Debra Cheryl Inman v Trust Alliance Group Ltd

Under CPR 52.6, except where rule 52.3B, rule 52.7 or Rule 52.7A applies, none of which are relevant here, permission to appeal may be given only where (a) the court considers that the appeal would have a real prospect of success; or (b) there is some other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.

CPR 52.21(3) provides that the appeal court will allow an appeal where the decision of the lower court was (a) wrong; or (b) unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings in the lower court.

In CPR 52.21(3)(a), “wrong” means that the court below (i) erred in law or (ii) erred in fact or (iii) erred (to the appropriate extent) in the exercise of its discretion: White Book 2025, at paragraph 52.21.5.

Under CPR 52.21(5), at the hearing of the appeal, a party may not rely on a matter not contained in that party’s appeal notice unless the court gives permission.

Under CPR 52.21(2)(b), unless it orders otherwise, the appeal court will not receive evidence which was not before the lower court.

In Hertfordshire Investments Ltd v Bubb [2000] 1 WLR 2318, CA, the Court of Appeal noted that CPR 52.21(2) did not retain the former requirement for “special grounds”, but concluded that the principles reflected in Ladd v Marshall [1954] 1 WLR 1489, CA remain relevant. They were: (1) the evidence could not have been obtained with reasonable diligence for use at the trial; (2) the evidence must be such that, if given, it would probably have an important influence on the result of the case, though it need not be decisive; and (3) the evidence must be such as is presumably to be believed; it must be apparently credible, though it need not be incontrovertible: see Denning LJ at 1491.

When a matter of judicial discretion is engaged, before an appeal court can interfere “it must be shown that the judge has either erred in principle in his approach, or has left out of account, or taken into account, some feature that he should, or should not, have considered, or that his decision is wholly wrong because the court is forced to the conclusion that he has not balanced the various factors fairly in the scales”: Roache v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1998] EMLR 161 at 172, per Stuart-Smith LJ.

Put another way, the question is whether the judge’s exercise of discretion has “exceeded the generous ambit within which reasonable disagreement is possible”: Tanfern Ltd v Cameron-MacDonald (Practice Note) [2000] 1 WLR 1311, CA at [32].

In a similar vein, in Broughton v Kop Football [2012] EWCA Civ 1743 at [51], Lewison LJ observed as follows:

“Case management decisions are discretionary decisions. They often involve an attempt to find the least worst solution where parties have diametrically opposed interests. The discretion involved is entrusted to the first instance judge. An appellate court does not exercise the discretion for itself. It can interfere with the exercise of the discretion by a first instance judge where he has misdirected himself in law, has failed to take relevant factors into account, has taken into account irrelevant factors or has come to a decision that is plainly wrong in the sense of being outside the generous ambit where reasonable decision makers may disagree. So the question is not whether we would have made the same decisions as the judge. The question is whether the judge’s decision was wrong in the sense that I have explained.”

These observations were approved by the Supreme Court in Global Torch Limited v Apex Global Management Limited (No 2) [2014] UKSC 64 at [13]; and see, to similar effect, BPP Holdings v HMRC [2017] UKSC 55 at [33].

When the Appellant filed her claim with the County Court, by an application dated 12 October 2020, she asked for her name and address to be anonymised in the proceedings. She was informed that the application would be considered on notice at the first hearing that would otherwise be held in public. On 25 June 2021 the Appellant made a further anonymity application.

By order dated 20 April 2022 the Appellant’s anonymity applications were refused by DJ Harrison. The order made clear that the Appellant could renew an application orally before the Judge for specific information, such as parts of her medical records, to be kept confidential to the court and the parties, if appropriate, and that any such application could be dealt with on its merits.

There is nothing to suggest that the Appellant made such an application in the County Court proceedings, nor in the appeal, until shortly before the oral renewal hearing. On 16 November 2025 she made an application for anonymity by a letter to the court of the same date, supported by a Witness Statement/Skeleton Argument.

