the Order dated 16th July 2021 or sanction's imposed and only verbal evidence be allowed.

 

And then move on to stating the statement received late contains exhibits that have been altered and using your list above with copies of the altered docs and the original can be brought to the attention of the judge.

Andy

[smithy49]

Thank you, thats really helpful advice.  I will compose something later after work

[BankFodder]

In addition to including it all in your formal court bundle as advised above, I don't see anything to lose in sending a letter to the judge.

I don't think you want to send the whole lot to the judge. It's too much.

 

I think you should write a letter to the judge informing them that the defendant has just sent you a collection of emails and other documents which apparently he is sent to the court around 23 August – over one month ago.

Quote

You are particular concerned because you realise that a number of the emails and documents which have been sent to you have been altered and therefore are capable of giving a misleading impression to the court.
You have identified at least eight instances where documents appear to have been altered either by removing the dates or removing whole sentences so as to alter their meaning.

By way of example, you have attached an altered email received from the defendant and an intact copy which you had already in your possession. (Appendix 1a, 1b) in which you have highlighted the sentence which has been excised in the original and you have highlighted the place of the missing sentence in the copy supplied to the court.

By way of a further example, you are attaching three invoices (appendix 2a, 2b, 2c) for waste disposal in which there appears to have been an alteration or a manipulation of a date which could give the impression that more waste disposal took place then actually occurred. The date on the invoice – 16th of February 2021 – is actually three days before the work even began.
Another invoice is merely a duplicate of one of the others but gives an inflated impression of the amount of waste removed from the site.
The relevant parts are highlighted in the appendix.

I'm drawing your attention only to these two anomalies because I have no wish to burden the court with all of the detail. However, I can make the other documents available to the court if required and they will certainly be included in my court bundle in time for the hearing.

I suggest that you turn this into a letter and post the draft up here so we can have a look. Make sure that the appendices are properly identified and highlighted. Write the word "Appendix XX" at the top of each page so that it is clear and easy for the court to understand.

I am always disappointed when these kinds of issues are raised to the courts. They don't seem to have the thundering effect that I think that they deserve – but you may as well send it to the court anyway so that it is there and you have a paper trail.

[smithy49]

I completely agree with your last statement, there doesnt appear to be any consequences for non compliance. Frustrating when you've busted a gut yourself to make sure everything is in order and on time

[AndyOrch]

Quote

I completely agree with your last statement, there doesnt appear to be any consequences for non compliance

 

We do see it quite regularly in the Financial Legal issues forums on claims made by Creditors/DCAs and courts will impose sanction's/strike outs...but you have to lead the horse to the water unfortunately...and in this case we are dealing with a Litigant in person so some leniency will be allowed with not filing on time.....but as for altering documents that's a big no no and they may end up perjuring themselves.

[smithy49]

Evening,

 

I have just been typing up the letter to the court so that I can upload it and have been scrutinising the hand written witness statement by the DF's colleague. I have compared the writing to the DF's hand written notes on the documents and I am absolutely convinced that the DF has written his colleagues WS

[BankFodder]

There's nothing wrong with writing somebody else's witness statement as long as when it is signed, it is signed by the person purporting to make the statement and they have accepted that the contents of the statement of theirs.

What you are saying may be significant but don't deal with it now. You can raise it later on.

[smithy49]

Ok, I will upload the draft letter shortly

 

[smithy49]

Letter to Court 30.9.21.pdf

[BankFodder]

I'll make a couple of modifying suggestions tomorrow

[smithy49]

Thank you, thats much appreciated

[BankFodder]

Quote

Ref: Case XXXX xxxx v xxxx

For the attention of District Judge xxxx

 

Potentially misleading information supplied by the defendant

 

On 29th September 2021, I received a batch of emails from the Defendant containing attachments and statements from the Defendant and one of his witnesses, Person X.  Although I have only just received them, I see that the defendant originally supplied them to the court about 20 August - a month earlier.

