 |
||||
 |
||||
|
||||
|
Chris Mullin Daily Mail Article 1991 Stanton Turns Really Nasty The End Of The Annus But Not The Horribilis
|
The
End of the Annus, But Not the Horribilis My preliminary trial took only one day, in mid-November 1992. Recorder Wolton, a part-time judge and land law specialist, had to decide two issues: first, the precise boundary, and second, whether I had the right to reduce the height of the trees and associated hedgerow. It was the full-time judge, Alan Taylor, who had found the original action so complex that he ordered a preliminary trial to boil it down to these two points. Had he conducted the trial himself, he might have influenced the booking clerk to follow on the next day, or at least before Christmas. Recorder Wolton did ask whether we wanted judgment on the day, but we were too inexperienced to know we could ask for a few minutes to deliberate. I would have gone for judgment that day. In the event we didn't get it, and didn't regret it. When the action began, the prestigious inner-city firm of solicitors bullied and coerced me. They pushed the case into court but failed to keep up the momentum. Old man Stanton would not budge. He was greedy and thought victory secure, so he did not hurry at their bidding. He revelled in cat-and-mouse power, kept us waiting for a year, and accrued interest on his claim at my expense. Delay was developed into an art form, designed to ruin us by attrition; lawyers get well paid, win or lose, until the job is finished. They were caught out by genuinely believing their own expert witness, who said the trees would die as a result of my actions. His evidence was out of date, and his lurid colour photographs of raw severed stems, cleverly taken from two feet above, were the key to their whole case. They should have checked the position on site: I had cut away another four feet a year ago. It did not need an expert to tell even the most inexperienced gardener that those trees were in perfect health. Time was all to our advantage, because the hedge was growing robustly. We had to wait until the New Year for judgment. Recorder Wolton would be free on Monday 15th February, the day after Valentine's Day and my mother's birthday. The prospect of a three-month wait was agony; we wanted the whole business over so we could live normally. I confidently expected judgment in my favour. If it went the other way, the expert reports would become relevant, and their authors would be cross-examined. The reports had to be exchanged between the parties and deposited with the court a month beforehand. I managed with my steam-driven old BBC microcomputer and its near-letter-quality printer. The Order of the Court for the preliminary trial was handwritten and barely legible, so I wrote to the court for clarification and received an irritable reply. There had also been another error: the clerk had not understood the context of the Judge's order and was afraid to use common sense. Mistakes, I tell you, were about us all the time. The last thing Recorder Wolton had told me was that I would not need my experts' reports if I won, but that he would want them if he decided against me. I was taking no risks. We had learnt a lot about evidence, and I had been terrorised by the Stantons' two-year-old photographs from the top of a scaffold tower. They were now three years old and no longer represented the true position, but they had not been exposed at the preliminary trial because they were irrelevant to the preliminary issues. Our own evidence had been excellent and ultimately decisive, but John Wetherell's affidavit had a shortfall: it gave no compass direction or camera position. It probably wouldn't matter again, but it had to be available. I was certain the judgment would go my way, but what then? The law on damages is very complex. I tried to get advice from my insurance company without success. I went to the legal evening at the Citizens Advice Bureau, where the solicitor told me which books to study, and next day I was at the university library reading and photocopying. I phoned the Birmingham Law Society, outlining my unusual position, and was impressed by their willingness to help. Over several days different officers phoned back, and eventually I was sent the obligatory minimum of three names. The first two solicitors were out of the country, which carried an unwritten message. The third was Ray Burford of the Walsall firm of Loxton, and I was put through to him immediately. He was intrigued and asked for my file, so I drove straight there and delivered it, along with my written account of the last court appearance. Ian had just bought a portable video camera and borrowed a quality still camera. We started filming, with commentary and sound, from outside his house on Weoley Hill, opposite the Stantons. Stanton's large