Unofficial Court Observers Report on the case of "Solicitors from Hell" v Adrian Bressington and Awdry, Bailey and Douglas Solicitors in the High Court, Royal Courts of Justice, 28 March 2011

by StuG (RFFJ) 28 March 2011

Mr Tim Line is a well known and respected member of Real Fathers for Justice. Wikipedia lists him as a father’s activist who spent 36 hours on Lord Justice Thorpe’s house. Soon after his family split he posted, on his own blog (www.f4jtimline.blogspot.com) and on www.solicitorsfromhell.co.uk about what he perceived to be the numerous disgraceful conducts of a Mr Bressington, who had represented Tim’s ex-wife during the divorce/contact proceedings. That second protest may soon attract more interest than the first.

As one can expect, Mr Bressington’s firm issued the usual threats of legal action against Tim if he did not remove the posts, emphasising how their legal action could ruin him etc etc etc. True to character, Tim stood firm. Armed with reams of documentary proof, he told them to ‘bring it on.’ They didn’t. And still haven’t.

That was all quite a while ago now. Today, I had the honour of joining Tim in the Royal Courts of Justice as we observed Rick Kordowski, the owner of www.solicitorsfromhell.co.uk, be sued for defamation by Awdry, Bailey and Douglas, the firm for whom Bressington works.

Yes, I’m puzzled too. How can this legal firm avoid suing Tim, but sue Rick for reproducing the same material as is on Tim’s blog? Simple: you manipulate the legal process and, if your transparent legal manoeuvring is not properly countered, the judge has no choice but to play along.

The chances of winning under such circumstances are increased when the defendant is unrepresented and not particularly clued up about either legal process or the area of law they operate within. Rick represented himself. His legal opponents had a barrister well versed in legal process. Rick, conversely, is clearly still on a learning curve.

Libel cases apparently last for three hearings. The first decides the trajectories of the case - what can and can’t be argued. The second hearing stages those arguments and ends in judgment, so the parties need to produce all facts upon which they wish to rely on in court. The third hearing covers costs.

Two weeks before the first hearing, the claimants successfully applied for it to be dispensed with. This meant Rick needed to provide all relevant, factual evidence at round one instead of round 2. Although that evidence was easily available, he didn’t produce it on the day. Tim, the keeper of the evidence, was difficult to get hold of as he had changed address and was still setting up in his new London accommodation. Being a lay person, Rick did not appear to fully grasp the implications of the change in procedure.

Consequently, Rick was slaughtered in court. His defence was stuck out and he was ordered to pay costs exceeding £10,000. Effectively, he went into court without training and without his guard up so, for now at least, he has paid the price of taking on a legal profession very keen to put him out of business.

The judge had a walkover. So much so, that he went too far. He humiliated Rick, and made a meal out of cross-examining him. It is questionable whether a judge should harangue a defendant and thereby manufacture his own evidence but, in this case, in the long run, I think the judge has helped justice along. What happened in court today was an utter injustice, but he provided Rick with a much needed education that’ll come in handy in the Court of Appeal. If not, it’ll certainly come in handy in the European Court of Human Rights, as the McLibel case indicates. But for now, with no money and no legal advice, Rick’s legal education comes the hard way – from judges. He’s getting to meet quite a few.

Rick’s career against lawyers stems from his own experience of them. He lost his business and home in a case where the Law Society upheld a subsequent complaint by Rick that both the lawyers, the one acting for and the one acting against him, were colluding with each other. The Law Society compensated him with £500.

Rick has received mixed reviews for his website, not least for his apparent admin charge of £299 for any solicitor who wants derogatory posts removed. Even his supporters lament this provision in his terms and conditions. It was something the judge relied on heavily today.

Rick’s main argument for publishing material about solicitors is that the postings on his website are in the public interest. The judge swept away this defence with a simple stroke; if the material is in the public interest, why remove it upon receipt of a fee? The judge considered the fee, and Rick’s impecuniousness (the fact that he is broke) indicative of extortion. “so, the people who wish to advertise on your site, having failed to obtain satisfaction via the usual route which bases complaints according to their merit choose you instead.” (Presumably the judge believes in the myth that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is a competent and unbiased monitoring system). “Solicitors then either pay the £299 fee to have posts about them removed, or face legal proceedings knowing your lack of money means they cannot receive compensation.”

