Attorney General v Perotti

On 11 April 1984 Lorenzo Perotti died, leaving a will under which his nephew, Angelo Perotti, (“Mr Perotti”) was one among other beneficiaries. A dispute over his uncle’s estate has led Mr Perotti by stages to the present application in this court, brought by Her Majesty’s Attorney General, to have Mr Perotti declared a vexatious litigant pursuant to the provisions of section 42 of the Supreme Court Act 1981 (the “1981 Act”).

On 17 March 1992 Mr Perotti commenced a “general administration action” in the Chancery Division in which he sought relief in respect of the estate of his late uncle. He brought those proceedings, in essence a probate dispute to a large extent reflecting a family feud dating back to 1982, against Kenneth Watson, the attorney-administrator of Lorenzo’s estate and a former partner in the firm of Mackrell Turner Garrett (“Mackrell”); Mario Impanni, a retired Italian businessman resident in Italy, the sole executor of the will; Maria Abatte, Mr Perotti’s sister and another beneficiary under the will; and her husband, Vincenzo Abatte. Mr Perotti appeared at the trial in person, although at earlier stages of the litigation he had instructed solicitors and counsel. The Abattes also appeared in person. Mr Impanni did not appear and was not represented. The principal defendant was Mr Watson, whose solicitors were Barlow, Lyde and Gilbert and whose counsel was Mr Christopher Semken. The original claim form alleged that the defendants had individually attempted or had conspired together to defraud Mr Perotti of his full inheritance, but this allegation was not pursued. He sought the removal of Mr Watson as administrator.

On 26 March 1997 Rimer J gave judgment. Although the judge had some criticisms to make of Mr Watson’s administration and accepted that there were grounds for removing him, he refused in his discretion to do so; and otherwise dismissed Mr Perotti’s claims. He ordered Mr Perotti to pay three quarters of the costs, then estimated in the sum of some £240,000.

Unfortunately, Mr Perotti’s conduct of those proceedings, including both their interlocutory and post trial enforcement stages, was so unreasonable that on 28 November 1997 Rimer J made a civil restraint order, then known as a Grepe v. Loam order, against him, under which he had to ask the judge for leave to make any further application in the proceedings. The judge said:

“Mr Perotti’s difficulty is that he has a seriously flawed understanding of the law and its application to the procedural and substantive issues arising in this litigation. He is constantly attempting, in different ways, to fight again battles which he has earlier fought and lost. He is not prepared to take an adverse judgment as being the final word, even if it is an adverse judgment of the Court of Appeal, and the two wasted costs applications with which I have recently dealt illustrate well his attempt to re-litigate matters which have already effectively been finally decided against him by the Court of Appeal. He has been, and is, pursuing this litigation in an obsessional way and I think that Mr Semken is justified in his submission that the litigation has also become something of a hobby for Mr Perotti, who has the leisure time available to devote to it as he is unemployed…The burden of each of his hopeless applications is serious. Mr Watson must be facing a mounting concern as to whether he will ever be able to enforce with success the many costs orders he has obtained against Mr Perotti.”

At that time, Mr Perotti’s appeal (then, as of right) to the court of appeal was pending. It was not reached for many years, but was dismissed on 2 February 2001. Since Rimer J’s Grepe v. Loam order, Mr Perotti’s litigation has continued nevertheless to multiply and he has commenced something like a further dozen or so sets of proceedings. In the course of this litigious path the courts have made increasingly severe orders against him in an attempt to restrain his excesses.

Thus on 10 April 2003, Neuberger J made an extended civil restraint order (“ECRO”) barring him from issuing any new proceedings or making any further applications against Mr Watson or Mackrell in the High Court or any county court concerning Lorenzo’s estate or its administration without first obtaining permission by application on paper to Neuberger J or Rimer J. Neuberger J concluded (at [2003] EWHC 982 (Ch)):

“28.

In my judgment, this is as plain a case for making an extended Grepe v. Loam order as I have seen. I am quite satisfied that Mr Watson, his partners, their employees and their legal representatives have the right to expect a degree of protection from this constant, misconceived, unpleasant bombarding by Mr Perotti which inevitably, without the order sought, would lead to them incurring yet further substantial irrecoverable costs. I have no hesitation in granting the order sought.”

Then, on 21 July 2004 Evans-Lombe J granted a general civil restraint order (“GCRO”) barring Mr Perotti for 2 years from issuing proceedings or making applications in the High Court or any county court “against any person concerning any matter” without first obtaining permission from him by an application on paper. Rimer J’s original restraint order in Mr Perotti’s original 1992 proceedings was thus overtaken by stages by further restraint orders which first extended to any litigation concerning his uncle’s estate and then extended still further to embrace any litigation on any matter whatsoever.

In the meantime, the court of appeal had also been bombarded with repeated applications arising out of Mr Perotti’s litigation. On 26 February 2004 Chadwick LJ had directed that the Civil Appeals Office should accept no further notices of appeal from Mr Perotti until after the hearing scheduled for 16 March 2004 of an application restraining his litigious activities in the court of appeal. Chadwick LJ said (at para 76 of [2004] EWCA Civ 269):

“The 11 applications which I have addressed in my judgment so far have all been applications which can properly be described as totally devoid of merit. The extended civil restraint order made on 10^th April 2003 was made in order to protect the defendants against whom Mr Perotti wishes to litigate from applications which are devoid of merit. It is plain that Mr Perotti’s reaction to any decision which is made against him is, automatically, to serve a notice of appeal without, it seems, giving any proper thought as to whether the appeal has any proper basis in fact or law.”