detached house, once a doctor's residence and surgery, stands a hundred yards away. The offending Leylandii protruded at its rear into the gap between houses. Those trees, responsible for my being sued, hide my tiny home, which was built half a century later when the Council ordered every bit of land to be used. We turned right into Witherford Way, where Diana Jinks kindly took us through her house into her back garden, as she had three months earlier, to take close-ups of the hedge from the Stanton side. She worried that the Stantons might think she was taking sides, but she was anxious that the truth emerge in court. A large, bright winter sun shone from the east, and the heavy dew twinkled on the Leylandii like Christmas baubles. It was the only time I have liked such an ugly species, strangely at a time when I had every reason to despise them. The hedge had grown in three months and presented a perfect fifteen-foot screen, fit for the front page of an RHS magazine, with no stumps or bare patches. I thought: what possible damage has been caused, and how can my opponents justify uprooting these healthy trees and replacing them at my expense? We went on to Tillyard Croft, where my next-door neighbour Sigvard took us into his rear garden. He had lopped his beech hedge to about a metre, with the agreement of his neighbour on the other side, who lived next door to Stanton. It gave a clear view into the heavily wooded Stanton garden, and showed a visiting judge that reasonable people wanted a beech hedge as the boundary feature specified in the planning consent, not massive forest trees. Recorder Wolton had not seen fit to visit; Judge Taylor said he would have. We then filmed our own garden and finished at home. Three sets of still film produced a hundred photographs each, copied twice. The video was ready at once for Ray Burford. My first appointment at his poky Walsall offices taught me to park a mile away and walk. While waiting I chatted up the receptionist, Melanie, whose peals of laughter at my humour led her to tell me that Ray was a keen Baggies supporter. I climbed a dark, old timbered staircase and peered around open doors. Ray was a rotund, huge man, sitting with his feet on his desk, tipping his chair back and forth. He waved at several chairs piled with papers and roared, "Sidown." I lifted the biggest pile on to the floor and answered, "Up the Baggies." We talked football for half an hour; the club had been demoted and the manager sacked, and Ray was disappointed not to have been offered the job. Finally he said, "You get the first half hour with me free; now what sort of mess have you gotten yourself into?" He never said when that half hour began, and he never sent me an account, so we will never know. I handed him the video and asked him to view it over Christmas. I told him confidently that I would win my right to reduce the height of the trees, but I had studied the law on damages and needed to itemise likely scenarios with an expert in case I lost. By order of the court I would be exchanging expert reports on the very dodgy issues of property enhancement and revaluation, which have no basis in tort. Even if the judge accepted them in law, the Plaintiff's figures were wrong. John Wetherell, my tree expert, had to prepare a second affidavit with reliable estimates contesting my opponents' exaggerated costs. I would also put in a third affidavit addressing the weaknesses of our earlier evidence. Crucially, it had to contain my backstop defence of abatement of nuisance: that if I lost my main defence, my actions were the least harmful alternative, and that I had given the Plaintiff clear notice of my intention to remove the nuisance. Ray seemed bored and had clearly not studied my file. I said, "I do not trust any barrister to speak for me, but can I pay you fees for your advice on presenting my defence, and for you to sit behind me to advise on law?" Ray said, "I have been a barrister." I replied, "If the rules allowed me to brief you, which I know they don't, would you represent me?" He answered, "I fucking well wouldn't." So I went on: "My alternative is this: if you know a guy who is not only good but exceptional, I will engage you to brief him." Ray said, "You are dead lucky, because I know just the man. He is absolutely mad but fucking brilliant." I said, "That is exactly the bloke I want." Meanwhile I spent every day at the University Law Library, starting at nine. The CAB advice bureau on Monday evenings and Patrick Dalton at the University of Central England helped in small packets, but it was exhausting, and I needed my energy for the practical details of my evidence. The judge, if he did not come down on my side, wanted expert evidence countering the Stantons' re-re-amended Particulars of Claim, which asserted that by reducing the hedge I