It was clear from the Appellant’s submissions that her primary concern was press reporting of any material about her medical conditions and this damaging her future employment prospects.

The King’s Bench Guide 2025 explains that:

“4.11

Open justice is a fundamental principle of our court system. The general rule is that the names of the parties to a claim are included in all court documents, orders and judgments and hearings are publicly listed with the names of the parties.

4.12…Any departure from the principle of open justice should be the minimum strictly necessary in the interests of justice and for the proper administration of justice”.

In PMC v A Local Health Board [2025] EWCA Civ 1126 at [108], the Court of Appeal reiterated the key principles with respect to anonymity orders (“AOs”), of which the following are pertinent here:

“iv)…anonymity may be necessary in view of the risks posed in the circumstances of the case. Those identified in the case law to date include: (i) risks to the safety of a party or a witness, (ii) risks to the health of a vulnerable person, and (iii) risks of a person suffering commercial ruin. AOs may also be made to protect a party to proceedings from the painful and humiliating disclosure of personal information about them where there was no public interest in its being publicised. Not all categories can be envisaged in advance…

vi)…the court has to carry out a fact-specific balancing exercise. Central to the court’s evaluation will be the purpose of the open justice principle, the potential value of the information in question in advancing that purpose and, conversely, any risk of harm which its disclosure may cause to the maintenance of an effective judicial process or to the legitimate interests of others”.

In light of these principles I explained to the Appellant that the fact that her case involved medical information was not, of itself, sufficient to justify granting her anonymity, especially as her case had been conducted without any such anonymity in place for over five years.

Rather, I explained that I was content to make a very limited order to the effect that any application by a non-party for access to a copy of a statement of case, judgment or order on the court file for this appeal under CPR 5.4C(1) or any application by a non-party for a copy of any other document filed by a party, or communication between the court and a party or another person under CPR 5.4C(2), must be made on 7 days’ notice to the parties, so as to enable the Appellant and the Respondent (if so advised) to make representations to the effect that any confidential matters relating to her health should be redacted before disclosure is made.

The Appellant’s Grounds of Appeal were very diffuse, running to some 25 pages of single space text. She did not in any part of the document distil particular grounds of appeal in relation to either appeal (1) or appeal (2). I assume she intended the bold side headings in the Grounds of Appeal to perform that purpose. I have therefore adopted them below, adapting them as appropriate, and adding new points raised by the Appellant since the Grounds were filed, as appropriate.

Under this part of her Grounds the Appellant made a series of complaints about the conduct of DJ Harrison at the hearing on 19 April 2022, suggesting that the judge had behaved in a hostile, aggressive and biased way towards her. None of these complaints render any aspect of the Judge’s decision with respect to the EQA limitation issue arguably wrong. The Appellant contended that DJ Harrison’s behaviour had made her very unwell. She said that it had hampered her ability to prepare for the 25 July 2022 hearing before the Judge. However, she had been able to prepare extensive bundles and a Witness Statement/Skeleton Argument for the hearing and there is no suggestion from the transcript that when it came to the hearing, the Appellant asked the Judge to adjourn because she needed more time to prepare.

The Appellant said that on arriving at court on 25 July 2022 for the hearing before the Judge, she began sobbing and hyperventilating, as a result, she believes, of her treatment by DJ Harrison on the previous occasion.

The transcript at p.5 reflects the Appellant becoming tearful towards the start of the hearing. However, the Judge dealt with this sensitively. She told the Appellant that she should take her time, explaining that all her written submissions would be taken into account and that all the Appellant needed to do at the hearing was “signpost” the key points. The Appellant continued with the hearing and the transcript reflects her making clear and focussed submissions. I cannot see that at any point she told the Judge that she could not continue or sought an adjournment. Had she done so the Judge would have taken appropriate action.

The Appellant explained that she had spent many hours and incurred significant costs in preparing three sets of bundles for the hearing before the Judge. These ran to over 3,000 pages in 4 lever arch files. On 18 July 2022 the Judge made a case management order ahead of the hearing. She noted that the Appellant’s Skeleton had been received, referring to the 3,000 pages, but that she had not yet seen the bundles. She recorded that as the Appellant was a litigant in person the Respondent should prepare the bundle for the hearing. She directed that this only contain the statements of case, the orders made, the applications to be heard at the hearing and the statements in relation to those applications. The Appellant was very critical of the timing of this case management order. She contended that the late order, and the late arrival of the Respondent’s bundles so close to the hearing, caused her significant distress, such she did not feel well enough to even look at the bundles. She suggested that the Respondent’s bundles were, in any event, unclear in terms of their structure and content. I do not agree.

In her 18 July 2022 order the Judge ordered that if the Appellant wished to rely on any documents over and above those in the Respondent’s bundles, she should bring copies of them to court. The Appellant did not do this, no doubt because she had not looked at the Respondent’s bundles. At the outset of the hearing, the Appellant told the Judge that she had not looked at the Respondent’s bundles. The Judge explained to the Appellant that she would work primarily from the Respondent’s much briefer bundles. However, she made clear to the Appellant that if there was material in her bundles (which by that point had been located by the court) that she wished to take the Judge to, she should do so: transcript, pp. 5-6. In other words, the Judge did not in any way exclude the Appellant’s evidence: she merely took the sensible case management step of managing the hearing by reference to one set of bundles, but explained that the Appellant could highlight additional evidence in her own bundles if she wished. There was no procedural unfairness in this course.

In her Witness Statement dated 30 May 2024 the Appellant contended that HHJ Bloom had not made adequate reasonable adjustments for her during the hearing. The Appellant has amplified this argument in her more recent documents, by reference to extensive citations from the Equal Treatment Bench Book of which she was very complimentary. I cannot see that this argument was raised in terms in the Appellant’s Grounds which focussed, instead, on the allegedly poor conduct of DJ Harrison. On that basis the Appellant would need the court’s permission to pursue this new argument, pursuant to CPR 52.21(5).

However there would be no purpose in granting such permission because I do not consider this new point arguable. The Appellant is right to highlight that in some, but not all, cases a ground rules hearing can assist. This was not a case where it was arguably wrong not to have held one. The transcript makes clear that the Judge recognised that the Appellant was in difficulties and took regular breaks during the hearing. She took time to explain the procedure to the Appellant. Although there was a certain amount of intervention during the arguments about the Appellant’s applications with respect to the Respondent’s solicitors, judicial interruptions during the Appellant’s submissions on the EQA limitation issue were quite limited and not inappropriate.

In the Appellant’s Skeleton Argument dated 27 November 2025 the Appellant contended for the first time that the hearing before the Judge should have been conducted with an assessor under the EQA, s.114(7). The section provides that the power to sit with an assessor on the determination of a claim under the EQA must be exercised unless the judge is satisfied that there are good reasons for not doing so. I know of no authority to the effect that this section applies to a preliminary issue trial on limitation in EQA proceedings, rather than the trial on the merits, but even if it does, it can be seen that s.114(7) does not set out a mandatory requirement to sit with an assessor. Again, therefore, I would refuse the Appellant permission to add this ground under CPR 52.21(5).

For these reasons I do not consider that any of the various procedural concerns advanced by the Appellant rendered the Judge’s decision arguably wrong.

The Appellant contends in this part of her Grounds that the Judge erred by imbuing her with legal knowledge she did not have. She has emphasised that she graduated with her law degree in 1989 and chose to become a tax adviser, primarily working in the accountancy profession with some time at a private bank. She observes that the Civil Procedure Rules were introduced in 1997 after she graduated. She submitted that the HMCTS guidance on the internet did not make clear to litigants in person that they should follow the CPR (although I do not accept this).