Judgment on that application was given by the court of appeal on 21 May 2004, albeit its order was not drawn up until 27 July 2004. In his judgment on 21 May 2004 [2004] EWCA Civ 639, Brooke LJ said this:

“54.

Today the court has dismissed 14 applications by Mr Perotti as being totally devoid of merit. On 26^th February 2004 Chadwick LJ dismissed 11 further applications by Mr Perotti on the same grounds. It has been drawn to the court’s attention that, putting on one side certain pending matters, since 1997 Mr Perotti has made 80 different applications to the court in different matters, of which two have been allowed, 75 refused, and three have been disposed of by different orders. 40 of these applications were made in 2002 and 2003. In relation to the 82 applications, Mr Perotti has paid the appropriate court fee seven times. On one occasion he received a remission of the fee, and on the other 74 occasions he received a remission of the fee, so that the entire cost of processing his applications has fallen on the taxpayer (or on other fee-paying litigants).

55.

It appears that on three occasions, in November 1997 and July 1999, High Court Judges made civil restraint orders (formerly known as Grepe v. Loam orders) against him. On 26^th February 2004 Chadwick LJ refused permission to appeal against Neuberger J’s order. He set out passages from Neuberger J’s judgment in his own judgment ([2004] EWCA Civ 269 at [15]-[17]) and I need not repeat them here. It is sufficient to say that Neuberger J considered that in his experience of litigants in person, which was not insignificant, Mr Perotti was second to none in terms of his persistence, and in terms of the aggressiveness, rudeness and unreasonableness with which he conducted his applications. He said that this was as plain a case for making an extended Grepe v. Loam order as he had ever seen. Chadwick LJ said that there were ample grounds on which Neuberger J could have properly reached the conclusion that an extended restraint order was required in this case…

58.

The outcome of the present applications has shown without any doubt that unless more effectively restrained Mr Perotti will continue to abuse the processes of this court and to waste its resources on applications that are totally devoid of merit. It has confirmed Chadwick LJ’s view that Mr Perotti files these applications without giving any proper thought to whether the appeal has any proper basis in fact or in law.”

In the event the court of appeal’s order dated 27 July 2004 directed (1) that Neuberger J’s ECRO should be amended (a) so as to require any application for permission to appeal to the court of appeal to be made without notice in writing to Evans-Lombe J (or another nominated High Court Judge), and not to be subject to any appeal unless the judge himself gave permission to appeal, and (b) so as to extend to 21 May 2006; (2) that any other application to the court of appeal by Mr Perotti “in any matter not embraced” by that amended ECRO should, for the next two years, be considered only by a judge of the court of appeal on paper without reconsideration at any hearing, unless such judge considered an oral hearing would be appropriate; and (3) that the Civil Appeals Office should send all relevant papers to the Attorney General so that he might consider whether it would be appropriate to seek an order against Mr Perotti under section 42 of the 1981 Act, that is to say to have a “civil proceedings order” made against him on the basis that he is a vexatious litigant.

The Attorney General, with the permission of the Solicitor General, now seeks such an order against Mr Perotti from this court.

Section 42 provides as follows:

“(1)

If, on an application made by the Attorney General under this section, the High Court is satisfied that any person has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground –

(a)

instituted vexatious civil proceedings, whether in the High Court or any inferior court, and whether against the same person or against different persons; or

(b)

made vexatious applications in any civil proceedings, whether in the High Court or any inferior court, and whether instituted by him or another…

the court may, after hearing that person or giving him an opportunity of being heard, make a civil proceedings order…

(1A) In this section –

“civil proceedings order” means an order that –

(a)

no civil proceedings shall without the leave of the High Court be instituted in any court by the person against whom the order is made;

(b)

any civil proceedings instituted by him in any court before the making of the order shall not be continued by him without the leave of the High Court; and

(c)

no application (other than one for leave under this section) shall be made by him, in any civil proceedings instituted in any court by any person, without the leave of the High Court…

(2)

An order under subsection (1) may provide that it is to cease to have effect at the end of a specified period, but shall otherwise remain in force indefinitely.

(3)

Leave for the institution or continuance of, or for the making of an application in, any civil proceedings by a person who is the subject of an order for the time being in force under subsection (1) shall not be given unless the High Court is satisfied that the proceedings or application are not an abuse of the process of the court in question and that there are reasonable grounds for the proceedings or application…

(4)

No appeal shall lie from a decision of the High Court refusing leave required by virtue of this section.

(5)

A copy of any order made under subsection (1) shall be published in the London Gazette.”

A number of cases decided under section 42, or its predecessor, section 51 of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act 1925, have clarified certain aspects of its effect. Thus in In re Vernazza [1959] 1 WLR 622 it was held that proceedings whose pleadings may disclose a cause of action can still be found to be vexatious. Lord Parker CJ said (at 624):

“In considering whether any proceedings are vexatious one is entitled to, and must look at, the whole history of the matter, and it is not determined by whether the pleading discloses a cause of action. Indeed, that is the principle applied under the rules of court when application is made to strike out a pleading. Though the pleading may be in order, the court, in its inherent jurisdiction, is entitled to look at affidavits as to the history of the matter, and if, in the light of that history the action is vexatious, the pleading can be struck out and the action dismissed.”