Understandable argument, Your Honour, but flawed in reality. As Rick said, few consider the SRA as fair machinery for complaints. And no solicitors have yet been stupid enough to pay the £299 fee. Imagine the fun if they did. So how can Rick be an extortionist if he has not actually received any money? And, of the 1,000 or so posts on the site, only ten solicitors (1%) have challenged them in court. So either 99% of the postings cannot be reasonably challenged, or those legal professionals are happy to be slandered. Take your pick. Rick, in reality, is a genial, softly spoken, decent man battling against the odds. Today’s judicial character assassination was unwarranted. A further judicial slur was the claim that the title “solicitorsfromhell” – meant the website was designed as a front for defamation. Wrong again, Your Honour. It’s only defamation if it is not true and 99% of lawyers featured on the site prefer to leave their details on the site rather than sue.

Rick has lost all ten of the cases against him in court. He struggles to obtain the evidence required and struggles to fight his corner in court. He is a lone operator who is inundated with legal suits – he cannot handle it all, and the legal profession knows it. Today, Rick’s application for leave to appeal, so he could produce the evidence (absolute reams of it, which I have personally seen piled up in Tim Line’s home) was refused on the basis that the judge ‘did not believe the evidence existed.’ Here, I hope, the judge is on very dodgy ground. If it does not exist, why has Bressington not sued Tim directly and have him remove posts from his own personal blog? And why did he try to prevent a late statement submission by Rick to the court?

The judge awarded costs and directed Rick to remove the post about Bressington from the solicitorsfromhell website but Awdry, Bailey and Douglas made no application to achieve the same with Tim Line’s blog at http://www.f4jtimline.blogspot.com/.

The judge reserved his judgment. Personally, I believe judgments should be immediately available. I have seen too many Family Division Approved Judgments suffer from retrospective editing where grounds for refusal of applications or appeals have been textually altered from what was voiced in court, where additional elements have been fabricated, and important elements deleted. But then, the proceedings transcript for today’s open court hearing is already being prepared. We will be comparing the two to ensure they match up. Plus, the judge’s behaviour, more typical of judge’s acting in secret family courts than in open court, has earned Rick the kind of support he has so far lacked. Today, there was an audience to witness it all.

Bressington should not count his winnings yet. The odds will swing against him very soon.

Day 1 - Sir Lord Justice Thorpe's roof protest

Fathers 4 Justice back dad's fight

by Lewis Cowen

Tim Line who has not seen his daughters since last Summer

Campaign group Fathers4Justice is to take up the cudgels on behalf of former Devizes man Tim Line, who has been barred from seeing his three daughters for nearly a year.

Former soldier and international rally driver Mr Line has been separated from his wife of 18 years since June 2006 but last September his wife stopped him from seeing them.

Mr Line, a former sergeant in the Royal Artillery who now lives in Hilperton, near Trowbridge, said all his efforts through the courts had done nothing but earn fees for solicitors.

He said: "It is horrendous to be on your own in the house. No noise. No children playing. It is like a living bereavement."

In May 2006 Mr Line came home from a trip away to be handed a summons to appear in court two days later on his birthday.

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He said: "Our marriage had not been going well but this came right out of the blue.

"My wife's solicitor told me, if I were you, Mr Line, I'd find a place to live in the next few days. I had a non-molestation order served on me, even though I had never been violent towards my wife or my children."

Mr Line found himself homeless, but worse was to come. He had been given access to his children aged 13, 12 and 10, who still live in the family home.

But the access gradually tailed off and a judge told him last November that he was not going to make an order for contact because his eldest said she no longer wanted to visit.

Mr Line said: "The judge said I could write to them and send them small gifts at the appropriate times of year and that my wife was to encourage them to respond."

He hasn't seen or heard from 2 of his daughters since. He saw his middle aged daughter briefly on the doorstep last January, when he dropped off her presents.

He said: "We hugged and said how much we missed each other and that is the last time I saw her". But since joining Fathers4 Justice I see I have been relatively lucky. Other fathers, like Mark Harris, who was sentenced to prison for ten months for waving to his children in the street, are much worse off.

"The law must be changed. Well over 300,000 children have been stopped from seeing one of their parents, usually the father, since this government came to power. Only five per cent of separated fathers see their children every day.

"But solicitors don't want things changed, because they make so much money out of it. They charge £185 an hour and each letter they receive or phone call they deal with costs you £18.50."

Fathers4Justice confirmed it would hold a protest in support of Mr Line, but would not say where and when it would take place.

Fathers4Justice South West co-ordinator Richard Adams said: "Tim Line served Queen and country in the Army for 24 years but as soon as his marriage broke down, this Government's family courts denied him access to his children."