I do not consider this an arguable ground of appeal. The Judge had been provided with detailed written and oral submissions from the Appellant, which she was able to assess. The transcript makes clear that the Appellant took the Judge to the appropriate authorities on the EQA limitation issue. It was also agreed that the Appellant had filed two other claims during the currency of the limitation period of this claim. In those circumstances the Judge was entitled to regard the Appellant as someone with some knowledge of both substantive law and procedure, more so than many litigants in person who appear in the courts. This was directly relevant to the question of whether the Appellant had acted reasonably in electing not to bring this claim within the limitation period or not. There was no arguable error in the Judge’s approach on this issue.

In this part of her Grounds the Appellant argues that the Judge ignored certain aspects of the medical evidence. She sets out a series of extracts from the medical evidence which she contends shows how unwell she was as a result of the Respondent’s conduct, and how this explains why she was simply too unwell to bring her EQA claim any earlier. These submissions, amplified in her Witness Statement dated 30 May 2024, her Skeleton Argument dated 25 November 2025 and various other documents, effectively re-argue the position the Appellant adopted before the Judge. They do not illustrate that the Judge’s assessment of the medical evidence was wrong.

As I have indicated at [23] above, the Judge conducted a thorough assessment of what she considered to be the key parts of the medical evidence. The Judge then factored the conclusions of that assessment into her overall determination of whether it would be just and equitable to extend time under the EQA. The Judge did not arguably err in this respect.

During the hearing the Appellant took me to several examples of documents relating to her medical issues which she contended the Judge had not taken into account, from her bundle 8. These comprised (i) evidence showing that in March 2018 she had to cease attending therapy she had been receiving at the Bridewell Mental Health Therapy Centre since the death of her father in November 2017; (ii) a letter from her GP dated 6 August 2018 asking that her significant mental health issues be taken into account in her application for legal aid; (iii) a letter from the Legal Aid Agency dated 20 September 2018 confirming that she had been granted Exceptional Funding for her claim against Aviva in part based on medical evidence; (iv) a letter from a community psychiatric nurse dated 5 November 2018 indicating that they had discussed the possibility of the Appellant “letting go of some of her legal disputes” but the Appellant saying she did not feel able to do this; (v) documentation relating to a police welfare check on her on 27 November 2018 given her then suicidal state; and (vi) a letter she had written to the County Court on 18 December 2019 asking for the audio recordings of the 15 February 2019 and 20 May 2019 hearings in the Aviva claim, as she considered that her memory was failing her.

The Appellant was highly critical of the Respondent for excluding these documents from its bundles for the hearing. However, she accepted that they had been in her bundles. Given the Judge’s express indication to the Appellant that she was permitted to refer to her own bundles as set out at [67] above, it is not clear to me why she did not take the Judge to these documents, if that was indeed the case. This was, after all, the Appellant’s application to extend time under the EQA, to the extent necessary. It was therefore her responsibility to take the Judge to the evidence that she contended supported her position on the limitation issue. It cannot be said that the Judge’s decision was arguably wrong because it did not include consideration of medical evidence which the Appellant had not taken her to. In any event none of these documents show any fundamental flaw in the Judge’s assessment of the medical evidence, as part of her overall decision as to whether the exercise the discretion to extend time, not least because with the exception of document (vi) they focus on her mental state in 2018 and not 2019 and January-October 2020, when the EQA limitation period was still running.

In her Witness Statement dated 30 May 2024 the Appellant advanced a new overarching argument to the effect that the Judge did “not understand…the difference between cognitive capacity and intelligence”. To the extent necessary I decline permission to the Appellant to rely on this argument under CPR 52.21(5) because I do not consider it arguable: read as a whole the Judge’s judgment makes clear that she took care to distinguish between the Appellant’s intelligence and her cognitive functioning: see, for example, her findings set out at [45] of her judgment, at [24] above.

In her letter to the court dated 1 December 2025, the Appellant sought to rely on the Employment Tribunal decision in Mrs M Fabry (as Personal Representative of the Estate of Mr K Fabry) v Statham Gill Davies Solicitors and S Chamberlain (Case No 2204809/2019 and 2203791/2023). This is a first instance decision that does not establish any new legal principles. It was decided on its own facts. The Tribunal considered that it was appropriate to extend time after 3½ years delay because otherwise the applicant’s access to justice would be denied due to a “bizarre combination of an obscure and highly technical legal issue, inefficiencies in the Tribunal administrative processes exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the health [and] safety emergency that befell on London Central Employment Tribunal in December 2020”, noting that there was “little, if any, prejudice to the respondent”: [68]-[69]. Those facts are very different to the facts in this case. For these reasons the decision in Fabry does not illustrate that the Judge’s decision in this case was arguably wrong.

In her Grounds, the Appellant sought to admit fresh evidence in her appealnamely (i) a Department for Work and Pensions (“DWP”) capability assessment covering the period 7 May 2018 to 30 October 2018; and (ii) a Notice to Quit served on her by her landlord on 23 September 2019 which required her to leave her property by 29 November 2019 and which she contended thereby rendered her homeless.

The Appellant contended that at the time she wrote her second Witness Statement/Skeleton Argument for the hearing before the Judge, she was still suffering the side-effects of the anti-depressants which she had recently been prescribed; and was still processing the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder which she had recently received. She argued that that these matters together with her pre-existing memory and cognition difficulties meant that she simply forgot to refer the Judge to the fact that during the period of time when the EQA claim should have been lodged, she had been subjected to two other stressors, namely a difficult capability assessment process with the DWP and being evicted from her home.

Although the DWP evidence and Notice to Quit are apparently credible items of evidence, I do not consider that either satisfies criteria (1) or (2) from Ladd v Marshall, as set out at [49] above.

As to criteria (1), this evidence was available to the Appellant before the hearing. There is no medical evidence to support the Appellant’s assertions about her state of mind in the weeks preceding that hearing. She had certainly been well enough to prepare a detailed Witness Statement/Skeleton Argument and bundles. Moreover, I suspect that any reasonable clinician would struggle to give evidence to the effect that her mental state was such that she was capable of remembering certain things but not others. If in fact her eviction was as significant a life event as she says, it is perhaps all the more surprising that she did not mention it.

However, even if criteria (1) is met, I do not consider criteria (2) is. The Judge was well aware of the health difficulties the Appellant was facing between May 2018 and October 2020. However, there were other factors which ultimately led the Judge to decide not to extend time, including the fact that the Appellant had chosen to prioritise her other litigation, the length of the extension she required relative to the primary time limit, the prejudice that would be caused to the Respondent if time was extended and the fact that she had another overlapping, in time, claim namely that under the PHA. In those circumstances, I do not consider that evidence of additional difficulties in the Appellant’s life at the material time would probably have had an important influence on the Judge’s conclusion.

In her Witness Statement dated 30 May 2024 the Appellant referred to the UK Commission on Bereavement report dated 26 October 2022 which recognises that in the absence of the support they need, some adults suffer from clinical depression and suicidal ideations following bereavement. She effectively also applied to admit this as fresh evidence on the appeal. While this report would meet Ladd v Marshall criteria (1) and (3), it would also fail to meet (2) for the reasons given in the preceding paragraph: whatever be the (probably non-controversial position) regarding the general potential impact of bereavement on people, the Judge had to look at the impact of multiple bereavements on this Appellant, in the context of all the medical evidence about her, and all the other factors relevant to the EQA limitation issue. I do not therefore consider that the UK Commission on Bereavement report would probably have had an important influence on the Judge’s conclusion.

The same is true of the additional evidence from, for example, the Covid 19 Inquiry dated 13 June 2023 and Transparency International UK dated 30 January 2024 included in the Appellant’s bundle 2B under the heading “public interest/whistleblowing claims”; the various reports about the energy sector and the Respondent included in the Appellant’s bundle 7(2) of “public interest evidence”; and the further items of evidence said to be relevant to the public interest referred to in the Appellant’s 61 page Witness Statement 4ii, submitted on 11 January 2024. I observe that some of these reports would also fail Ladd v Marshall criteria (1) as they pre-date the hearing before the Judge; and that no application to admit any of this material as fresh evidence on appeal was explicitly made.

In this part of her Grounds the Appellant repeated her novel argument that although the alleged discrimination by the Respondent had ended in November 2017, the conduct of the Respondent’s solicitors after they were instructed had the effect of amounting to a continuing act of discrimination.

The Appellant was correct in referring to several legal principles about the broad concept of agency in this context; and the fact that in certain circumstances a Respondent’s conduct of litigation can itself be an act of victimisation or merit an award of aggravated damages.

However, in my judgment there was nothing arguably wrong in the reasoning the Judge gave for rejecting the Appellant’s argument on this issue. In particular, the Judge was right to focus on the fact that the Respondent’s solicitors were not Defendants to the claim, which I consider to be the fundamental flaw in the Appellant’s continuing act argument. That is because the word “conduct” in s.118(6)(a) relates to the conduct of the Defendant, because the purpose of that subsection is to inform s.118(1)(a), which refers to “the act to which the claim relates”, ie. the act of the Defendant on which the Claimant is suing. This does not, in my view, extend to the acts of a Defendant’s solicitor unless they are made a Defendant to the claim, in their capacity as purported agent.

The Appellant provided the court with two recordings of calls with the Respondent which she contended amounted to essential evidence that the Judge below had not taken into account. Although she strictly had no permission to rely on this evidence in her appeal I listened to both recordings.

The first recording file name is “08.09.17 11.06am”, which I assume reflects the call taking place on 8 September 2017 at 11.16 am. It is just under 11 minutes long. This was a call between a male caller and the Respondent. The caller stated that he was ringing on behalf of someone else (ie. the Appellant) and provided the relevant reference number. During the call he indicated that the way in which the Respondent was communicating with the Appellant was making her unwell and that she was very vulnerable. He asked for this information to be passed on.

The second recording file name is “29.11.17 16.23pm”, which I assume reflects the call taking place on 29 November 2017 at 11.23 pm. It is just under 39 minutes long. The Appellant was the caller. She explained how disappointed she was with the Respondent’s service. She said that she had filed an official complaint about one member of the Respondent’s staff, who had caused her significant harm. She provided the tracking reference number to confirm her posting of the complaint. The Appellant was very frustrated to be told that she had sent the complaint to the wrong address, such that it could not be located, and that she needed to re-submit it. The Respondent’s member of staff explained how the Appellant could lodge a complaint about service via their website. The Appellant expressed concern that a final decision was being made the following day when she had not yet provided all the information she wanted to.

The central period of time with which the Judge was concerned for the purposes of the EQA limitation issue was May 2018 to October 2020, for the reasons set out at [21] above. Accordingly, while these recordings may have been relevant to any trial of the merits of the Appellant’s EQA or PHA claims, and in particular to the Appellant’s contention that the Respondent’s conduct had made her very unwell, they were not directly relevant to the EQA limitation issue, which related to events which post-dated 29 November 2017.

It follows that even if this evidence was admitted into the Appellant’s appeal, it does not illustrate any arguable error by the Judge with respect to appeal (1).

In her Witness Statement dated 30 May 2024 at [74] the Appellant advanced a further new point to the effect that the Judge had erred in her assessment of the public interest issue in her claim, as part of her consideration of whether to extend time. Her submissions on this issue repeated the point she had made to the Judge about the Respondent being the only ombudsman for the energy industry and yet not making adequate provision for vulnerable and disabled people, set out at [15] above. The Appellant plainly disagrees with the Judge’s assessment of the extent to which her claim raises wider public interest issues but that does not generate unarguable ground of appeal. However, the weight to be attached to particular factors was a matter for the first instance judge. An appeal court will only interfere if the judge’s assessment was plainly wrong in the Broughton sense. That was not the case with respect to this issue, such that again I would refuse the Appellant permission to take this new point under CPR 52.21(5).

