Suleman, R (on the application of) v Leeds District Magistrates Court

This is a challenge, by way of a claim for judicial review, by the Claimant against the refusal of the District Judge in the Leeds District Magistrates’ Court to accede to applications made by the claimant that summonses be issued against his ex-wife. The summonses sought, related in part to alleged offences of perjury relating to evidence given by the Claimant’s wife in proceedings brought against the Claimant for harassment in which, the Claimant tells me, he was found not guilty. The application was also for summonses raising allegations of harassment of him. -for example, one of the allegations was that his ex-wife had pursued a course of conduct in which she told lies to the police and deleted evidence from her phone. There are a whole series of such allegations set out in Document OF1 in my bundle. The claimant also sought summonses against his ex-wife in relation to his daughter, alleging what the Claimant described as child abuse, and allegations of cruelty, -for example that of deliberately burning his daughter and not seeking medical attention for her. There are some 30 allegations in respect of which the Claimant sought the issue of summonses.

It appears that when the hearing came before the Magistrate on 28 July, the Magistrate declined to issue the summonses, simply saying that the matter was more suited to be dealt with before a family court. There was certainly material before her, as there is before me, demonstrating a background here of a domestic dispute between himself and his wife which has resulted in proceedings in the Family Court, in which the claimant has been denied contact, it appears, with his daughter.

In one of the documents I have before me, an undated letter to the Magistrates Court, the claimant says, ‘As a matter of urgency, I’d like to file for private prosecution for child abuse’, and at one point he says:

The Magistrate undoubtedly had a discretion whether to issue the summonses but that discretion is not unfettered. The general principle is that magistrates ought to issue summonses as soon as an Information is properly laid, unless there are compelling reasons not to do so. Such reasons could include the involvement of an abuse of process or some other lack of propriety. see R (on the application of) v Stratford Magistrates' Court [2004] EWHC 2506 (Admin).

The Claimant has appeared before me in person and respectfully laid out his case in both a skeleton argument and the material in the documentation to which I have referred.

There are however two reasons why I cannot uphold this claim.

The first is that although I agree with the Claimant that the District Judge did not give adequate reasons for refusing the summonses, having looked at the material, I agree with the single judge who refused permission on the papers when he said that he was satisfied that on the material before him, it was plainly open to the District Judge to make the decision she did.

On the basis of the material before me, in my judgment it was clearly open to the District Judge to decide that the information laid was not sufficiently coherent to justify the issue of the summonses, taking into account that the background here of the family dispute concerning the daughter to which I have referred. On this material, it was further clearly open to the Magistrates Court to conclude that the summonses were being sought for an improper purpose that is in order to pursue a collateral purpose, namely that of undermining the orders of the Family Court, which have effectively, I am told, denied the Claimant access to his daughter.

Given the lack of adequate reasons it would have been open to this court to remit the matter to the Magistrates Court for the magistrate to reconsider the claimant’s applications and, to give reasons for the nonissue if that decision be maintained but, given my view of the merits in any event, I see no purpose in that.

However, perhaps more importantly, is the second reason for not allowing this claim. Mr Suleman, the Claimant, very properly, has provided this court with a psychiatric report upon him from a consultant psychiatrist dated 2^nd August 2017. That report was, it seems, prepared at the request of solicitors acting as his legal representatives in connection with Family Proceedings relating to his daughter - pursuant to an order made in the Family Court sitting at Preston. The psychiatric report contains a summary of the family case, which makes clear that the matter related to the Claimant’s application to enforce a private law arrangement order but that he had failed in that respect before the Family Court. It appears that the Family Court had originally made an order that the daughter should remain living with her mother but with significant contact with the Claimant’s father. In the event that contact did not occur, which prompted the Claimant to make his own applications to the Family Court both to enforce the existing order, and to invite the court to make child arrangements in his favour, placing the child with him. It appears the case was listed for a fact-finding hearing to consider the Claimant’s allegations of physical abuse of the child at the hands of the Mother, allegations reflected in the summonses which the Claimant sought in this present case.

It appears that the Family Court gave judgment against the Claimant in favour of the mother on two occasions, and on those two occasions, the court ruled that the Claimant’s case had no merit and was an abuse of process.

The reason the report was requested and the purpose of the report, however, related to concerns raised about Mr Suleman’s capacity. In paragraph 4.4, this appears.

The ultimate conclusion of the report is that which Mr Suleman summarises in his own skeleton argument where he says at paragraph 17, that

There is a clear finding of psychiatrist at paragraph 13.4 of the report that the Claimant does lack litigation capacity. I will not read out the whole of the report, but the opening sentence of that paragraph is,

The report goes on to say that:

“Mr Suleman displays pivotal flaws in his thinking, which affects his ability to understand information crucial to the process. This has an impact on his ability to understand, retain, evaluate evidence presented in court. He is so self-absorbed and preoccupied in his beliefs that his perception of events is distorted, leading him to hold a deep suspicion and distrust of the legal system’.

I understand from Mr Suleman, that as a result of this report, the Official Solicitor has been appointed to consider his best interests and to act in his best interests in the Family proceedings.

On this evidence and material now before me, I consider that the claimant lacks litigation capacity to bring and pursue a private prosecution and to pursue his application for summonses.

In summary, therefore, on the material before me, I do not consider there was material before the District Judge to justify the issue of the summonses in this case. There just was not a sufficiently coherent Information before the Magistrate to justify that course. In any event, in the circumstances I have identified, the District Judge was or would have been entitled to refuse the issue of summonses on the basis that the application was vexatious and an abuse of process – being an improper attempt by the Claimant to mount a collateral attack on the Family Court Proceedings and the Orders made by the Family Court.

Secondly, in any event, I consider that, on the evidence, the claimant lacks litigation capacity and that if a proper application is to be made for the issue of summonses against his ex-wife, (which application I do not encourage having regard to the observations I have made in the course of this Judgment) then that would have to be presented on his behalf by someone acting as his litigation friend, for example, the Official Solicitor.