HERE IS THE TIMELINE OF WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AFTER THE OFFER WAS ACCEPTED ON 1 NOVEMBER:
TIME LINE:
1 November 2016: the Devoys accept a Part 36 offer which insurers have made to them independently of the two firms of solicitors. The Devoys inform insurers of their acceptance at around 5 pm, then the solicitors by email. The Devoys do not inform the court, believing a contractual acceptance will be honoured by a the insurance firm which offered it.
2 November 2016: at 5.30pm (so 3 November for court purposes) Llinos Kent writes in secret to the judge on her private email, in contempt of court, to tell her we had not complied with her “unless
order” of 15 September. She has carefully planted a back-dated attachment which has not been sent to, or received by, the court on the email and asks the judge to read it, stating she was having
“difficulties” in following it up.
!!!!!!! FORMAT
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She invites the judge to look at the contents of her attachments (which are cunningly back-dated to the 25 October) and which she says have been submitted to the court;
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She says “although the attached request refers to it having been sent by fax it was in fact sent by email on the 25:10:16”. Significant as it was not sent at all;
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If that were true obviously the carrier email with the pdf attachment would be forwarded - it isn’t and is a totally un-authenticated document;
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CLCC has not had a fax machine since 2014 - a point which the court staff make to the judge on 11 November.
!!!!!!!!
2 November 2016: no response to the Devoys or Mr Hough, solicitor, in their requests to have their
acceptance validated.
3 November 2016: still no response to the Devoys or Mr Hough, solicitor, in their requests to have their acceptance validated.
3 November 2016: the judge writes back to Llinos, also from her private email, to say she will not
accept or read any application sent to her on her private email and she would only deal with it if it came through the normal channels. The Devoys are not copied in on any of the secret correspondence.
SEE: LINDA TOPPING CASE!
Despite repeated requests to the Managing Partner and ethics committee at Kennedys, the email letter and its attachments are never disclosed to us.
4 November 2016: Kennedys are in trouble. The judge has unexpectedly not complied with their wishes and they cannot simply “revert to [the Devoys] with an Order…. Before we notify them of the position” as they had hoped when they approached her. They could not disclose the letter as the judge had not accepted it. They bluff. In the real world this is called a lie. They are forced into a cleft stick and decide even though they haven’t got an Order that they will brazen it out and tell us the case is over.
4 November 2016: Llinos Kent writes to the Devoys to tell them the case is over and the case struck out under CPR 3[5]. No reasons are given.
8 November 2016: John Eastlake writes the email exhibited below. He lies and says the judge has a letter which tells her the case is over. On 11 November the judge writes to say she has no such letter.
8 November 2016: Chris Hough, solicitor, simultaneously writes to the court to try to contact the judge to ask for the Order and to explain we had complied with the Unless Order and we had accepted the Part 36 offer. We are all distraught and baffled at this Kafka-esque
situation.
11 November 2016: the judge approaches her court delivery manager, Sam Friend, before lunch to say that although the ‘sols’ are asking her for resolution she has not got the
application and has told them it MUST come through the normal channels.
“Dear Sam,
This is a difficult case where I have refused to enter into email correspondence with the
litigants in person and so I had to reply to the sols last week saying the same. I said it would have to wait for the application to be brought to me through the usual channels. Trouble is I am still waiting for it. Can you find it please. I have the file. H. “
The response is:
“ Dear Judge,
Having looked on Caseman there has been no application logged on for late October. The last application made in this case was made in September which was listed and has been heard”.
Ms Friend goes on to say she will approach solicitors to see where it is and what they have paid but no copy is placed on file or note made.
This is not open access to justice. I asked Ms Friend on 21 October 2019 if she had a note of what she found and she did not.
11 November 2016: after lunch, at 2pm, the judge’s clerk rang Kennedys and read out HHJ Baucher’s Order to them.
At some unspecified time it was put in the second class post to us and we received it on 20
November. Again, this is two tier justice.
14 November 2016: Anjana Devoy writes to the judge from her hospital bed as she is worried sick about what is happening and the Devoys and Mr Hough feel they are being sidelined.
14-23 November 2016: the judge embarks on a series of inexplicable actions which she later denies are formal.
1 December 2016: Kennedys Solicitors make a double false application to set aside the judge’s second Order.
LEOPARDS DON’T CHANGE THEIR SPOTS: MAGIC CIRCLE BAG OF TRICKS: