England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

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

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Thursday, 13th December 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE PILL: Judgment will now be given in the committal appeal, and I will ask Tuckey LJ to give the first judgment.
2. LORD JUSTICE TUCKEY: This is an appeal by Mr Perotti from an order made by Laddie J on 10th September 1999 committing him to prison for three months for contempt of court. The contempt involved four breaches of freezing orders made by Rimer J on 18th and 24th June 1999.
3. These proceedings have a long history. They involve the estate of Mr Perotti's uncle who died in 1984 leaving assets in England and Italy to his family, including Mr Perotti. In November 1986 the first defendant, Mr Watson, was appointed the Attorney Administrator of the estate in England. In 1992 Mr Perotti started proceedings against Mr Watson and other members of his own family alleging conspiracy and fraud in the administration of the estate and asking for the removal of Mr Watson.
4. After prolonged interlocutory skirmishing, in which Mr Perotti usually came off second best, his claim came to trial before Rimer J in 1997. By this time Mr Perotti was acting in person. After 25 days the judge gave a judgment in which neither party was wholly successful, which the judge no doubt reflected in his order for costs which was that Mr Perotti should pay 75 per cent of Mr Watson's costs. By that time 75 per cent of Mr Watson's costs totaled nearly a quarter of a million pounds. Mr Perotti appealed Rimer J's judgment, and there followed a protracted battle in this court about security for costs, the upshot of which was that in June 1998 Mr Perotti was ordered to provide £25,000 security for the appeal, which was not in the event heard until November 2000.
5. In early 1999 Mr Watson and his solicitors became concerned that Mr Perotti might be disposing of his assets when they discovered that on 1st April 1999 he had borrowed £119,000 plus from Woolich plc on the security of his flat at 43A Ridgmount Gardens, London WC1, where he lived. They also knew that he was the legal owner of another flat, 64 Ivor Court, Gloucester Place, London NW1, which he had inherited in 1991 as the sole executor and beneficiary of his brother's estate.
6. As well as costs orders in favour of Mr Watson, there were costs orders for smaller amounts made against Mr Perotti in the course of the proceedings in favour of Miss Hudson and Miss Foss, who were or had been acting for Mr Watson, against whom Mr Perotti had made allegations which had resulted in costs orders in their favour. They are the second and third respondents to this appeal.
7. On 18th June 1999 the three respondents applied without notice to Rimer J for a worldwide freezing order which he granted in the standard form. The limit of the order was £275,000 and it specifically identified Mr Perotti's assets as including the two flats and the loan from the Woolwich to which I have referred. The freezing order was confirmed by Rimer J at a hearing at which Mr Perotti was present on 24th June 1999, but the limit of the order was raised to £283,000 when the order requiring disclosure of assets was made more specific.
8. On 7th July 1999 Blackburne J made a search and seizure order which was executed on that and the following day at 43A Ridgmount Gardens. We dismissed Mr Perotti's application for an extension of time and permission to appeal that order yesterday. My reasons for doing so will be found in the judgment which I gave then. I shall deal later in this judgment with a further application made by Mr Perotti arising out of the way in which he alleges this order was executed.
9. Following the search and seizure order the respondents made three applications to commit Mr Perotti. The allegations were that in breach of the freezing orders (i) on 20th June 1999, by vesting assent, Mr Perotti transferred the leasehold title to 64 Ivor Court to his daughter, Ellen O'Driscoll; (ii) on the previous day he withdrew £2,000 in cash from his account with the Halifax Building Society; (iii) also on 19th June he paid £426.25 to the managing agents of Ridgmount Gardens by way of service charges; and (iv) on 25th June he paid £2,250 to the Woolwich by means of a cheque drawn by the tenant of Ivor Court in favour of the Woolwich, which Mr Perotti had asked for in substitution for two postdated rent cheques drawn by the tenant in his favour.
10. Mr Perotti accepted that each of these transactions had taken place as alleged after he had been served with the freezing orders. His defence was that at the request of his deceased brother, he held the flat on a secret trust in favour of his daughter so he was not its beneficial owner at the time of the transfer and the freezing order did not cover assets held on trust even though the order referred specifically to Ivor Court. Likewise, he said the monies used in the other three transactions were held by him on trust for his mother. His case was that, apart from the equity in the flat where he was living, his only English asset was the £25,000 which he had put up as security for his appeal.
11. The judge heard the committal application over four days at the end of July and the beginning of September 1999. Mr Perotti appeared in person and he and his mother gave oral evidence. The judge's judgment runs to 38 pages and 121 paragraphs. He correctly directed himself that the respondents had to prove the allegations of contempt to the criminal standard. Most of his judgment is devoted to considering whether he could accept Mr Perotti's evidence about the trusts. In considering that question he analysed earlier inconsistent statements which Mr Perotti had made, notably in the battles about security for costs to which I have referred and Mr Perotti's explanation for these earlier statements, which the judge largely rejected. After a long and careful review of this material, the judge said, at paragraph 84:

"There is really no doubt what all this means. Mr Perotti was saying that he had substantial assets, including Ivor Court; that anyone could have discovered that that was the truth; and that his evidence, or the evidence he was prepared to show the Court of Appeal alone, would prove the matter. Nowhere in any of this is there the slightest hint that any assets in his name belong beneficially to his mother or daughter."

12. He expressed his conclusion as to the alleged secret trust of Ivor Court in paragraph 95, where he said:

"I have considered the documents, the affidavits and the oral testimony. I have considered very carefully the submissions made to me. I have paid close attention to the 34th affidavit of Mr Perotti [that was a 49-page affidavit which Mr Perotti had sworn on 3rd September 1999, several days, therefore, before the last day of the hearing before Laddie J]. I have no doubt whatsoever that the assertion that Mr Perotti held Ivor Court for and on behalf of his daughter is wholly untrue. It was asserted for the very first time on 24th June 1999, after the freezing order was made. It was concocted so as to enable Mr Perotti to put assets beyond the reach of Mr Watson, so that most of the costs of these actions fall to be paid by the estate, thereby depriving other beneficiaries of their inheritance. The story has been persisted in for the purpose of continuing to frustrate Rimer J's freezing orders and to dishonestly resist this application for committal."

13. He reached a similar conclusion in relation to the alleged trust in favour of his mother at paragraph 105, where he said:

"On this, as in relation to Ivor Court, I have no doubt at all that Mr Perotti's recent evidence is completely untrue. As with Ivor Court, Mr Perotti has invented this story for the purpose of preventing any of his money getting into the hands of Mr Watson."

14. These conclusions, the judge said, meant that each of the allegations of contempt had been proved.
15. Mr Perotti has appeared in person before us. At the outset of the hearing he applied for an adjournment. We rejected this application for the reasons given in the judgment of Pill LJ. At various times in the hearing which followed, when Mr Perotti addressed us for the best part of two days, he complained that he was not being given enough time to complete his submissions. He said that as a litigant in person he was entitled to as long as it took, although he was not able to give us any accurate estimate of how long that would be. It is not possible for this Court, which has a very heavy workload and the need to allocate its scarce resources fairly between all those who come before it, to operate in this way. The Court's estimate of the time required to hear Mr Perotti's applications and this appeal was two to three days. Mr Perotti has had more than his fair share of this time, during which I am satisfied that he has been able to do justice to his case in the oral submissions he made to us. All or almost all of what he said was contained in his notice of appeal and witness statement which we pre-read before the hearing. We have also read and considered what is described as a partial skeleton argument prepared for Mr Perotti by counsel on a pro bono basis.
16. So much for the fairness of the hearing before us. Mr Perotti's first point on the appeal is that Laddie J should have ensured that he was legally represented for the committal proceedings. In his skeleton argument counsel refers to a number of cases which, he submits, establish the proposition that in contempt proceedings, where a party is without counsel through no fault of his own and legal aid is available, the court is under a duty to ensure that counsel is made available to the litigant. The judge dealt with the question of representation in paragraph 27 of his judgment, where he said:

"The penalties potentially are so severe that these applications must be approached as if they were criminal proceedings. That is a point I have had to bear in mind particularly clearly in this case because Mr Perotti has chosen to represent himself. I say 'chosen' because that appears to be the accurate word. Mr Perotti was granted emergency legal aid in relation to the initial stages of the contempt applications. Solicitors and counsel were instructed. Mr Perotti has disclosed what happened in his 32nd affidavit. Apparently he did not like the advice which he was given as to what the consequence would be if did he not purge contempt, if contempt had been committed. Counsel's gloomy prediction was not acceptable to Mr Perotti. He considered his lawyers to be, to use his words, 'a Trojan horse'. His evidence on that matter ends as follows."

