Angel Garden & Steve Paris court case: judgment

[Melanie Byng]

Latest post of the previous page:

Another bizarre update nearly a year later.

Angel and Steve attempted to appeal yet again on the pretext that they had found new evidence - in reality a film they had taken of Andy Lewis at a skeptics meeting in Bath which they'd already disclosed to the Court but this time it was FROM A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE. As the appeal Judge states: 'it adds nothing to the merits'.

They also re-submitted material (from disclosed correspondence) which they'd been told was privileged and which 'at any event does not assist the applicants'. I can't remember now what it was.

They were also disputing the decision made by HHJ Seys Llewellyn at the pre-trial review in 2015 NOT to allow them to reinstate a claim for harassment, which they'd made and then withdrawn, we imagine on the advice of lawyers they had at the time. The original claim was a vast and formless beast, an exercise in self-indulgence, speculation and hopeful Stalinism. Everything after that was a slip of a thing.

Anyway, as reply to this application to revisit that decision of early 2015 in the words of the latest appeal judge (the Right Hon. Lady Justice Sharp):

'This application, brought more than two years out of time, with no reasonable explanation, is a hopeless attempt on vexatious grounds to challenge an unimpeachable case management decision made by the judge. The application before the judge was made extremely late; it would have led to the vacation of the trial date, which was imminent, and as the judge found it would have vastly widened the scope of proceedings with the consequent implications for court resources and costs. Further, as the judge pointed out, to the extent the evidence was relevant to the defamation claim it could be used without amendment.'

They also appear to have been cross that we (the Respondents) were given opportunity to reply to their submissions in their FIRST application to re-open the appeal (I forget to tell you there was an earlier application to re-open) and because we'd had that opportunity they accused the first appeal judge of bias. They even demanded that he recuse himself. How dare we have representation!

It must have seemed unjust to them that they had the same judge (Simon LJ) at appeal and (first) application to re-open the appeal but it appears perfectly standard practice.

I suspect they believed that if they could only get their case in front of a different appeal judge there would be a different result. This is that result. The judgement by the Right Hon Lady Justice Sharp ends:

'The applicants should understand that if any further such applications are made directly or tangentially in connection with these proceedings, and the issues considered in them, the court will be bound to consider making a Civil Restraint Order against them pursuant to CPR Practice Direction 3C.'

This is reassuring for us of course but not entirely surprising.

[Maria Mac]

[Alan H]

Seconded!

[Melanie Byng]

eloquent response

I should have given the date of the order by the court of appeal (ORDER made by Rt. Hon. Lady Justice Sharp - On consideration of the appellant's notice and accompanying documents, but without an oral hearing, in respect of an application for permission to appeal. )

- stamped 12 Feb 2018 and the decision: REFUSED AS TOTALLY WITHOUT MERIT

(Capitals as written).

It's now three years since the week in a Swansea court, what an odd experience it's been.

[Alan H]

eloquent response

I should have given the date of the order by the court of appeal (ORDER made by Rt. Hon. Lady Justice Sharp - On consideration of the appellant's notice and accompanying documents, but without an oral hearing, in respect of an application for permission to appeal. )

- stamped 12 Feb 2018 and the decision: REFUSED AS TOTALLY WITHOUT MERIT

(Capitals as written).

It's now three years since the week in a Swansea court, what an odd experience it's been.

[Maria Mac]

It's now three years since the week in a Swansea court, what an odd experience it's been.

And over six years since they started all this crap!

[animist]

Yes, Tetenterre, the twitter handles are @steinermentary @Amazonnewsmedia @AngelGarden @sjparis

They also at one time used @Bullied_by_TRSS @SteveInExile @safetotell

It's my understanding that SP set up @animalsinsuits for a friend called Keith.

If the appeal isn't granted I expect to see a complaint to the UN regarding a violation of Human Rights.

I hope the UN will drop everything and concentrate all their efforts on that before getting back to the Syrian refugee problem...

belated

[Melanie Byng]

And A&S are still on the attack btw. I'm sure they like any attention and I don't think we should give it to them here but they'd be well advised to stop now.

[Maria Mac]

Blog by Andy Lewis.

TOTALLY WITHOUT MERIT: CAN FIVE YEARS OF POINTLESS LITIGATION FINALLY COME TO AN END?

They sound as nutty as ever.

[Maria Mac]

Twitter thread by solicitor Robert Dougans demolishing the nutters.