had enhanced the value of my property by £2,000 and decreased the value of Stanton's by £4,000. In the late eighties one main estate agent, Messrs Rice, had handled all properties on the Bournville Trust estate. After three days of persisting at their front desk I was ushered in to see a kindly old gentleman who had returned to the office especially for me. He was sympathetic to residents with awkward neighbours and problem hedges, and promised a letter as a court exhibit. He was too ill to give an affidavit, but he put me on to a young local surveyor and valuer, Tony Brunt, a regular on the Ed Doolan talk show. Tony visited, heard the whole background and got to work. At my suggestion he attached Mr Rice's letter as an addendum to his affidavit. The Bournville Village Trust had once been involved in a minor Chancery case and had obtained a supporting statement from a qualified city surveyor that BVT property carried a 20% premium over similar housing, because of the controlling covenants. Secretary Thompson offered me that letter for the court, and agreed to take the stand if required. I was thrilled that he was prepared to help. Tony brought a draft of his affidavit, we corrected it, attached the two addendums, and it was ready for swearing before E-Day, 15th January. John Wetherell came up for a day. He had trawled tree nurseries and wholesalers for the best quotes for replacement trees and construction work, and they were half what the Stantons' expert had quoted. When the photographs came back I started on my third affidavit. Three exact colour replicas were each to be sworn separately: one for the court, which would never be returned, and two for us. Six ordinary photocopies went to the Stanton lawyers and as spares. Colour photocopying in 1992 was extortionately expensive and of indifferent quality, so I labelled and numbered the original prints. I later offered Abe, the Stantons' solicitor, a sight of one of our colour copies, as he was legally entitled to a copy of what the judge saw. I never saw the lurid colour pictures that were used against me. Strangely, Abe rang me and tried hard to be friendly, even saying I had shown "considerable flair" in handling my case. He plainly missed my previous solicitor, with whom he had got on very well. I pointed out that the two of them would enjoy this case at my expense and gain only money, and added my unqualified hatred of solicitors, and of him in particular, for what he was being paid by a thoroughly unsocial neighbour. He got uppity and threatened to sue if I was implying dishonest behaviour. He could not see that I regarded him as running an expensive extortion racket against me. It was quite a legal racket, of course, but what of the moral issue? On the positive side, I loved the study at the quiet University Law Library, which was endowed by a trust on condition that the public could use it subject to student priority. I was using the practical knowledge and learning a new profession. A few days before Christmas I took my fifth application for further and better particulars of claim into Abe's office to give him something to think about over the holiday. I chatted up the receptionists; Abe passed by, nodded, and didn't ask what the hell I was doing there. At the back of my mind was always the question of whether to defend myself or engage our whiz-kid barrister. I gave myself until 10th January to decide. One day I was certain to have him, the next I would not. Hadn't Recorder Wolton said he wouldn't need my experts? A top barrister from Lincoln's Inn would cost thousands, plus the out-of-town costs and the solicitor's fees, and apart from the house we did not have that much. And supposing we lost? We would still have to pay the other side's costs, even without damages. On Christmas morning the boys walked round and we had them to ourselves for a couple of hours while they opened their pillowcases. As the Queen told her people about her Annus Horribilis, I mentally whispered a quiet "amen." On Boxing Day the Clays came down from next door but two: Sue, John, and their daughters Liz, twenty, and Becky, eighteen, close friends who had been part of every Christmas for ten years. I have a tendency to become obsessive, to the exclusion of all else, which is why the Stanton camp was unwise to take me on. Garden addicts stick together even when they hold opposite views on everything else. At school, parents would bring me plants, probably grown from my own cuttings in the yoghurt pots their children had brought me, and then go away without talking properly about their youngsters. That was before Ofsted and the National Curriculum; you couldn't get away with it now. Garden obsessives sublimate unhappiness. I grew thousands of plants from cuttings and seed and always gave the very best to Rose. We went to the