17. The judge then quotes Mr Perotti's affidavit, where he said:

"Finally, I insisted that they follow my instructions and argue my case that I never breached the said order and therefore I was not in contempt. Counsel flatly refused to accept my instructions saying she has a duty to the Legal Aid. I left saying that they had refused to follow my instructions. I unhesitatingly and absolutely without reservation accuse the said lawyers of acting in the interests of the [Solicitors Indemnity Fund] and/or Mr Watson et al. Someone, sometime must surely do something about these crooked lawyers who flagrantly intend perverting the course of justice without the slightest concern for their clients."

18. Mr Perotti makes a number of further assertions about the advice he was given by counsel which have not been put to her, so it would not be right to refer to them in this judgment. But the passage in Mr Perotti's evidence to which the judge referred shows quite clearly that, at that time at least, Mr Perotti would not have accepted any legal representation. This view is confirmed by what we have been told by Mr Perotti about his dealings with different solicitors at other times during the course of these proceedings.
19. In those circumstances, whatever the judge's general duty may be, in this case Laddie J had no option but to proceed as he did with Mr Perotti appearing in person. Mr Perotti was not, as the history of this matter shows, unfamiliar with or inexperienced in such a role. So I reject his first point about representation. It is clear from the transcripts and the judgment that the judge gave Mr Perotti a fair hearing, being fully conscious of what was at stake for him and the fact that he was a litigant in person.
20. Mr Perotti's main attack is and has to be on the judge's rejection of his evidence, but he started by attacking the judge's rejection of his mother's evidence. Of this evidence the judge said, at paragraphs 31 and 32 of his judgment:

"Mrs Perotti gave evidence touching on [the brother's] alleged intention as to the beneficial ownership of 64 Ivor Court. She also gave evidence on the issue of whether Mr Perotti held assets on trust for her. Mrs Perotti struck me as a rather timid lady who wore her 82 years wearily. Her affidavit evidence had been drafted for her by her son. It was apparent that she was completely dominated by him. When, under cross-examination, Mrs Perotti gave evidence which Mr Perotti did not like, he announced his disapproval in a loud voice. He interrupted her to say she was really confused. At one point he shouted out that she was in the early stages of senility. Mr Perotti's re-examination of her consisted of a string of statements consistent with his case, followed by a request, or demand, for her to agree which, of course, she did. He told me this was the only way to get meaningful answers out of her. His own categorisation of his mother was as follows:

'My mother is 82 years old. She is not educated. She is not exactly a bright spark. She may be at the early stages of senile dementia.'

I did not find much of Mrs Perotti's evidence of assistance. Whether true or false, she would have said whatever her son demanded of her."

21. Later, at paragraphs 90 and 91 of his judgment, he considered Mrs Perotti's evidence in a little more detail and concluded by saying:

"Ida Perotti's evidence as to oral words or imposition of a trust was clearly unreliable."

22. Having considered the transcript of her evidence I can see no basis for criticising the judge's conclusion about the mother. He did not say she was deliberately lying; merely that her evidence was unreliable, a fact which Mr Perotti himself asserted in the course of her evidence.
23. Mr Perotti applied in the course of the hearing for permission to put in additional evidence in the shape of a witness statement (again drafted by him) from his mother, in which she denies that her son dominates her or that she would say anything her son asked. There is also a statement from her daughter which agrees with the mother's statement. Evidence to contradict the judge's view of a witness is not admissible in this court. We have, of course, looked at these two statements. If there had been anything in them which helped Mr Perotti on this appeal, we would have admitted them. However, as there is not, Mr Perotti's application to put in this evidence is refused.
24. Turning to Mr Perotti's own evidence, he starts by pointing out that if he was intent on putting Ivor Court beyond the respondents' reach he could have sold it and dissipated the proceeds after he knew of his liability to pay substantial costs but before any freezing order was made. That may be so, but I do not think it takes Mr Perotti very far, because he has always asserted that at the end of the day he will recover over £2 million for the benefit of the estate. His appeal from Rimer J's judgment was dismissed by this court earlier this year, but there are other proceedings which have still not been finally disposed of in which Mr Perotti makes claims for substantial sums of money. In that state of mind, Mr Perotti would not necessarily have seen the need to dispose of Ivor Court until he realised that it was within the respondents' grasp after the freezing order was made, particularly as he had been using it to demonstrate that he was a man of substance in the battle about security for costs.
25. In the course of the hearing yesterday afternoon and this morning, we pressed Mr Perotti to say why the judge's analysis of his evidence was wrong. Put shortly, he was quite unable to do so. That is not surprising, because the analysis is thorough and, I think, entirely convincing. I can illustrate the judge's approach by reference to just one document, which we discussed this morning, a letter to the Woolwich dated 3rd March 1999, accompanying an application by Mr Perotti for a buy-to-let mortgage on Ivor Court. The letter said:

"I had a power of attorney over all my brother's affairs before he died on 20-6-1991. Since there was no difference in my authority as attorney or Executor of his estate I continued to pay his mortgage as attorney. I am the sole Executor and beneficiary of my brother's estate. However, as I wish to save on Inheritance Tax I intend disclaiming my inheritance some time in the future. In the meantime I own the said flat as Executor."

26. Then he concluded the letter by saying:

"I have always let the flat myself and have had no problems. I continue to keep doing so. Please process my application without delay."

27. The judge said of this:

"None of this contains any suggestion that Ellen had, or was likely to get, the totality of the beneficial interest in [the brother's] estate. It says the property is his and his only concern is to divest himself of it at some time in the future to avoid Inheritance Tax. When cross-examined on this correspondence Mr Perotti said rhetorically, 'Why should I tell other people about the arrangements with my brother?' He also said, 'If I was applying for a loan, of course I told them the flat was mine.' Mr Perotti made the same point on a number of occasions during his oral evidence."

28. The judge concludes by saying:

"What that amounts to is this. He was saying that if he told the lender that he did not own the property and that it was owned entirely beneficially by his daughter, or would be, they would not make a loan. No doubt if he had said that to the lender, that would have been its reaction."

29. Mr Perotti made much the same points to us about what he had said in this letter. What the judge had to decide was whether Mr Perotti was lying to the building society in order to obtain a loan (which of course would be a criminal offence) or lying to him in order to avoid being found guilty of contempt of court.
30. At the end of the day it was for the judge to decide whether he accepted Mr Perotti's evidence after hearing him over a period of four days. That is not this Court's function. We can only interfere if there was no basis for the judge's conclusion or he has obviously gone wrong. The judge explains clearly why he disbelieved Mr Perotti. His reasons are compelling. It cannot possibly be said that he was wrong.
31. This conclusion is fatal to the substance of Mr Perotti's appeal. He makes a number of peripheral points in his notice of appeal and witness statements, which I have considered, but I do not think it necessary to deal with specifically in this judgment, except to say that none of them affect the outcome.
32. There is, however, one point upon which I accept Mr Perotti's submissions, and it relates to the limits of the freezing orders. On the basis that Mr Perotti was not holding Ivor Court or any of his other English assets on trust, his total assets within the jurisdiction exceeded the limits of the freezing orders before he disposed of Ivor Court to his daughter on 20th June 1999. On this basis, he was free to make the payments which were the subject of the second and third findings of contempt on 19th June. These two findings cannot therefore stand. The fourth finding is not affected because that payment was made on 25th June, after Mr Perotti had disposed of Ivor Court.
33. This point obviously did not occur to the judge or anyone else at the hearing before him. It is hardly a point for which Mr Perotti can take credit since its premise is that he has lied about his interest in Ivor Court. Nevertheless, he argues that this error casts doubt on the judge's finding in relation to Ivor Court. I do not agree. That finding is entirely unrelated to what Mr Perotti correctly described as the judge's mathematical error in relation to the payments made on 19th June. In his notice of appeal Mr Perotti argues that as the judge regarded all four breaches as serious, if he had only found two of them proved, he should or might have sentenced Mr Perotti differently. I do not accept this argument either. The disposal of Ivor Court was by far the most serious contempt, involving as it did an asset worth more than £150,000. This contempt was, as the judge said, a deliberate act of defiance of the court's order which expressly said that Mr Perotti should not dispose of Ivor Court. So was the payment of £2,250, because the day before that payment was made, Mr Perotti had appeared before Rimer J and been told that he could not pay the Woolwich with the rent from Ivor Court without the consent of the respondents.
34. A sentence of imprisonment was inevitable. Some judges, I am sure, would have given Mr Perotti more than three months for this contempt. I am satisfied that three months was in no way excessive, even though the appeal against two of the findings of contempt must be allowed.
35. The result is that I would allow the appeal to the extent, but only to the extent, of deleting from Laddie J's order of 10th September 1999 sub-paragraphs (iii) and (iv), which relate to the payments made on 19th June.
36. This brings me finally to the other application arising out of the search and seizure order, to which I referred earlier in this judgment. On the same day as he delivered his judgment in the contempt proceedings, Laddie J made another order, in which he confirmed the search and seizure order made on July 7th and ordered Mr Perotti to pay the costs of its making and the execution, which he summarily assessed at £47,500.