In Attorney General v. Jones [1990] 1 WLR 859 the court of appeal decided two important points. One was that a section 42 order embraced applications to or in the court of appeal as well as below. The other was that a person against whom a vexatious litigant order was sought could not seek to argue anew the findings which had already been made against him by the courts in which he had been litigating. Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR said this (at 863):

“The fifth and last issue of law arose out of Mr Jones’ wish to challenge the conclusion of various judges in the underlying proceedings that his conduct in those particular proceedings had been vexatious or had involved an abuse of the process of the court. We ruled that he was not free to do so. If any such conclusion was, or was thought by Mr Jones to be, erroneous, the remedy was to appeal in those proceedings or, where it was said that the judgment was vitiated by the fraud of other parties, to take appropriate steps to have the judgment set aside. But if that was not done, the decision must stand and is capable of forming the basis for the court being satisfied upon an application under section 42 that Mr Jones had habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground acted in the manner referred to in subsection (1)(a) and/or (b).”

In Attorney General v. Barker [2000] 1 FLR 759 Lord Bingham of Cornhill CJ described the jurisdiction in the following terms (at 764C/D):

“‘Vexatious’ is a familiar term in legal parlance. The hallmark of a vexatious proceedings is in my judgment that it has little or no basis in law (or at least no discernible basis); that whatever the intention of the proceeding may be, its effect is to subject the defendant to inconvenience, harassment and expense out of all proportion to any gain likely to accrue to the claimant; and that it involves an abuse of the process of the court, meaning by that a use of the court process for a purpose or in a way which is significantly different from the ordinary and proper use of the court process.”

As for the element of the jurisdiction described by the words “habitually and persistently”, Lord Bingham concluded (at 764H):

“The essential vice of habitual and persistent litigation is keeping on and on litigating when earlier litigation has been unsuccessful and when on any rational and objective assessment the time has come to stop.”

In that case this court declined to make the section 42 order sought because “there must nevertheless be that element of repetition and in my judgment it is not shown here” (at 765A). Moreover, an order was not thought necessary to prevent further abuse: the defendant there had learned his lesson.

In Her Majesty’s Attorney General v. Covey [2001] EWCA Civ 254 (19 February 2001, unreported) Lord Woolf of Barnes CJ cited (at para 56) with approval a passage from the judgment below of Lord Justice Rose sitting in this court:

“The question is whether it is a necessary prerequisite for the making of an order under section 42 that the repetitious behaviour of which complaint is made has necessarily either to be directed against the same defendant or to arise from the same subject matter.

In my judgment, that is not the position. Granted that repetitious conduct is a necessary prerequisite for the making of an order, what gives rise to that repetitiveness necessarily depends, it seems to me, on the circumstances of the particular case. In making the determination whether or not there is that necessary element of repetition one looks at the whole history of the defendant’s litigious activity. In some cases that activity will focus upon a particular defendant. In some cases it will focus upon a particular grievance. In some cases it may be represented by numerous claims against a wide range of defendants in circumstances where no reasonable cause of action exists. In this last category of case, it seems to me, the conditions of section 42 may be fulfilled just as they may be if a particular defendant or a particular grievance is the focus of the defendant’s activity. As the passages in the judgment in Vernazza to which I earlier referred, make plain, one has to look at the whole of the circumstances, the way in which the proceedings were instituted, whether with or without reasonable cause, and also the way in which subsequently they were conducted by way of hopeless appeal or otherwise. All of those matters have to be considered.”

We have had regard to the principles and guidance set out in these cases in considering the present application and Mr Perotti’s opposition to it.

It would be a very great task to set out in this judgment the full history of Mr Perotti’s litigious activity, a highly condensed version of whose papers is contained in four full ring binders before the court. The task has been made easier, however, by an account provided in the two witness statements (dated 21 November 2005 and 7 February 2006) of Fiona Grose, a legal officer employed by the Treasury Solicitor. We are satisfied that the contents of her witness statements are accurate. We incorporate them in this judgment together with the two schedules attached to them. In the circumstances we can describe the essence of Mr Perotti’s litigation as follows.

We have already referred to the origin of that litigation in Mr Perotti’s belief that he had been defrauded in connection with the administration of his uncle’s estate and in his attempt to have Mr Watson removed as administrator. His first action against Mr Watson and the other defendants mentioned above was commenced on 17 March 1992. It ended in ultimate failure before the trial judge and Mr Perotti was ordered to pay 75% of Mr Watson’s costs. Mr Perotti appealed as of right, as he was entitled at that time to do. While his appeal was still pending, the trial judge, Rimer J made a Grepe v. Loam order against Mr Perotti on 28 November 1997. We have set out some of the judge’s observations about Mr Perotti at para 4 above. It may be said that such an order and those observations should have given Mr Perotti cause for thought.

As it was, Mr Perotti had already commenced his second action about a month earlier, in October 1997 (Ms Grose refers to this as “the third dispute”). This was a claim brought in the Central London County Court against the borough of Camden. It was not connected with his uncle’s will or estate, but arose out of an employment dispute. The judge awarded Mr Perotti nominal damages of £10 for a breach of contract which had caused him no loss, but Camden was awarded £600 on its counterclaim for return of money overpaid to him by mistake. Mr Perotti applied for leave to appeal, but his application was dismissed on 1 September 1998. Mr Perotti stopped there. In sum, this matter displayed few of the features of his other litigation, and we leave it out of account.

Mr Perotti’s third action (Ms Grose’s “fourth dispute”), commenced on 23 January 1998, was another attempt to implead Mr Watson, and also his firm, Mackrell, on allegations of fraud in the administration of his uncle’s estate. It was brought in the Queen’s Bench Division in the hope of obtaining a jury for trial. It was transferred to the Chancery Division (No 1998 P No 82). On 5 March 1998 it was stayed by Master Moncaster pending the outcome of Mr Perotti’s substantive appeal in the first action. Both these orders were unsuccessfully appealed by Mr Perotti. On 15 June 1998 Rimer J declined to make a Grepe v. Loam order against Mr Perotti in the third action, in part because the action was in any event stayed and in part because Mr Perotti assured the judge that he did not intend to make any application to lift the stay. After Mr Perotti failed to live up to those assurances, however, the judge on 29 March 1999 did make a Grepe v. Loam order in this action (in addition to the similar order that he had made in the first action). Thus Mr Perotti had learned the lesson neither of the first Grepe v. Loam order nor of his temporary escape from a second.

Mr Perotti’s fourth action (Ms Grose’s “second dispute”) was commenced sometime in 1998 (No 1998 P 5104: the date does not appear on the documents but it is later than the third action). This was brought in the Chancery Division for professional negligence against solicitors and junior counsel who had acted for him in the first action – but had not survived in that capacity down to trial – Messrs Collyer-Bristow and Mr Frank Hinks. It was an attempt to relitigate against his own lawyers, on the basis of their alleged negligence, his obsession with the wrong that he considered had been done to him in the administration of his uncle’s estate. However, his particulars of claim did not come forth until December 1999.

Mr Perotti’s fifth action was commenced on 26 April 1999. This was another action in professional negligence, this time against other lawyers who had acted for him at some stage in his probate dispute, viz Messrs Iliffes Booth Bennett, Messrs Bird & Bird and junior counsel instructed by the latter firm, Mr Francis Barlow. An attempt by the defendants to strike out the claim was delayed for some time by Mr Perotti’s attempts to adjourn their application. In the end, the strike out application was not heard until October 2003.

In the meantime, there had been further developments in the first action. On 18 June 1999 Rimer J had made a freezing order against Mr Perotti on the application of Mr Watson who was attempting to enforce his orders for costs against him. Regrettably, Mr Perotti breached that order. On 10 September 1999 Laddie J found him guilty of contempt of court on three separate counts and sentenced him to three months in prison. Laddie J described Mr Perotti as “his own worst enemy…offensive, aggressive and prone to making unsupportable attacks on anyone who stands in his way or will not accept his version of events”. He also described the contempts as serious and deliberate and found Mr Perotti to have been untruthful. Mr Perotti made a contingent attempt at apology to the court, while maintaining that the judge’s views were mistaken and saying that he would appeal. He had of course a right of appeal. On 13 December 2001 the court of appeal dismissed that appeal (although Mr Perotti did not fail on every point). In the meantime there had been innumerable applications and attempted appeals in the enforcement proceedings.

Following the loss of his appeal on the merits of his first action on 2 February 2001, attention reverted to his second action, the claims in fraud against Mr Watson and Mackrell, which had been stayed pending the outcome of that appeal. On 25 May 2001 Master Moncaster struck out the second action, holding that it was without merit and an abusive attempt to relitigate the first action, involving “unjust harassment of Mr Watson”. There was “no shred of evidence” of fraud, which seemed “to be a mere obsession and delusion on Mr Perotti’s part”. Mr Perotti sought permission to appeal from that strike out. On 26 September 2001 Neuberger J refused that application. Although he had some sympathy for Mr Perotti’s application on a certain level, at any rate in the context of a strike out against a litigant in person, he agreed with Master Moncaster that the second action disclosed “a clear case of abuse” and that the allegation in fraud, albeit a “consistent chorus”, was wholly without merit.

Thus by the end of 2001 Mr Perotti’s two appeals as of right, his appeal on the merits of the first action and his appeal against the finding in the same action that he had been in contempt of court had been resolved against him; and his second action had been struck out as an attempt to relitigate the first. Moreover, he had had two Grepe v. Loam orders made against him, the first as early as 28 November 1997, the second on 29 March 1999, in those first two actions respectively. Neither had deterred him from further litigation.

Early in 2002, on 23 January, Mr Perotti commenced two new actions on the same day. His sixth action was against a firm of solicitors (Messrs Arnander Irvine and Zeitman), two barristers (Mr Ian Clarke and Mr Romie Tager QC) and the Woolwich Building Society. The claims were again in professional negligence, and this time arose out of Mr Perotti’s attempts in the first action to raise money for legal representation by borrowing on the security of a property subject to the freezing order. On 29/30 July 2002 the claims were struck out and/or the defendants obtained summary judgment. Hart J refused permission to appeal, and an application to the court of appeal was refused, being one of many similar applications dealt with by Chadwick LJ on 26 February 2004.