Kings Heath show together and talked about nothing but plants for five hours. My self-imposed D-day, Saturday 10th January, arrived. We were invited to Sam and Sheila's sixtieth birthday. At first I declined, then thought: a nice pub, a few secluded nooks, good draught bitter, and Maureen driving. Sheila was an ex-school colleague of Maureen's, and the couple had bought our last house twenty-two years before. When loud pop music started and conversation had to be shouted, I got out. I found a quiet, smoke-free spot and began to drink and think. I had no paper and pen; all the issues were known. My decision was based on the worst outcome of the uncertainties, though I did not contemplate the entirely unpredictable that actually came about. Three pints did the trick: two to make the decision and a third to rejoice in no longer being undecided. I made out a cheque for £1,500 to Ray Burford and posted a letter officially taking him on as my solicitor. It was a lot of money in those days, and only the first of the nasty consequences. Next day the sworn affidavits of my experts arrived. I finished assembling three replica copies of my twenty-page third affidavit, in A5 format, with three colour photographs on each page. They showed the houses, roads and neighbours' hedges, the Leylandii with no access for Stanton maintenance, the height in relation to me, the beech hedge, and the camera angles and compass points. Older photographs were copied from surviving negatives. One showed Michelle, our granddaughter at about four, on the kitchen window sill on a sunny midsummer day, lit by flash because the trees blocked the daylight. Another showed Stanton's contractor sawing a couple of feet off the top, with the conversation recorded. Another showed one of his smoky bonfires. Significantly, there were also some stunning scenes of my garden at its best. I spent a good deal of time and money at the photocopier in the Community Resources Centre, where I was shown how to bind six booklets: three coloured replicas for swearing on oath, and three photocopies, one of which was to go to Abe. Nothing was left to chance of rejection on a technicality, and it turned out to matter, though Abe and his assistants were not up to it. On exchange day I deposited the court package in town. I was not going to release Abe's package first, so I waited to see whether he would collect it. At 5.30pm a taxi arrived with the Plaintiff's documents in an ordinary envelope. I did not trust the driver with mine, so I drove it round myself and posted it through the letterbox after ringing the bell without answer. Abe later moaned that it hadn't arrived on the day, but he had left the office before six, when it came. Eager to see what I had received for two months of work, I tore open the envelope and found two scrappy sheets, unsworn and not affidavits. The covering letter apologised for the state of one that looked as if it had come from the dying photocopier, and promised a better copy. I wondered what the judge had received. The content was rubbish. Roy Finch was surprised at the growth of the trees but claimed that, having lost the central stem, the weaker stems would need tying in by specialists at £200 to £300 a year for the next five to ten years. What appalled me was either his ignorance of Leylandii growth or the distortion needed to fit his client's case: Stanton himself had removed the central stem twelve years before, and his contractors had cut the tops two or three times since, the last time well photographed in my affidavit. The Stantons' surveyor, D J Abbot, had also retracted. He described the nuisance the trees would present to a neighbouring owner, which would have been useful for my abatement defence if I lost. He estimated that my reduction in height added £4,000 to my property, but my law doctor at UCE had told me such a claim was contrary to tort. As to Stanton's loss, he said only that it was "possible to argue a case" for a devaluation of between £1,000 and £2,000. The presentation was disgusting. I would have accepted it from my pupils if it was the best they could do, but not from professionals. Ray Burford now had my money in his account and represented me. I cut and pasted Abe's copy into acceptable format without changing the words, photocopied it, and added it to a properly indexed bundle for my barrister. Ray was pleased; he reminded me he had once been a barrister, fed up with getting plainly guilty miscreants off the hook, and was bored by his routine high-street work. But my case, with the slog already done, was pure law. I put my position to him, and later in writing: "In no circumstances will I tolerate mistakes, and I will have no truck with the excuse that everyone makes them. My arse is on the line, not yours. It is my home and life at stake. I know I have won the