 

I am writing to you because I have realised that some of the emails and documents which have been sent to you appear to have been altered and, therefore, are capable of giving a misleading impression to the court.

 

I have identified at least eight instances where documents appear to have been altered either by removing or changing dates or removing whole sentences so as to alter their meaning.

 

By way of example, I have attached an altered email which was sent to you by the defendant and an intact copy which I already had in my possession. (Appendix 1a, 1b) in which I have highlighted the sentence which has been excised in the original and I have highlighted the place of the missing sentence in the copy supplied to the court.

 

By way of a further example, I am attaching three invoices (appendix 2a, 2b, 2c) for waste disposal.

One invoice shows two disposals on 16th February 2021 but this is three days before the work began on 19 February.

This could give the impression that more waste disposal took place then actually occurred.

 

Another invoice is merely a duplicate of one of the others but gives an inflated impression of the amount of waste removed from the site.

 

The relevant parts are highlighted in the appendix.

 

I am drawing your attention only to these two anomalies because I have no wish to burden the court with all of the detail.

 

However, I can make the other documents available to the court if required and they will certainly be included in my court bundle in time for the hearing.

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

[smithy49]

Thank you Bank Fodder, I really do appreciate your help.

 

When I email this to the court, do I cc the Defendant? I

 

[BankFodder]

No!

[smithy49]

Hello,

 I have to provide a court bundle 7 days prior to the hearing which is on 4.11.21. I have researched "court bundle" and it seems that it sounds very similar to what I submitted in August with my witness statement.

That was a folder with an index/file dividers and referenced pages of evidence with the WS at the beginning.

Can anyone advise on the best way to present the court bundle in terms of the order of key points to put in it.

Also, I have read that I need to show it to the Defendant prior to submission for his approval. Is this correct?

Thank you in advance

[BankFodder]

The court bundle is not about key points. The court bundle is only about disclosing to the other side in advance the documents that you intend to rely upon in court when you are challenging them.

So from this point of view, you sent me need to make sure that the bundle you have already prepared is fully up-to-date. Presented in a correct and discernible order and that the indexing system works et cetera.

And the answer is – yes – you must disclose it to the other side in advance. It's a question of presenting your case on the facts and winning on the facts and not simply winning by ambush – by taking the other side by surprise.

If you have surprising conclusions to arrive at based on the documents you present – then those would be presented to the judge at trial. However your particular opinions and conclusions do not form part of the court bundle and you don't need to reveal the other side any weaknesses that you have discovered in their case or any weaknesses that you have discovered in the logic of what they are trying to say.

Does that help?

[smithy49]

Yes thats very helpful, thank you.

 

So, for example, if I was to put the fake website endorsements,  initial emails agreeing the job/price, my emails of concern to the contractor/his replies after we complained, photographic evidence,  our independent reports/quotes. the expert witness report, my witness statements and the evidence the defendant submitted but only just sent to me recently and had been amended....would that be sufficient in your opinion?

 

Would I also include the witness statements that the defendant submitted that have no statement of truth on etc?

 

Sorry for all the questions but I want to get this absolutely right

Also, can the defendant object to any of it and what happens if he ignores it?

[BankFodder]

Everything that you think you might need during the hearing – you have to disclose in advance to the other side. If you're making allegations of false representation then he has to have a chance to know about it in advance so he can then consider his position and decide on his responses.

On the other hand, you disclose this evidence but you don't need to disclose in advance the comments you are going to make about it.

So you don't need for us to say that this is a false representation. You simply need to include documents which show the website et cetera.

He may ask himself why on earth are these documents being disclosed – but he will have to wait until the hearing in order to discover that.

We are going back once again to the beginning where it was a shame that this wasn't included as a head of damage. It would have been extremely serious and the damages available to you would have been far greater.

[smithy49]

Ok, thank you. I have all of this already in a folder in order. I just need to add the most recent  documents that he sent to me which have been altered/ have the wrong dates.

 

Many thanks and enjoy your evening