In her letter to the court dated 7 October 2024, the Appellant contended that she had only just become aware of the principles underpinning the court’s power to order the trial of a preliminary issue under CPR 3.1(2(j). She cited several lengthy extracts from the relevant cases. The Appellant is right to highlight that, in summary, the caselaw establishes that caution needs to be exercised in ordering a trial of a preliminary issue especially where there are significant disputes of fact and/or where ordering a preliminary issue trial will not ultimately save time or resources. She contended that it was wrong for the EQA limitation issue to have been determined as a preliminary issue in this case.

This is not a further potential ground of appeal in relation to the HHJ Bloom’s order dated 25 July 2022, but rather an attempt to appeal the earlier order of DJ Harrison ordering that the EQA limitation issue be determined as a preliminary issue. That order is dated 20 April 2022. Accordingly, the Appellant is well over 3 years out of time to appeal that decision. The Appellant alluded to an argument that might address this issue, to the effect that HHJ Bloom had erred by continuing with the trial of a preliminary issue in this case, notwithstanding DJ Harrison’s order.

However, I do not consider it arguable that either Judge erred. While the Appellant is right that EQA limitation issues often involve factual matters, it is not uncommon for them to be determined as preliminary issues because if the application for an extension of time fails there will be no need for a trial and thus a saving of time and resources.

Further, contrary to the Appellant’s assertion, Larkfleet Ltd v Allison Homes Eastern Ltd [2016] EWHC 195 (TCC), a Technology and Construction Court case, is not authority for the proposition that a preliminary issue trial must proceed by way of a Schedule of Assumed Facts.

Here, it would not have been feasible to seek to agree the central factual dispute on the EQA limitation issue, namely whether or not the Appellant’s mental health and functioning had prevented her from bringing this claim any earlier. Rather, the Judge performed the entirely appropriate judicial exercise of considering the evidence and making findings on this issue, before factoring those findings into her overall assessment of whether to extend time.

As the Judge recognised s.118(1)(b) afforded her a broad discretion as to whether to extend time on “just and equitable” grounds. The Judge took into account all the factors placed before her by the Appellant and explained why she did not consider it appropriate to extend time in a detailed judgment. While she afforded due regard to the Appellant’s medical issues, there were a series of other factors which led her to conclude that it was not appropriate to extend time.

For the reasons set out above, I am not persuaded that any of the grounds or potential grounds advanced by the Appellant are arguable. There is no arguable basis for contending that the Judge erred in any of the ways set out in Broughton, noted at [52] above. I therefore refuse permission on appeal (1).

At section 5 of the Appellant’s Notice, the Appellant indicated that the Appellant sought to appeal the Judge’s order in respect of these applications.

At section 9, which asks “What are you asking the appeal court to do?” the Appellant wrote as follows:

“I apologise to the court for pointing out the obvious, but this section is a prime example that the Justice system in England still cannot accommodate LIP and disabled LIPs in particular. I am not qualified to draft Court Orders therefore the following has been phrased in layman’s terms:

…To Allow my Equality Act 2010 claim under the just and equitable provision contained in section 118(1)(b) of the Equality Act 2010.

…To rule the behaviour of Mr McWilliams [the Respondent’s solicitor] unreasonable and a further act of indirect discrimination, amounting to a continuing act of discrimination on behalf of the [Respondent]”.

By completing section 9 as she did the Appellant had made very clear what she wanted the court to do in respect of her appeal (1). However, section 9 was silent as to appeal (2). The wording of section 9 suggested that the real relevance of the conduct of the Respondent’s solicitor before the Judge, as far as the Appellant was concerned, was because it contributed to her continuing act argument under appeal (1), addressed at [87]-[89] above.

This theme has permeated the Appellant’s further submissions. None of the Grounds of Appeal appended to the Appellant’s Notice or her further submissions have specifically addressed appeal (2) other than repeating various assertions about the conduct of the Respondent’s solicitor.

To the extent that the Appellant really does intend to appeal the Judge’s dismissal of the applications relating to the Respondent’s solicitors’ conduct as a discrete ground, rather than relying on it as part of her continuing act argument under appeal (1), I refuse permission.

