IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE Case No. LTA 96/7856/D

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London W2A 2LL

Thursday, 1st May 1997

B e f o r e

LORD JUSTICE SCHIEMANN

HER MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL

Respondent

v.

BRIDGET DELTORA WRAY

Applicant

(Computer Aided Transcription of the Stenograph Notes of

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THE APPLICANT/RESPONDENT appeared on her own behalf.

THE RESPONDENT/APPLICANT did not attend and was not represented.

J U D G M E N T

(As approved by the Court)

Crown Copyright

LORD JUSTICE SCHIEMANN: This is an application by Mrs Wray for leave to appeal against a civil proceedings order made by Lord Justice Staughton and Mr Justice Tucker on 11th November 1996 under section 42 of the Supreme Court Act. The background to the case is set out in Lord Justice Staughton's judgment, which there is no point in my reading again. He points out that there are nine actions, eight of which have been struck out and one of which has been stayed. There is an affidavit of a Mr Noble, who swore it on behalf of the Attorney General, which refers to a yet further eight actions commenced by Mrs Wray and to a counterclaim in an action, and of those the counterclaim has been struck out and two others of the actions have been partly struck out. The Lord Justice describes that a number of actions have been stayed and says that the position of the court is that it cannot enquire again as to the justice of the past decisions and must start on the assumption that those past decisions are correct. That is manifestly the law and is not capable of being challenged. The court below came to the conclusion that in those circumstances Mrs Wray had habitually and persistently and without any reasonable grounds instituted vexatious civil proceedings and made vexatious applications in the civil proceedings, and made the order.

The effect of the order, as I explained to Mrs Wray, is not that she is prevented from bringing future actions, but that she can only do so if the High Court is satisfied that the proposed proceedings or applications are not an abuse of the process of the court and that there are reasonable grounds for the proceedings or application (see section 42(3)). She tells me she understands that, but her difficulty is this, that her case is one which she can allege in the pleadings, but in order to get any sort of proof of it off the ground she needs to have various orders for discovery and such like against potential defendants, so that the material may be turned up which would then show how right and correct her case was. She says, absent that material, her case does not look very impressive on its face, therefore she is unlikely to get leave and she will be severely disadvantaged by the order that has been made.

Of course in order to obtain leave she has to indicate where it was that the court below in the exercise of its discretion went wrong or where it made an error of law, and she has done that, or attempted to do that, in her proposed notice of appeal, where she sets out that the grounds of this appeal are:

I confess that that draft notice of appeal has all the hallmarks of a vexatious litigant, namely somebody who either cannot or will not put her complaints in a clear form which permits of them to be answered. I endeavoured, by talking to her this afternoon, to find out the substance of the matter. I say this about the seven grounds which I have read out: the equity point is not developed; nor is the injustice point; nor is the restraint of trade point. So far as the reference to an abuse of the process of the court is concerned, that appears to be a reference to section 42(3), which is of course primarily concerned with the circumstances in which leave should be given to someone who is the subject of such an order, and I think her point on that is the one I have referred to earlier in this judgment. So far as the reference to forms of action is concerned, there are no details given; and, so far as the relevant cases are concerned, again it is not clear what points she seeks to raise; nor does the reference to "reasonable ground" at the end make the position any clearer.

I asked her for some details as she addressed me in the course of this afternoon, and she gave various reasons for saying that various actions which she wishes to bring cannot sensibly be combined in one action. I understand the concept of that but that in itself is not an answer to the point that many of her actions have already been struck out. It may perhaps be an answer to a point if she seeks to bring a new action. Essentially she says that there is behind all this some fraud or high-handed action on behalf of the authorities, which she cannot put her hands on, and she suggested the court appoint an amicus curiae, which the court has power to do, in order to discover what she thinks is the fraud. That would not be a reason for giving leave to appeal. In order to succeed in an appeal it has to be shown that the court below erred in its application of the law, and of that there is no possible hope of success. In those circumstances leave is refused.

ORDER: Application refused.