England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
(MR NIGEL DAVIS QC)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Monday, 26th February 2001

Monday, 26th February 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE ROBERT WALKER: This is an application for permission to appeal by Mr Victor Tassell who has appeared in person acting as spokesman both for himself and his wife who is a party to the proceedings. Mr and Mrs Tassell wish to appeal against an order of Mr Nigel Davis QC made on 16th November 2000 when he was sitting as a deputy judge of the Chancery Division in Bankruptcy. The application also seeks a reference to the European Court of Justice under Article 234 of the treaty and a stay of a bankruptcy petition which is due to be heard very soon in the Southend County Court, and that is why this application has been heard at short notice.
2. The deputy judge, Mr Davis, dismissed Mr and Mrs Tassell's appeal from an order of District Judge Skerratt made on 6th July 2000 in the Bournemouth County Court in bankruptcy. The district judge had refused to grant an adjournment or to direct the transfer of the proceedings to another county court, and he refused to set aside a statutory demand dated 3rd February 2000 for a sum of rather over £29,500 which had been served on behalf of National Westminster Bank Plc ("the Bank"). That demand is itself based on a judgment debt for a sum in excess of £27,500 under an order made on 16th March 1999 in the Southend County Court. That had been affirmed on appeal by Judge Rice on 13th April 1999, and this Court had refused permission to appeal on 23rd November 1999.
3. Mr Tassell and his company, Stansford Associates Limited, have had long-standing disputes with the Bank going back for many years. There have been five separate sets of proceedings either in the county court or in the High Court concerned with those disputes; three of them have ended in orders against Mr Tassell (either with or without Mrs Tassell also being a party) from which this Court has on each occasion refused permission to appeal. Full details of these matters are set out in the careful judgment of the deputy judge who heard submissions from Mr Tassell during a hearing which lasted about two hours. In the circumstances it is not necessary or appropriate for me to attempt to repeat the full history here.
4. Before the deputy judge, Mr Tassell identified two main complaints against District Judge Skerratt's order, although whose complaints were considerably elaborated and incorporated the fruits of Mr Tassell's legal researches. One was that the district judge had made up his mind in advance and should have granted an adjournment; the other is that he had ignored the fact that Mr Tassell had a complete defence.
5. As to the first matter Mr Davis pointed out that the hearing before the deputy district judge was quite lengthy, as appears from the transcript. Mr Tassell has told me this afternoon that the hearing lasted three-quarters of an hour or rather more. Judges always read the papers beforehand whenever they can; otherwise it would be quite impossible to deal with complicated matters with reasonable speed but that does not mean that they have made up their minds in advance. The district judge's refusal to grant an adjournment or a transfer to another county court seems to me to be well within his case management powers.
6. As to the other principal ground, the deputy judge pointed to a misapprehension in Mr Tassell's approach. An application to set aside a statutory demand is not an opportunity to reopen old issues on which all avenues of appeal have already been exhausted. Mr Tassell has in his submissions to me this afternoon brought my attention to two matters in particular on which he has very strong feelings, although he has addressed me with great moderation. One was an occasion on 28th September 1999 when a sum of £125,000 was, as he said, dealt with by the Bank without written authority from himself and his wife to do so. That money appears to have been paid into the account by a solicitor,
7. Mr Forsdike, who has since been struck off the roll of solicitors.
8. Mr Tassell also has general complaints which appear from a report dated 7th January 1998 from a company called Anglia Business Associates which he engaged to scrutinise the Bank's records over a number of years. That letter refers to the "regularity and significance" of some of the discrepancies in the accounts. However, before the deputy judge Mr Tassell frankly accepted that the issues which he was raising had been raised and had been adjudicated on before. It seems to me that Mr Tassell is, because of his strong feelings in the matter, attempting to use the statutory demand as an occasion to re-litigate matters which have already been adjudicated on.
9. In this Court Mr Tassell complains that the deputy judge fails to consider the implications of, among other things, section 23 of the Theft Act 1968 and sections 93C and 93D of the Criminal Justice Act 1998, as amended, which are concerned with offences often referred to as "money laundering" and "tipping off".
10. Mr Tassell has also referred to various provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and to jurisprudence on the Convention. However, despite all of his submissions I am not persuaded that there is any arguable case that the statutory demand should have been set aside. By section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 a further appeal to the Court of Appeal is, as a matter of binding statute, permissible only if the further appeal would raise an important point of principle or practice or for some other compelling reason.
11. I am not persuaded that a further appeal would fall within that stringent test or that there is any point requiring to be referred to the European Court of Justice. On the contrary, I have to say that even by the normal test an appeal in this case would be hopeless. I must therefore dismiss the application for permission to appeal and the other applications fall away.
(Applications dismissed)