Mr Perotti’s seventh action was against Mr Watson. This was now the third time that Mr Perotti had sued him. He referred to the original disputes, while seeking to add what he alleged were continuing failures in the administration. Part of the claim was struck out on 26 June 2002, and the rest of the claim was stayed pending enforcement of judgment debts against Mr Perotti. Applications for permission to appeal ensued. It was in this action that Mr Watson was to apply for the ECRO granted by Neuberger J on 10 April 2003.

Before that happened, however, Mr Perotti had commenced three further actions. On 6 September 2002 he commenced his eighth action (no 1 on Ms Grose’s supplementary schedule). This was against still further lawyers, Messrs Saul Marine & Co and Miss Sheila Foley, respectively solicitors and counsel who had also at some point represented him in his first action. The claim was again in professional negligence. The claims were struck out on 12 December 2003. Repeated unsuccessful attempts were made to take an appeal to the court of appeal.

Mr Perotti’s ninth action (Ms Grose’s “eighth dispute”) was brought against a total of five defendants, of whom four were solicitors and counsel who had appeared for those whom he had sued in previous proceedings in connection with his uncle’s will, namely Messrs Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, Messrs Briffa & Co, Messrs Biddle and Mr Semken (Mr Watson’s counsel) and the fifth was the hapless Mr Watson, now sued for the fourth time, albeit it is said by Mr Perotti only as a “nominal” defendant. It is not clear when this action was commenced, but on 20 January 2003 it was struck out against all but Messrs Biddle and on 3 December 2004 it was dismissed against that firm too. In the meantime numerous applications were made to the court of appeal which were amongst those dealt with by Chadwick LJ on 26 February 2004.

Mr Perotti’s tenth action (no 2 on Ms Grose’s supplementary schedule) was commenced on 7 February 2003. This was also against further lawyers, this time Messrs Gouldens, for professional negligence and misappropriation of funds. This firm had represented Mr Perotti at a certain stage of his fourth action. This tenth action was struck out on 3 November 2003 because the particulars of claim disclosed no reasonable grounds and amounted to an abuse of process.

It was thus after the commencement of Mr Perotti’s tenth action that Neuberger J made his ECRO on 10 April 2003 in the seventh action, that against Mr Watson alone. We have already quoted from the judge’s judgment (at para 6 above), but it is relevant to cite this further passage:

“3.

The background to this matter is long, complicated and melancholy. First, over a long period of time Mr Perotti has made a number of misconceived applications and claims and has run a number of misconceived appeals, all ultimately arising in some way from the fact that he was one of the beneficiaries under the will of his uncle, Lorenzo Perotti.

4.

Secondly, those applications, proceedings, claims and appeals have been conducted in a wild, aggressive and wholly unreasonable manner. Thirdly, those claims, applications, appeals and proceedings have been pursued in an extravagant, irrational and completely unrealistic way. Fourthly, this has led to very substantial liabilities for costs on Mr Perotti, which it would appear he has no conceivable means of meeting; therefore many defendants and respondents have suffered. Fifthly, Mr Perotti has made outrageous allegations from time to time against the court. This is not said to indicate that the court is somehow punishing Mr Perotti for this but merely to emphasise and show how unreasonable and, I am afraid to say, deranged Mr Perotti is.”

Neuberger J also quoted (at paras 21/25 of his judgment) from various passages in which judges had commented in adverse terms on Mr Perotti’s conduct of his litigation.

Mr Perotti’s application to appeal from Neuberger J’s ECRO was one of the many applications refused by Chadwick LJ on 26 February 2004.

Mr Perotti’s eleventh dispute (Ms Grose’s ninth) was his appeal against Camden’s decision that he was not in priority need of housing. This was dismissed on 1 July 2003. An application to the court of appeal was refused along with the many others on 26 February 2004.

Mr Perotti’s twelfth action (Ms Grose’s “tenth dispute”) was commenced on 15 October 2003 when he sued Messrs Bird & Bird and Mr Barlow of counsel for the second time: see the fifth action at para 25 above. This was shortly before Peter Smith J had to consider a strike out application in the fifth action itself. The twelfth action was purportedly to cover matters possibly omitted in the earlier action. On 28 October 2003 Peter Smith J struck out the claims in the fifth action. He said (at [2003] EWCH 2497 (Ch)):

“To allow Mr Perotti to continue and raise these matters would plainly bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Mr Perotti’s crusade against anybody who has the misfortune to cross his path has received an extraordinary amount of court time. Mr Perotti has had ample opportunity fully to ventilate all of the matters and he has lost on each and every occasion in substance.”

On 21 July 2004 the twelfth action came before Evans-Lombe J on the same day as the defendants’ application for the GCRO was granted by that judge. He struck out the twelfth action as devoid of merit and an abuse of process. His GCRO (see para 7 above) was sought to be appealed, but Jacob LJ refused the applications stating they were “totally devoid of merit”.

As stated above, it was shortly thereafter, on 27 July 2004, that the court of appeal’s amendments to Neuberger J’s ECRO were perfected (see para 9 above).