37. This morning Mr Perotti applied to amend his notice of appeal to enable him to challenge this costs order on the basis that the search and seizure order was improperly executed. He makes a number of allegations in support of this contention, which are set out in the notice of appeal relating to the making of the search and seizure order (2001/3778). Mr Perotti's principal complaints are that the supervising solicitor did not serve a copy of the order on him (as the order required) and that she did not explain to him (as the order said she must) that he was entitled to refuse entry to his flat but, if he did so, he would be in contempt of court. Mr Perotti says that if he had been given this option, he would have chosen to go to prison rather than allow his flat to be searched.
38. Although Mr Perotti made some complaint about the search in his 34th affidavit which was prepared after he had received the supervising solicitor's report, he did not make these allegations in that affidavit or on 10th September 1999 when Laddie J was asked to consider the question of costs. Whilst I can understand why these allegations may not have been in the forefront of his mind on 10th September because he had just been sent to prison, I can see no reason why they should not have been made in the affidavit which was very detailed.
39. But Mr Perotti's real difficulty is that these allegations were not made at all until they appeared in the notice of appeal, which was not filed until 20th December 2000. These are serious allegations against the supervising solicitor whose duty to the court required her to comply with the terms of its order. We have no means of judging whether the allegations are true and it would be quite unfair to expect the supervising solicitor to answer them now, nearly two-and-a-half years after the event.
40. For these reasons, I do not think it would be right to allow Mr Perotti to amend his notice of appeal to challenge Laddie J's order for costs. I would therefore refuse this application.
41. LORD JUSTICE CHADWICK: I agree.
42. LORD JUSTICE PILL: I also agree. I would be prepared to give an extension of time to the appellant in relation to this appeal. He first appealed against the committal order sentencing him to three months custody in 1999. Bail was refused. He sought to appeal against the committal order. No permission to appeal is, of course, required when a committal order is made on the grounds of contempt of court. At his request the appeal was adjourned by this court (Evans LJ presiding) on 24th September 1999. Directions had, on an earlier occasion, been given as to the service of a notice of appeal. However, when the case was adjourned on 24th September, it was adjourned generally.
43. The appellant makes the point that he did not realise there was any obligation on him in that event to serve a notice of appeal within a particular time. He says that when he tried to obtain legal advice, he was not told that he should. Having regard to the fact that the appeal was adjourned generally and without directions being given, and having regard to the nature of the order appealed against, I would be prepared, and indeed the Court indicated this in the course of the hearing, that an extension of time for this appeal, and for this appeal alone, would be granted.
44. The basis of the appeal is set out in the appellant's notice. The grounds are succinctly stated at page 3A in points 1 to 6. That is supported by a very long statement of grounds which the Court has considered. I can say that the Court accepts point 5 of the grounds, which is that the decision of Arden J in Hadkinson, to which the judge referred, is in fact of no value to the respondent because that decision has been overruled in this court. However, Laddie J referred to the case of Hadkinson and relied upon the principle established that a freezing order covered trust funds, only in the alternative, having first found on the basis indicated by Tuckey LJ. Thus point 5 is a correct one, but it does not assist the appellant in his appeal in those circumstances.
45. The appellant has also made lengthy oral submissions. What his case comes to essentially, it seems to me, is a submission that the findings of fact of Laddie J were perverse; further, or in the alternative, the learned judge's reasoning was so defective that his findings of fact cannot be relied on and should be reversed. In his oral submissions on the central question of the legal and beneficial interest in the property at Ivor Court, the appellant submits that everything he has done is consistent with there having been a trust in favour of his daughter. If the asset had been his, he would have put it in his name. It was not put in his name, and the reason for that was that it was not in the end for him, but was being held for his daughter.
