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	England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Barnes v Woolwich Plc [2001] EWCA Civ 1122 (5 July 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/1122.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 1122

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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE CHANCERY DIVISION
(MR JUSTICE BLACKBURNE AND MR JUSTICE HART)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL Thursday 5 July 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE JONATHAN PARKER: Before the court are two applications by Mr Peter Michael Barnes for permission to appeal against, first, an order made by Blackburne J on 8 June 2000 and, secondly, an order made by Hart J on 23 June 2000.
2. Mr Barnes is not present this morning. I have been handed a fax from him of today's date, addressed to the Civil Appeals Listing Office, which reads as follows:

"Dear Sirs,

I confirm my telephone conversation yesterday with Civil appeals listing requesting this matter be adjourned, and as I came up to the High Court yesterday to lodge other papers was not able to fax my request in writing until now.

I was wrongly made bankrupt by the perversion of the cause of justice and Uttlesford previously committing Criminal offences including fraud."

3. That is a reference to Uttlesford District Council.

"Whilst I have been awaiting a year for these appeals to be heard and would have wanted them heard much sooner, my cases are currently the subject of a MET Police CID investigation. As the matter also involves Criminal allegations regarding the Court Service, it would be inappropriate to have a hearing at this time, until the investigation is concluded.

I therefore request a stay of all proceedings and the above appeals to be adjourned with liberty to restore.

Yours faithfully,

P Barnes."

4. I can see no basis whatever for adjourning these applications. Accordingly, I propose to deal with them in Mr Barnes' absence. I am not satisfied that Mr Barnes could not have attended at court to present these applications had he desired to do so. Nor can I see any basis upon which either of these applications could be reinstated before the court.
5. The factual and procedural background to the applications can be summarised briefly as follows. On 28 July 1997 a statutory demand was served on Mr Barnes by Uttlesford District Council in respect of Mr Barnes' liability under a costs order made by Laws J, as he then was, in the High Court in 1995. Mr Barnes applied to set aside that statutory demand but his application was dismissed on 4 March 1998 by District Judge Willis in the Hertford County Court. Mr Barnes appealed against that dismissal but on 15 May 1998 his appeal was dismissed by Judge Hegarty QC.
6. On 27 July 1998 a bankruptcy order was made on the petition of Uttlesford District Council based on the statutory demand. Mr Barnes subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeal against Judge Hegarty's dismissal of his appeal against the dismissal of his application to set aside the statutory demand but, on 24 November 1998, that application was dismissed.
7. On 19 April 1999 Mr Godfrey-Evans was appointed Mr Barnes' trustee in bankruptcy. On 30 April 1999 Lloyd J dismissed Mr Barnes' application for permission to appeal the bankruptcy order as out of time. On 3 May 1999 Lloyd J dismissed Mr Barnes' application to stay the bankruptcy. Subsequently, Mr Barnes made a large number of applications to the court and on 22 March 2000 there was a hearing before Mr Registrar Baister at which various applications made by Mr Barnes were dismissed. Mr Barnes did not appear at that hearing. Subsequently Mr Barnes complained that the order had been made in his absence, explaining that he had moved from his previous address.
8. On 6 April 2000 Woolwich Plc, as mortgagee, obtained a possession order in the Harlow County Court in respect of 249 Birchanger Lane, Birchanger, Bishops Stortford, Herts.
9. On 18 April 2000 Mr Registrar Baister conducted a review of the orders he had made on 22 March 2000. He did this in the light of Mr Barnes' complaint that those orders had been made in his absence. The result of this review was that Mr Registrar Baister affirmed the orders which he had previously made. Those orders included a Grepe v Loam order whereby no further applications were to be made by Mr Barnes in his bankruptcy save with the permission of a registrar in bankruptcy.
10. On 19 April 2000 Mr Registrar Baister gave a judgment setting out in detail his reasons for concluding that Mr Barnes' various applications should be dismissed and that a Grepe v Loam order was appropriate.
11. On 8 June 2000 Mr Barnes applied to Blackburne J for the relief which he had earlier sought, unsuccessfully, from Mr Registrar Baister. Specifically he sought an application for a stay of the bankruptcy under section 285(1) of the Insolvency Act 1986 and an order that the trustee in bankruptcy pay a sum of £34,500 into an escrow account. Blackburne J treated these applications as free-standing applications and he dismissed them. That is the first of the orders against which Mr Barnes now seeks permission to appeal, permission to appeal having been refused by Blackburne J.
12. On 23 June 2000 Mr Barnes' appeal against Mr Registrar Baister's judgments came on for hearing before Hart J. At the commencement of the hearing Mr Barnes applied for an adjournment to enable him to obtain legal representation and/or to enable him to prepare a skeleton argument and a bundle. Hart J refused the application for an adjournment and proceeded to hear the substantive appeal, which he dismissed. Hart J also refused permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. That is the second of the orders against which Mr Barnes now seeks permission to appeal.
13. I turn to Mr Barnes' grounds for seeking permission to appeal against the order of Blackburne J dated 8 June 2000. Mr Barnes' proposed grounds of appeal against that order are (i) that no reasonable judge would ever, given the facts and circumstances of the instant case, refuse his applications, and (ii) that such refusal was "blatant bias". He continues:

