England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL
		22 February 2010

1. JUDGE MACKIE: Mr Boyle makes an application in circumstances where he says that he was not served with notice of the hearing on 8 October. He says that and it is true because the court records confirm he was not notified. It is for that reason that the court has permitted him to do two things: first, to seek to vary the costs order which I made on 8 October and, secondly, to seek permission to appeal.
2. I deal first with the question of costs. Although Mr Boyle is now representing himself, he was - at the time when this litigation was brought and when permission was obtained from the High Court judge and when it was heard before me - represented by solicitors and counsel who knew what they were doing and must have advised him of the costs implication of the action he had chosen to take. That action was to bring a case in the High Court, not a small claim or anything of that kind but a High Court case, and to carry it through.
3. I bear in mind what Mr Boyle has said this morning, what he has also said in his letter of 11 October 2009 and in his helpful note prepared for this hearing.
4. Mr Boyle brought this case. As is generally the case in civil claims, including those in this court, the winning party receives an order that its costs be paid by the losing party. Mr Boyle lost this case. For that reason, like everybody else who loses their case, he must face the costs consequences and pay some of the costs incurred by the defendants. He suggests that the Chief Constable should not have been involved. But, in the absence of representation by the Pubwatch scheme itself, it was vital that that party be before the court because otherwise, had the claimant succeeded, there would have been serious implications - as Mr Boyle's lawyers must have known - both for Haverhill Pubwatch and also for Pubwatch schemes generally.
5. The only issue that arose last time was whether two sets of costs should be ordered, that is to say whether Mr Boyle should pay not just the costs of the Chief Constable but also those of Wetherspoons. The order I made on that occasion was that there should be one set of costs only, that is to say the costs judge should assess this case as though there was only one party, in effect the defendant, representing the successful side in this case. On the last occasion I said that the complications, if costs could not be agreed, were to be sorted out by the costs judge, a specialist judge, who spends his or her entire working life assessing bills of costs and issues related to them. There is no reason for me to change the costs order I made, and it would be wrong for me to do so, probably perverse for me to do so given what happened. There will be no change to the order for costs.
6. Next Mr Boyle seeks permission to appeal. He says that he should have the right to take this case further. First, he says there was misleading evidence given about the underlying incidents and the facts giving rise to the claim. Secondly he claims that Mr Musset has told an untruth to the court about his current status with the Haverhill Pubwatch Scheme. Thirdly he suggested that there were documents not before the court which should have been available for the hearing. He was unable to recall what those were, but he had concerns about the manner in which materials were put before the court and how other material, the way in which the material, such as the presence or absence of photographs, was addressed.
7. The court only has jurisdiction to grant permission to appeal in limited circumstances. They do not apply in this case. In my judgment, there is no real prospect of Mr Boyle succeeding in an appeal, essentially for the reasons given in my judgment. The questions which I decided were ones of law not affected by the detailed evidence of the underlying incidents. Indeed the only matter to which that material would have gone would have been the third of the three issues which were raised in the case. And I concluded in my judgment that it was not appropriate or necessary for me to deal with those points. Indeed I notice at paragraph 58 of the judgment I said:

"58 In most cases, and despite having found against the claimant on the first two points, I would have moved on to consider the third in case I was wrong about the others. Virtually all of the argument however was directed to the first two issues and there was little discussion about the facts of the individual case. Furthermore, while I would be in a position to consider whether the appeal opportunities given to Mr Boyle were sufficient, this case appears also to rely upon allegations of violence which I cannot begin to evaluate. I express no view on that issue."

8. Essentially therefore those matters which Mr Boyle seeks to raise were irrelevant because they related to the third of the three issues. I did not decide this issue as a result of my decision on the legal points. For that reason permission to appeal is refused. However Mr Boyle has the right, if he wishes to do so, to seek permission to appeal from a Lord or Lady Justice of the Court of Appeal.
9. (To Applicant) If you go to the court office, they will tell you how to do that. Despite my decision, you can if you wish take this one stage further.
10. THE APPLICANT: Can I say something?
11. JUDGE MACKIE: Yes.
12. THE APPLICANT: There was other documents but the other documents, in the last paragraph about bias, I feel go strongly towards proving bias concerning Gordon Musset. I have e.mails and obviously the documents which prove that there was no discussions, and to me it is bias. Can I mention one of them?
13. JUDGE MACKIE: Yes.
14. THE APPLICANT: One of them - I have a few - the one I was quite surprised at, which was one from the police to Gordon Musset, and it was whilst I was on the Pubwatch scheme, was from the police. Would you like to read it for yourself?
15. JUDGE MACKIE: No. I said I would listen to you which I did. But the position is that it does not seem to me that the factual matters that concern you have anything to do with the first two legal issues which I decided. And I did not decide the question of bias. I did not deal with the facts at all. To some extent I agree with you in that I thought there were not enough facts before the court to enable me to decide that issue. As I found against you on the first two issues, it was not necessary for me to turn to number 3. All right?
16. THE APPLICANT: Yes.
17. JUDGE MACKIE: Thank you for coming. If you want to take the matter further you may do so.
18. One question that would arise is the costs of today's hearing. I do not think it right to make an order against Mr Boyle in respect of costs of today's hearing because it is not his fault that it was necessary for the hearing to take place. There will be no costs of today. Costs of and occasioned by this hearing should not form part of the application for costs to the costs judge. I appreciate that means that the two intervenors have not got their costs paid. They need to take that up with the Ministry of Justice if they wish to do so, not Mr Boyle.