judgment, and I am paying you to make sure everything goes right from there on." I apologised in advance for being a pain, saying I wanted to know everything that went on and be consulted before anything happened. Ray said it was more satisfactory to have a client like me. As it turned out, Stanton v Jones was a colossal mistake in its own right, and every professional involved, including the judge but excepting the barrister we were about to meet, made monumental errors. I don't mean lack of judgment or ability; I mean careless errors that could make a decisive difference. What irked me was that Ray immediately phoned Abe to ask what it would cost "for the action to just disappear." I could have told him the Stantons would have none of it. If Abe did ask his client and was refused, that was another time the old man could have withdrawn to great advantage. Abe, Ray told me, was delighted to deal with a solicitor, since no one likes dealing with a litigant in person. At the end of January came the all-important interview with Counsel, which meant a trip to London. Ian and I were in luck: Boots the chemist had a promotion, buy so much and get a voucher for a free British Rail ticket with a return fare. It was easy to spend enough, on goods we wouldn't otherwise have bought, which was exactly the intention. At Selly Oak station, though, they refused to honour the voucher, and it was a good job I had cash. I threatened legal action without meaning it. Boots blamed British Rail and sent me a travel voucher for the fare of the free ticket. I returned it, saying I had already made the journey and would take the matter further. It was a mistake, as I did not know we would be travelling again within its expiry time. In London we took a taxi to Lincoln's Inn. Ray Burford, a London University graduate, came in his 4WD. A white-bearded, uniformed security man met the taxi at this exclusive building, where a brass plate listed the partners. Lavish expenditure had modernised the old offices under strict conservation order. We were early, as usual, and Ray arrived near the booked time, as usual. The small waiting room was scrupulously clean, and we were offered coffee. We climbed to a second-floor suite where we were welcomed by our new Counsel, Philip Kremin: dark-haired, slender, with prominent eyes and a largish nose on carved features that positively oozed character. The office was a contrast to the dark oak panelling and heavy legal tomes I'd expected. The walls were white, hung with very large, thin-framed works of expensive modern art. Ian shook his head and said "Magnificent," and Ray replied, "From grateful clients." A dapper man brought in coffee but could not find space on the cluttered table. Ray had put down a couple of bundles on the one clear patch, so the tray was balanced precariously. Philip poured, rather overfilling the cups. When Ray got up to hand them round he knocked a bundle against the tray and the coffee slopped into the saucers and beyond. Philip reacted quickly, seizing a box of tissues, mopping the tray, and handing us fresh cups. I made mental notes. Calmed down, Philip settled behind the table and said, "Mr Jones, I want to thank you for the excellent presentation of my brief. Not many of my solicitors achieve such standards. You are to be commended on this affidavit, particularly the presentation of evidence for your alternative defence." Ray nodded and murmured agreement. This satisfied me, because my team had studied my documents, though not all understood them thoroughly. Ian mostly did, even though it was an entirely inappropriate emotional time for him, as he was handling his own divorce. Reading my words years later, I find crude spelling mistakes and irritating grammatical errors that escaped my repeated checks, though no one else spotted them either. They were nothing compared with the appalling mistakes on both sides, and we didn't have the aids of modern word processors. My last Counsel had not bothered to call a conference with his client, and my solicitor had briefed him incorrectly. I made it clear to Philip that I would win the judgment but needed expertise to wind the action up. We discussed John Wetherell's report and evidence, so vital and yet rejected by my previous team, and Philip spent long periods being instructed by John on the arboricultural details. At the end of the lengthy session Ray took us to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street for beers. Ian was the same age as Ray, and they hit it off. We didn't mention the case at all. We talked football and the Baggies, who were doing very well, and heard some subtle jokes and goings-on from the legal world. I was quiet and thoughtful, but we were great buddies, and when we went out to call a taxi, one thing was certain: Ray would not be driving home. |
|||