"It was apparent that the judge had not read the court file. It was apparent that the judge had not read the appellant's skeleton argument in support of the application. The court file was in a mess, not in a sensible order. The judge did not take into account the relevant facts and believed the respondent's counsel who had even been instructed as to the facts."

14. Mr Barnes asserts that he was wrongly made bankrupt as a result of fraud and perjury by Uttlesford District Council. He asserts that there are pending appeals against the statutory demand and the bankruptcy order. He further asserts that the possession order in respect of 249 Birchanger Lane was wrongly made. Among other allegations he asserts that his trustee in bankruptcy colluded with Woolwich Plc to defraud creditors and/or himself of much greater sums. In that respect he submits that relief should be granted under section 303 of the Insolvency Act 1986.
15. Mr Barnes' fundamental complaint appears to be that the judgments of Mr Registrar Baister were manifestly wrong and full of errors. In his written material he says that this case is like fleas on a dog; as soon as one dog gets fleas it passes them on to the next dog and so on. He accordingly seeks an order that the trustee pay £34,500 into court forthwith; that Woolwich Plc be restrained from dealing with or selling 249 Birchanger Lane; and that Woolwich Plc be not at liberty to add the cost of this appeal and those in the court below to its security. He further seeks an order that the trustee makes available within 7 days copies of correspondence relating to certain matters which he specifies in section 9 of his applicant's notice.
16. I now turn to the application for permission to appeal against the order made against Hart J on 23 June 2000. Mr Barnes submits that Hart J was in error in refusing to adjourn the hearing. As to the substantive appeal, Mr Barnes complains that the outcome of the hearing appeared to have been pre-determined in that the judge appeared to be reading his judgment, or part of it, and that he failed to deal with the facts of the case as raised at the hearing. As in the case of the order made by Blackburne J on 8 June 2000, Mr Barnes' fundamental complaint in relation to the order made by Hart J on 23 June 2000 is that it upheld the judgments of Mr Registrar Baister which, in turn, were plainly wrong. I do not consider it necessary for present purposes to set out all the submissions which Mr Barnes makes in support of his applications in relation to the orders of Blackburne and Hart JJ.
17. In section 9 of his applicant's notice relating to the appeal against the order made by Hart J, Mr Barnes seeks an order that he may be allowed to make applications in the bankruptcy without leave (that is, in effect, the setting aside of the Grepe v Loam order made by Mr Registrar Baister and affirmed by Hart J) together with the relief sought in the application relating to the order made by Blackburne J on 8 June 2000.
18. As to Hart J's decision to refuse Mr Barnes' application for an adjournment, that was a matter for the judge in his discretion. I can see no grounds on which this court could interfere with his exercise of that discretion. As to the various substantive issues which Mr Barnes has sought to raise in relation both to the order made by Blackburne J and to the order made by Hart J, Mr Barnes is inviting the court to travel once again over a ground which has already been explored with a great deal of care on a number of occasions. Suffice it to say that, having considered Mr Barnes' submissions, I can find no arguable basis for challenging the judgments of Mr Registrar Baister or those of Blackburne and Hart JJ.
19. I conclude that the proposed appeals would be entirely without substance and would be bound to fail. I accordingly refuse permission to appeal in each case.
Order: Applications dismissed.