46. I have no doubt that the judge had this point in mind. He also had in mind the fact that before the appellant's daughter's 18th birthday, consideration was being given to the question of the transfer of assets. The judge made clear findings of fact. Tuckey LJ has referred to them. The judge made findings of fact having set out in considerable detail the basis on which he made those findings. He referred to many earlier statements by the appellant which were inconsistent, as the judge found, and was entitled in my view to find, with the oral evidence which the appellant was giving. For the reasons given by Tuckey LJ, I agree that the judge's decision is not impugnable.
47. Reference has been made to the apparent inconsistencies between the bases upon which the order for committal was made and, as Tuckey LJ has pointed out, it does not appear to have occurred to the judge or to those appearing for the respondents that the inconsistency existed. Mr Perotti submits that that failure indicates the judge's state of mind. If he did not deal with that point, it is not possible for this Court to find that the judge can have been satisfied to a criminal standard on the central and main point of the case. That point was that in relation to the title to Ivor Court and the action of the appellant in disregarding the freezing order, as the judge found, by attempting to pass an interest in the property to his daughter. I reject that submission. The judge's errors in arithmetic or his failure to consider the figures in no way impugns the judge's findings on the central issue to which I have referred.
48. Before concluding this judgment, I express my agreement with the judgment of Tuckey LJ as to the opportunity which the appellant had to present his case to this Court. He asked for an adjournment on Tuesday of this week, 11th December, first on the basis that he should have a further opportunity to seek legal aid, and to challenge by way of judicial review the refusal of the Legal Services Commission to grant him legal aid; and second on the basis that, having been deprived of legal assistance four days before, on 7th December, he had had insufficient opportunity to prepare the case on the basis that he would appear in person.
49. The Court refused the adjournment for the reasons given in a judgment of the Court on Tuesday, 11th December. The appellant has, in my judgment, had a full and fair opportunity to present his case. The members of the Court have done all they can to invite submissions on relevant points and to invite oral submissions to expand upon or explain, if the appellant thought that was necessary, the written grounds submitted. He is plainly very familiar with the entire background, with all the facts, and now has considerable experience in litigating in relation to them. The case has not involved complex matters of law. As I have said, the appeal is directed essentially to the judge's findings of fact, and I should add that considerable submissions are made both in writing and orally upon the question of the evidence of the appellant's mother.
50. I refer also to a document headed "Partial Skeleton Argument", which has been submitted to the Court. Under an emergency Legal Aid Certificate, counsel was, for a time, instructed on the appellant's behalf and submitted to the Court and disclosed to the respondents' solicitors or counsel that document. In my judgment, counsel then instructed was entirely right to follow that course. The appellant complains bitterly that counsel should not have done so and that it was done contrary to his instructions. This Court, along with other courts, now relies heavily upon the provision of skeleton arguments, and counsel was right, albeit at fairly short notice, to submit the lengthy document which he had prepared, to the Court. The Court has, in the event, had the advantage of considering it. Indeed, the appellant has quoted long passages from it, though he has quoted not directly from it but from an opinion which counsel had prepared which formed the basis of the "partial skeleton argument".
51. However, the main reason I refer to it (though not essential to the decision) is to mention its contents. First at paragraph 1:

"Mr Perotti wishes to make it clear that there are other arguments which he wishes to put forward, so this skeleton does not deal with all the points which may arise on these appeals."

52. Then at paragraph 41, having considered the central point in the case, the suggestion that there was a secret trust in favour of Ellen Perotti, counsel stated:

"...and of course Mr Perotti will explain how he in fact had a strong case..."

53. Whether the Court would have permitted Mr Perotti as well as counsel to address the Court is another matter, but I refer to it to indicate that plainly the appellant was expecting this week to address the Court on issues in the case, including that central issue. He has addressed the Court with considerable stamina. Indeed, upon the conclusion of this appeal, he persuaded the Court that the Court should go on to hear, as Chadwick LJ and I have done this afternoon, three further applications for permission to appeal in connected matters.
54. I would also state that criticisms which have been made by Mr Perotti as to Mr Semken's, counsel for the respondents', conduct in the course of presenting this appeal are, in my judgment, entirely unjustified.
55. For those reasons, and the reasons given by Tuckey LJ, I agree that this appeal must be dismissed.
Order: Appeal dismissed with costs; application for permission to appeal to the House of Lords refused.