KING'S BENCH DIVISION
LIVERPOOL DISTRICT REGISTRY
35 Vernon Street Liverpool L2 2BX |
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B e f o r e :
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ROYAL & SUN ALLIANCE INSURANCE LIMITED | Claimant | |
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GAIL AVRIL HAMBLETT | ||
GRAHAM HAMBLETT | Defendants |
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291-299 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JG
Tel: 020 7269 0370
legal@ubiqus.com
Mr Paul Diamond (instructed by Waldrons Solicitors) appeared on behalf of the Defendants
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MR JUSTICE SOOLE:
The law
(a) the statement in question (whether oral or written) was false;
(b) the statement has, or if persisted in would be likely to have, interfered with the course of justice;
(c) at the time it was made the maker of the statement (i) had no honest belief in the truth of the statement and (ii) knew of its likelihood to interfere with the course of justice.
The evidence at trial
18. By email to LWF's solicitors dated 2 December 2022, Mrs Hamblett's solicitors provided the questioned invoice to which Mr and Mrs Hamblett had referred. The email stated in particular: 'Please see the invoice sent by your client to the Claimant. The invoice specifically refers to 'broken flowers' and is dated the day of the accident. It also has a detailed breakdown of exactly what flowers were 'broken' as a result of this accident. This of course raises serious credibility questions of your client. He has signed a statement of truth to the Part 18 questions and has specifically stated in response to questions 19 and 20, no damage was caused to any flowers/flower buckets/displays. The Defendant has also confirmed, with a statement of truth, that he did not invoice the Claimant for any damage caused to the flowers/flower displays/flower buckets, yet the Claimant has disclosed evidence to the contrary… Your client has signed a statement of truth to answers that are proven to be false. We will raise this issue of dishonesty and an attempt to mislead the Court by the Defendant, at the upcoming trial.'
21. At the outset of the trial on 3 January 2023, Counsel for LWF applied to adduce the evidence of a number of documents which Mr Appleton had found, he said, on 29 December 2022. These were provided in intended rebuttal of Mr and Mrs Hamblett's evidence about the questioned invoice. The Judge granted the application. In the course of argument the Judge had noted: 'I'm rather surprised the document hadn't been located earlier, particularly since the significance of it was appreciated in the Part 18 requests which were made of the defendant and which, when I read the papers, appeared to produce the rather surprising response that there was no damage to any other flowers and no invoice had been raised…And I was struggling to understand before the events I've been told about this morning how on earth the defendant was going to meet the evidence that there was in fact an invoice for, on the face of it, damage to other flowers, which appeared to confirm what the claimant and her husband were saying'.
Mrs Hamblett's evidence
RSA submissions
Defendants' submissions
Conclusions
(1) the long interval of time between her first alleged knowledge of this document in early June 2018 and her retrieval of it from the loft in November 2022. On her account she considered the document to be important and in consequence placed it in a file in her old handbag and had her son put the bag in the loft. True it is that the court proceedings were not issued until June 2021 and statements were not exchanged until July 2022, but I am wholly unpersuaded by her account that retrieval of the document could not be achieved until building works to the loft were carried out in November 2022 in that respect. I also note the differing accounts as to whether that work was done in order to get the document or for the broader purpose of access to the loft. I reject that explanation for the delay;
(2) the way in which the overall account of the delivery of the invoice has changed over time: from the limited terms of her witness statement referring to the invoice being 'sent' and without reference to being told about it by her husband when she was in hospital; to the evidence at trial about delivery by Tommy, the discussion at the hospital and the importance then attached to the document and to keeping it;
(3) the changing nature of the suggestions as to who was responsible for doctoring the invoice. First, pointing to Mr Appleton and then ultimately abandoning that allegation. Secondly, by then pointing to Mr Ennis as the only possible culprit and then withdrawing that contention;
(4) the suggestion, which I reject, that the importance attached to this document was the creation of her solicitor and in which she played no part. I do not accept that the relevant part of the Part 18 request or the thrust of the solicitor's email of 2 December 2022 would have been advanced without the broad knowledge and approval of Mrs Hamblett that the purported invoice was being deployed in order to undermine Mr Appleton's integrity and credibility. She must also have known this from her evidence of the many requests from her solicitor to provide the document. No doubt the detailed terms of the request and email would have been drafted by the solicitor, but I am sure that the overall purpose of reliance on the invoice was well known to Mrs Hamblett.
[The hearing on sanction followed]