What has happened since? Unfortunately, the orders made on 21 and 27 July 2004, which ought to have brought Mr Perotti’s litigiousness to a halt, save with the prior permission of the court, or at least to have discouraged him from further hopeless applications, have not wholly succeeded in doing so.

Thus Mr Perotti’s thirteenth action (Ms Grose’s “eleventh dispute”) had been brought against the Lord Mayor and Citizens of the City of Westminster and appears to be related to their administration of Council Tax and to have included claims of harassment and for misfeasance of public office. It is not clear when this action was commenced, but all claims in it were struck out on 22 January 2004. This was before the orders of July 2004, but thereafter Mr Perotti’s attempts to appeal this striking out continued to go through many turns until his appellant’s notice was finally rejected on paper as an attempt to relitigate many of the points covered in previous actions, eg such as that he should receive legal representation. Brooke LJ stated that this action was totally without merit (at para 25 of his judgment dated 21 May 2005) and continued (at para 27):

“27.

All in all, this is a storm in a teacup, and never warranted the issue of High Court proceedings in the first place. The master was quite correct to make the orders he did, and Mr Perotti was quite wrong to conduct his appeal in the High Court as he did, failing to furnish any grounds of appeal or any bundle of documents in support of his appeal.”

The next thing which we need to mention is that on 23 September 2004 Mr Perotti sent a 15 page letter to Sir John Stevens, then the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He attached to it correspondence of his with Mr Watson going all the way back to January 1991 and his statement of claim in the first action. He said he wrote regarding matters of public interest concerning conspiracies to defraud him (and other beneficiaries) in connection with his uncle’s estate, conspiracies to pervert the course of justice and a conspiracy to defraud the Inland Revenue. He sought to develop these theories over the course of his lengthy letter. We regard this letter as an attempt to raise in the criminal sphere his allegations of conspiracy to defraud which he had so repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to raise in civil litigation. Having been dammed by the civil restraint orders against him from pursuing these obsessive complaints in civil litigation, the stream of his invective was being diverted into the channel of criminal accusation. His letter concluded thus (at para 13):

“If, when you pass these crimes to the DPP for prosecution in the Crown Court, the DPP declines to proceed with the said prosecutions, for whatever reasons, then I will accuse the said DPP (or whomsoever are the decision makers not to prosecute) of themselves perverting the course of justice by unlawfully protecting the said criminal lawyers herein from having to answer for their criminal conduct in the said Crown Court! There would also be the crime of abuse of power in the circumstances and all other crimes of which I am ignorant and you will know”

It is clear that in Mr Perotti’s mind there is no end to the ramifications of his obsession.

Then, on 16 December 2004 Mr Perotti filed a notice of appeal from the order of Cresswell J in the ninth action dated 3 December 2004 dismissing that action. Pursuant to the order of the court of appeal dated 27 July 2004 Mr Perotti’s application to appeal came before Scott Baker LJ on paper. It was refused on 9 March 2005. This shows the amended ECRO working, but it also shows Mr Perotti not being discouraged from pursuing his hopeless litigation.

On 18 July 2005 Mr Perotti wrote a further letter to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, now Sir Ian Blair. This letter, at 25 pages, was even longer than the first and continued its complaints of criminal conduct and conspiracy. His final paragraph stated:

“there are many more criminal acts perpetrated by these criminals but I stop here to get this Phase 2 registered with the police. I will provide evidence of said further criminal conduct in due course after the Police confirm that they will perform their legal duty and investigate my complaints!”

We regard this second letter in the same way as the first.

On 5 October 2005 Mr Perotti issued his fourteenth piece of litigation (no 3 on Ms Grose’s supplementary schedule), his application in Mr Watson’s action against him to enforce sale of his properties pursuant to the costs orders in Mr Watson’s favour. The application was to require Mr Watson’s solicitor to swear an affidavit detailing all progress made in the sale of Mr Perotti’s former home. Pursuant to the GCRO Mr Perotti needed permission to make that application and sought that permission, but was refused by Evans-Lombe J on 10 October 2005 on the ground that “there is no surviving issue in the proceedings to which the information sought in the purported application can be relevant”. Again one sees the restraint orders working, but Mr Perotti remains undiscouraged from making further hopeless applications.

Finally, on 6 December 2005 Mr Perotti issued his fifteenth piece of litigation (no 4 on Ms Grose’s supplementary schedule), his application in Barclays Bank’s action, as mortgagee, against him for possession of his former home. On 24 August 2005 Mr Perotti was ordered to give possession. Mr Perotti’s application was to stay execution of the order for possession pending the adjourned hearing of his separate application for permission to appeal it. As a result, execution was stayed until 14 January 2006. On 13 January HHJ Levy QC ordered that the application for permission to appeal be refused, but extended the stay on execution for a further week. On 17 January Mr Perotti applied to the court of appeal for permission to appeal, on the basis that the GCRO does not apply to proceedings in which he is a defendant. His ground of appeal was that the court lacked jurisdiction to make an order for possession against him because he was not in possession, having been ousted by Mr Watson. He added to his notice of appeal further applications, such as that Mr Watson’s solicitor should explain why he had so far failed to sell the property, and that the property can be sold at a price of not less than £275,000. On 30 January Jacob LJ refused permission on paper, observing that the application was totally devoid of merit, since unless the Bank had a possession order against him, his mortgage could encumber the property.

