England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
TRURO COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE TYZACK QC)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London, WC2 Friday, 20 September 2002

Friday, 20th September 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE THORPE: Mr Christopher Nathan has lodged an application with this court for permission to appeal an order made by His Honour Judge Tyzack QC, on 29th June 2001, in the Truro Courts of Justice. However, Mr Nathan, who has explained his convictions to me fully this morning, asserts that he really attacks the care order made in respect of all four of his children on 2nd November 1994 by His Honour Judge Kenneth Wilcox QC. The children in question were born between 29th January 1990 and 1st April 1994, so that they range in ages from 12 to 8.
2. Subsequently, in June 1997 the court made freeing orders in respect of the three eldest children dispensing with the parents' consent. There is, therefore, an inference that the three eldest children have been moved forward into adopted placements. Mr Nathan has never fully accepted the outcome. He obtained from his former solicitors the court bundle in February 1996, and he has conceived the conviction that certain documents were not before His Honour Judge Wilcox, and that the proceedings were according fatally flawed. He has developed the further conviction that these documents were deliberately suppressed by the Cornwall County Council in bad faith. Since then he has pursued, persistently and almost exhaustively, his attempts to re-open the proceedings. He has endeavoured to bring a private prosecution against the Cornwall County Council. However, the justices have refused him a summons on the basis that he has failed to satisfy the court that the essential ingredients of the offence have been made out. That conclusion is fully and carefully reasoned in what is, in effect, a judgment of a Justice of the Peace, which appears in this bundle at pages 137 and 138. Subsequently, he has made a number of applications in the county court essentially seeking to re-open. He has applied, seeking leave to have the 1994 order and the 1995 order terminating contact, set aside, on the grounds that they were illegally made. That application has been refused lately. The documents that Mr Nathan alleges were suppressed consists of a court welfare officer's report of 1993 and correspondence between his solicitor and the District Council regarding his housing application, and a letter from the District Council to his solicitor regarding the same issue.
3. Now, simply because the court welfare officer's report did not appear in the bundle it does not follow that it was not before the court. As to the other four documents I cannot myself see that any of them could be said to be particularly relevant to the determination reached by Judge Wilcox. But that is not really the point.
4. The question is was Judge Tyzack right to refuse the application which was issued on 15th June to set aside? Plainly it was a matter for the judge's discretion and plainly he was entitled to reach the conclusion that he did. The application was by a litigant in person and without notice. Accordingly, I have only a copy of the judge's notebook which conscientiously summaries the submissions and records the dismissal of the application, and that further similar applications were not considered.
5. Mr Nathan says that the judge refused him, saying:

"This is the same application you brought into court on 1st June and I do not want to hear any more similar applications. You must go away and get on with your life, application dismissed."

6. Well, if the judge did say that or something to that effect, it does not seem to me that it is open to any criticism. After all, Mr Nathan is pursuing a campaign which is inspired by his own conviction that there has been a fundamental injustice which he can himself right by exposure. But of course that is completely unrealistic. It is quite impossible to put the clock back or, to use another metaphor, to wipe the slate clean. The lives of children move on, and what was done was done. These endeavours are absolutely fruitless.
7. But Mr Nathan has obviously no intention of giving up lightly, for, since the hearing in front of Judge Tyzack he has issued an application in the county court for permission to apply to revoke the care orders made on 2nd November 1994, and that application was dismissed by His Honour Judge Vincent on 2nd September 2002 with a reasoned judgment.
8. So the inevitable outcome of the application this morning is that it must be dismissed. There is simply no possible role for the Court of Appeal in all this. There is no demonstration of any misdirection or error on the part of Judge Tyzack on 29th June, and it could not possibly be said that the discretionary conclusion which he reached was plainly wrong. My function is a very limited one and that is only to admit to this court applications which have a realistic prospect of success. But, as I have explained, this application does not fall anywhere near that, and accordingly I refuse to allow it to proceed further.
(Application dismissed; no order for costs).