1/ There is a process to determine facts. It is called a ‘trial’ and it takes place in a ‘court’ before a ‘Judge’.
A trial took place in 2015. The Judge heard and read all you had to say. You had the chance to ask questions of @lecanardnoir and of @ThetisMercurio, and did.
2/ The Judge saw you for 5 days and read all of the documents disclosed by @ThetisMercurio and @lecanardnoir and read everything you put forwards. That included allegations that @J0nathanPrice and I were liars.
3/ The Judge disagreed with you and agreed with @lecanardnoir and @ThetisMercurio. He also rejected your allegations that @J0nathanPrice and I lied or faked evidence.
4/ We have a legal system that accepts mistakes can be made. You had the right to ask the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal that decision, and you did. You put a great deal of material and long written submissions before the Court of Appeal.
5/ You did not hold back. Of course you had the right to argue this as you saw fit. Your argument went so far as to say that @J0nathanPrice and I faked evidence and the trial judge accepted it despite it being obviously faked.
6/ This application was rejected on paper. You had the right to ask for a hearing to see if you could get a Lord/Lady Justice to decide that decision on paper was wrong. You did - as is your right- ask for one.
7/ At the hearing Lord Justice Simon rejected your application for permission to appeal. He read all you filed and heard all you had to say. He came to a considered decision that none of what you said amounted to reasons why the trial judge was wrong.
8/ You then applied again for permission to appeal. You argued that Lord Justice Simon was biased. You said that it was so obvious that you were in the right and that @lecanardnoir and @ThetisMercurio were in the wrong that Lord Justice Simon must be biased.
9/ You also applied to adduce new evidence. Lord Justice Simon refused to recuse himself for bias and refused to admit new evidence, saying the evidence was available at the time of the trial, and would have made no difference anyway.
10/ You then applied again with more material and again alleging that Lord Justice Simon was biased and that he should not have decided whether he was biased. You write long submission which you said made an unanswerable case and supported them with many documents.
11/ The upshot was that Lady Justice Sharp rejected both arguments (i.e. she held that Lord Justice Simon was not biased and that the trial Judge’s decision was correct). She also held that both of these arguments were #TotallyWithoutMerit.
12/ Now Twitter is not the best place to discuss evidence and facts. The legal system is a far better place, and your arguments have been considered by the legal system-as I have described. Literally every judge who has heard your arguments has rejected them.
13/ Now we must also remember the comment of the trial judge that @AngelGarden could not really understand that there might be 2 points of view, and that @AngelGarden considered that anyone who disagreed with her must be motivated by personal malice.
14/ This was a conclusion the trial judge reached after a 5-day trial, hearing everything that @sjparis and @AngelGarden had to say. It was not a conclusion reached after a 30 minute hearing, or after a 3 hour cross examination.
15/ We should also remember that the English and Welsh legal system is regarded as a ‘gold standard’ throughout the world. The system is not perfect but it is regarded by serious commentors as better than most - if not all - others.
16/ If @AngelGarden and @sjparis are right the English courts have been guilty of serious misfeasance. They alllege that fraud so obvious a judge must be biased if they say they cannot see it has been perpetrated by the trial judge and then covered up by 3 Lord/Lady Justices.
17/ If true, this would be far worse than anything credibly alleged since the Judicature Acts. Not for the benefit of a drug cartel or oil baron or some shadowy cabal of financiers. For the benefit of a West Country homemaker and a business consultant.
18/ All of this having passed unnoticed and unremarked by the mainstream media, legal blogosphere, lawyers themselves. All have overlooked misfeasnce which is in plain sight and which must be understood by anyone who looks at the case.
19/ There is of course another explanation. That the trial Judge was right, the Court of Appeal was right not to intervene, and the trial judge was right when he said that @AngelGarden always assumed that anyone who disagreed with her must do so out of malice.
20/ Twitter really is not a good place to discuss evidence and it is not made easier by @AngelGarden comparing people who disagree with her to Jimmy Saville.
21/ Logically either:

A) a trial judge and 3 Lord/Lady Justices knowingly debase the legal system at the behest of a homemaker and a blogger.

B) @AngelGarden and @sjparis deserved to have their applications certified as #TotallyWithoutMerit.

[Melanie Byng]

Angel is driven now not by the glory of a court 'win' (and there was never any chance of that because their entire claim was, as has been established, totally without merit) but with pure spite. She will probably never stop sticking pins in one or other of us, jabbing away in the hope that anyone will be interested or one of us will .. do something? What does she want? The latest is a series on my husband, Richard and embeds a video of a perfectly reasonable but to most people dull talk of his which demonstrates only that he is entirely sane and professional and she has some grievance that no one can make any sense of, rather like a blog she links to which is written by a woman who once attended a job interview where Richard was on the panel but said very little.

There is then (or before, what does it matter?) some link with mindfulness I assume because Richard was one of a group of academics involved in a research project on mindfulness a while ago, although his role was minor. I have no idea how this relates to anything else.

It's very difficult to create a silk villain out of a sow's ear but an entire lifetime could be wasted trying to do it. No one will stop her if that's what she wants.

[Maria Mac]

Nobody seriously gives a shit what she says about anyone or anything. I do feel sorry for their kids though. Some role model.

[Melanie Byng]

I thought this response was staggeringly self-obsessed and inappropriate even for Angel.

I can see they don't stop bothering clients and supporters of Doughty Street, even the family of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. This says everything about who and what they are.

[Alan H]

There are no depths to which to which they will not plunge.

[Maria Mac]

Yikes! Absolutely disgusting. I'm surprised there is anything left of her with that obsession eating away at her.

[Melanie Byng]

I agree.