Mr Perotti continues to contend that the existing restraint orders do not bite on him in litigation in which he is a defendant. Whether that is so or not, this fifteenth dispute illustrates the extent to which Mr Perotti continues to desire to multiply applications and argument in a context where he does not even dispute possession, but seeks to take a point of jurisdiction on the power of the court to order possession in a situation where he is no longer in physical possession himself.

On behalf of the Attorney General, Mr Charles Bourne submits that all the elements of section 42 are here fulfilled. Mr Perotti’s resort to vexatious litigation has been habitual and persistent and without reasonable ground. The necessary element of repetition is fulfilled. Mr Watson has been repeatedly harassed, and baulked in his attempts to enforce costs orders in his favour. As a result huge amounts of costs have been incurred, which Mr Perotti is unable to meet. Mr Perotti’s accusations of fraud or negligence have spread from one defendant to another. Although the restraint orders are for the most part working and effective, Mr Perotti’s continued litigious conduct, and his letters to the Commissioners, demonstrate how far he would go if he could. The two year restraint orders are about to run out, and would in any event need renewing. A civil proceedings order under section 42 would be an efficient and effective one stop restraint for an indefinite time. The wide terms of section 42 (eg of subsection (1A)(c)’s “in any civil proceedings instituted in any court by any person”) would answer such queries as Mr Perotti raised in Barclays Bank’s action. Since Mr Perotti would always be in a position to obtain leave under section 42(3) to bring a claim or any application for which he could show sufficient merit, a section 42 order neatly and proportionately balances the needs of all parties, and of public and private interests.

Mr Perotti reminds the court that he is a litigant in person, labouring, as he has done in the past, under the difficulties and disadvantages of that role. He complains of lack of representation, and of lack of time to develop the points he wishes to make.

Mr Perotti spent a large part of the time at his disposal in seeking to persuade the court, with the help of his very full written submissions served in advance of the hearing, that the judges who have previously heard his claims have consistently erred in giving judgment against him, in particular, going right back to the first action, that Rimer J was wrong not to have removed Mr Watson on the ground of the faults in his administration which were proved against him. Further, he submitted that his partial successes, in particular in the first action, showed that his claims were reasonably grounded in proper causes of action.

Alternatively, Mr Perotti submits that he was tricked into litigation by Mr Watson in the first place. If he had been better advised, or had had at the outset the understanding which has come to him over the years, he would not have brought the claims he did, or, if he had gone to law at all, he would merely have asked for the due administration of the estate, an unanswerable claim. As it is, the fact that he did not commence his first action until some eight years after his uncle died, demonstrates that he is no vexatious litigant. And even then, it was Mr Watson who had challenged him to litigate, inter alia by saying (his letter dated 8 November 1991) that he did not propose to start to try to satisfy Mr Perotti’s requirements unless and until he knew exactly what relief Mr Perotti would be claiming from the court.

Mr Perotti further submitted that, after the unfair loss of his first action and the heavy costs orders made against him by Rimer J, he had already lost everything: both he and his uncle’s estate were ruined by the litigation. In the circumstances, he was entitled and bound to try everything he could to seek to rectify and remedy the situation. We understood these and other like submissions to be saying in effect that the logic of Mr Perotti’s situation excused his conduct.

In any event, it was unfair to complain of his litigious conduct. He was only reacting to the need to exhaust his domestic remedies to protect his right to complain to the Strasbourg court pursuant to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mr Perotti also relied on the Attorney General’s acceptance that in the main the existing restraint orders had worked. He, Mr Perotti, had accommodated himself to them. Therefore, there was no need for a section 42 order. He had no intention of flaunting the existing orders, and had complied with them. In particular, he was right to say that the orders had no hold over his right to defend himself in proceedings in which he was a defendant. In Barclays Bank’s action he had sought and received assurance from Evans-Lombe J in advance that he was not in that context bound by the restraint orders.

In any event, he asked for a last chance. He assured the court that he would comply with the existing orders and referred to the “proof of the pudding”. If he did not comply, that would be the time to impose a section 42 order. If future litigious activity by him challenged those orders’ limits or was unreasonable, then the court could make a section 42 order against him without more ado.

Mr Perotti, although a litigant in person with the disadvantages therefore of lacking the objective and expert assistance of legal representatives, is nevertheless a highly experienced litigator with a background knowledge of his litigation and its documentation which could probably not be rivalled. In our judgment his opposition to this application has not been prejudiced by his appearance in person, save, perhaps, in that he has inevitably exposed to the court all the more directly his obsessive determination to persevere in his legal challenges.

He has advocated his case with care, resourcefulness, and even, when he explained and sought to apologise for any possible roughness in his presentation on the ground of his nature, with a certain charm. He has on the whole managed to address the court with politeness, although with a tendency to agitation when he considered himself to be under pressure of time. In fact, he had the greater part of a court day to address us, and, together with the written material he presented to us in advance, certainly did not lack the materials or the time to make his grounds of opposition clear.

