England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
CIVIL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(His Honour Judge Grenfell
sitting as a Judge of the High Court)

		The Royal Courts of Justice The Strand London Wednesday 26 June 2002

Wednesday 26 June 2002

1. LORD JUSTICE SIMON BROWN: The applicant is an elderly prisoner serving a six-year sentence of imprisonment following his conviction by a jury at Sheffield Crown Court for an offence of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He has indicated that he will not be attending court today and accordingly I am asked to deal with the matter on the documents.
2. His conviction notwithstanding, the applicant describes himself as a political prisoner and much of what he writes gives the impression of being an impassed tirade against what he perceives to be a campaign of fraud and persecution directed against him. His application before the court today is for permission to appeal against various orders made by Judge Grenfell, sitting as a High Court Judge in Leeds, respectively on 24 September 2001 and 10 January 2002. These orders were made in defamation proceedings brought by the applicant against the various respondents in June 2001.
3. The order of 24 September 2001 required the applicant to particularise his claim so that the respondents could properly plead their defences to it. The part complained of is the order for the applicant to pay the costs of that hearing; an order, just like the subsequent costs order, which the court directed was not to be enforced without further permission. The order of 10 January 2002 struck out the applicant's claim, again with costs.
4. As urged by the applicant on the documents, I have spent a very great deal more than 20 minutes in reading the documents in the case. In so far, however, as the applicant appears to ask also that I should read out in open court, the document which he describes as his witness statement that I do not propose to do. Nor do I propose to spend long in delivering this judgment.
5. The applications which the applicant makes are, I fear, quite hopeless. The orders which it is sought to appeal were not merely soundly based and properly reasoned, they were inevitable. The applicant has no legitimate grounds of appeal whatever. Amongst his various criticisms of the judgments below are that the hearings that took place before Judge Grenfell violated, so he asserts, Articles 6 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. These criticisms are wholly ill founded. I have read the transcripts of both hearings and it is plain that the judge went out of his way to assist the applicant, giving him the fullest opportunity to deal, as best he could, with every point. If anything, indeed, the judge to my mind over-indulged the applicant, who seems to me to have exploited to the furthest limits the status of an elderly litigant in person.
6. As for the judgments, they are a model of their kind. The critical judgment, that of 10 January 2002, consists of a careful, thorough and cogently-reasoned examination of all the newspaper articles and matters of which the applicant complained and upon which he sought to rely. His various claims are in truth totally misconceived. It would have been quite wrong to have allowed this action to proceed to trial. It was rightly struck out.
7. Although I do not expect the applicant to understand or accept what I say, the simple fact is that he has not, on a proper view of the law, been libelled by the publications sued upon, nor has he been in any way wronged by the courts who have had to deal with his case.
8. No appeal here could possibly succeed. I have no option but to refuse, as I do, the applications for permission to appeal.
ORDER: Application refused