Unfortunately, despite clear warnings from the bench at the very outset of his submissions and repeatedly thereafter that we would not be able to revisit the merits of the decisions and findings which have been made by the courts in the underlying litigation (see Attorney General v. Jones), he devoted a large measure of his time to attempts to persuade us that those courts had erred. We were not assisted by those submissions.

Nor, for the same reasons, were we assisted by his various submissions along the lines that he had been an unwilling litigant, tricked into litigation by Mr Watson, or fatally ensnared in it by his own ignorance of the law. Mr Perotti was not without legal help in the early years, as his unsuccessful litigation against the lawyers whom he has at stages retained bears witness. Moreover, if he had conducted his first action with more restraint, and had accepted the judgment of Rimer J and of the court of appeal, and had left it there, preferably without overburdening that litigation with his innumerable applications and his contemptuous attempts to avoid the consequences of his own acts, he would not find himself in his present predicament. As it is, he has shown an obsessive and insatiable desire to return, in any way he can, to his fundamental belief in the dishonesty of everyone with whom he has come into contact along his litigious path. And he has elaborated nearly every action with a plethora of interlocutory applications and appeals which has immeasurably and at great cost (Mr Watson’s total costs measure close to £1 million by now) and unnecessarily complicated each stage of his litigation. Indeed, although one cannot be certain about the various strands in his motivation, he came close in his submissions before us to saying that, having lost his first action, he had no alternative to, but also nothing to lose in, seeking again and again to retrieve his position by unending litigation. Whatever his motivation, however, we are quite clear that he has subjected his defendants, and above all Mr Watson, to harassment and expense out of all proportion to any gain likely to accrue to him in his hopeless vendetta. Moreover, there is no doubt, and Mr Perotti has not sought to submit otherwise, that he has been responsible for litigation with the required hallmark of being habitual and persistent, with the required degree of repetition.

Of greater relevance are his submissions that the civil restraint orders, and in particular those of July 2004, are working and that a new section 42 order is unnecessary; and that, in any event, he should be given a last chance. However, we are unable to accept those submissions. The orders have not stopped him from attempting to pursue unreasonable appeals: they have merely stopped him from reduplicating his attempts to do so. They have not stopped him from multiplying unnecessary and unreasonable litigation in circumstances where he is the defendant, as the most recent scheduled cases illustrate. And they have not stopped him from turning his obsession towards the sanctions of the criminal law, as his letters to the Commissioners demonstrate. These events show that, if he had the opportunity, he would reduplicate his efforts once he was allowed to do so. As for his last chance submission, we note the reassurances he offered Rimer J in the first action, but which he was unable to carry into action, and we also note his contempt of court, and the growing need to restrain him by the various orders which have been made against him over the years.

Of particular relevance, we note that in the present application itself, Mr Perotti has responded in his witness statements dated 30 January and 3 April 2006 by making no less than 14 numbered applications, some of them with several sub-paragraphs, eg for an order that the Attorney General do prosecute or cause the CPS to prosecute the “named criminals listed in my two letters to the Commissioners of Police”. We told Mr Perotti that we were not prepared to entertain such applications, which in any event appeared to lack any reasonable ground.

We therefore lack any confidence that, if he were released from restraint, Mr Perotti would not be back to the worst of his habitual, persistent, groundless, and vexatious litigation. Mr Perotti made it clear in any event, that, if he were extended such a chance, there would be every prospect of further dispute as to whether any future litigious activity lacked a reasonable basis or was otherwise such as to lead to the curtailment of his last chance. We are unwilling to extend to Mr Perotti the last chance he seeks.

As for Mr Perotti’s submission that he has to exhaust his remedies before applying to Strasbourg, he has repeatedly gone far beyond anything that is needed by that requirement.

In sum, we are satisfied that Mr Perotti has habitually and persistently and without any reasonable ground both instituted vexatious civil proceedings and made vexatious applications in civil proceedings and that it is necessary to make a civil proceedings order against him. The current restraint orders are shortly to expire. They have been drawn up and amended at different times and for different purposes. Their complex provisions allow of some uncertainty as to their scope, for instance in relation to litigation in which Mr Perotti is a defendant. A section 42 civil proceedings order (see subsection (1A)) provides a clear, statutory, one-stop testing-ground for any future litigious activity on the part of Mr Perotti. It will apply to vexatious applications in civil proceedings instituted by another party (see subsection (1A)(c)). But such an order allows Mr Perotti the opportunity of seeking leave to institute or continue civil proceedings, or to make an application in them, if he satisfies a judge of the High Court that the proceedings or application are not an abuse of the process of the court and that there are reasonable grounds for them.

It is for these reasons that, at the close of the hearing on 6 April 2006, we made a civil proceedings order against Mr Perotti (and attached a penal notice to it). We did not state that it should cease to have effect at the end of a specified period, and it is therefore of indefinite duration. It seemed to us that that was what the history related in this judgment required. However, as Lord Woolf CJ said in Attorney General v. Covey at para 64 (and see also Bhamjee v. Forsdick [2003] EWCA 1113, [2004] 1 WLR 88 at para 20), the court always has a jurisdiction to vary orders which have been made in the light of entirely new conditions.

Mr Perotti asked us for permission to appeal our order to the court of appeal. We refused him that permission, but we gave him leave to ask the court of appeal for their permission.