I do so because I agree with Soole J that the transcript shows the care with which the Judge listened to the arguments advanced by the Appellant in respect of the alleged conduct of the Respondent’s solicitors and explained why she was dismissing these unusual applications. The further reasons given in her judgment set out at [25] above explain her rationale perfectly sensibly. There is no basis for concluding that this case management decision was flawed in any of the ways set out in Broughton.

The Appellant’s Case Summary dated 21 November 2025 raised, for the first time, the suggestion that the Appellant was in fact trying to appeal the Judge’s dismissal of a separate application dealt with at the hearing, namely her application dated 8 July 2022 to add additional claims in respect of psychiatric injury and loss of earnings. The Judge dismissed that application at [19] of the order.

It is now over 3 years since the Judge made that decision and I cannot see that it has featured in the key submissions in the appeal at all. Insofar as an application to extend time to appeal this order and advance this ground was made, I would not grant it, primarily because I cannot discern any arguable error in the Judge’s approach to this application.

The Judge dismissed this application for the reasons given in her judgment at [59]-[63]. She explained that there were two primary reasons for this: (i) the Appellant had not yet been able to formulate what the claim was and to the extent that the Appellant was seeking to bring a claim for a breach of duty of care leading to psychiatric injury that would need to be properly formulated; and (ii) the medical evidence currently before the court did not show that the Appellant’s Major Depressive Disorder as diagnosed in 2022 had been caused directly by the Respondent’s acts: rather the focus of the evidence appeared to be on the fact that the various sets of litigation in which the Appellant had been involved were exacerbating her pre-existing difficulties.

Further, the Judge made clear that if the Appellant was able to obtain evidence that showed a clear link between her current mental health and the Respondent’s actions and was able to draft some sort of claim, then the court would consider a fresh application to amend, albeit that the Appellant would need to consider the issue of limitation. On that basis, the Judge had left open the option of the Appellant reverting to the court at this issue. It would therefore be premature and inappropriate to seek to appeal this decision.

The parties were provided with a draft of this judgment just before 2 pm on Tuesday 2 December 2025, with an indication that the judgment would be handed down at 2 pm on Monday 8 December 2025. On Wednesday 3 December 2025 the Appellant indicated that she would need a month to respond to it. I extended time for the provision of any proposed typographical amendments to 10.30 am on Monday 8 December 2025.

Accordingly, the Appellant was afforded three full working days, and a weekend, to provide any typographical errors she had identified in the draft. This is longer than the usual timescale set out in PD40E, paragraph 2.3, which indicates that the draft judgment will be provided “by 4 p.m. on the second working day before handing down”.

In submissions filed at 9.45 pm on Sunday 7 December 2025 the Appellant contended that she had not had sufficient time to respond to the draft judgment due to the stress of the hearing which had left her feeling unwell, such that she could only work on the draft judgment for 10 minutes at a time. No medical evidence to support these assertions was provided. The Appellant was nevertheless well enough to provide a 4 page document advancing a series of submissions and observations, dated Sunday 7 December 2025. These advanced arguments in support of an application for permission to appeal my order to the Court of Appeal or Supreme Court, as to which, see [118] below.

In all the circumstances I concluded that it was appropriate to proceed to the handing down of the judgment. If any genuine factual errors are identified at a later stage, an application can be made for a correction to the judgment under the slip rule in CPR 40.12. The Appellant has been advised of this.

For all these reasons, I refuse permission to appeal. The appeal would have no real prospects of success and there is no other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.

Permission to appeal having been refused, this decision is final and cannot itself be appealed to the Court of Appeal. If the Appellant nevertheless wishes to make an application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal, she will need to provide fresh bundles.

In respect of the costs of this appeal, in her Appellant’s Notice, the Appellant sought an order “reserving the costs of the appeal to be costs in the case, in accordance with CPR 52.19(3)”. The nature of the order sought by the Appellant was not entirely clear to me. The phrase “reserving the costs of the appeal to be costs in the case” suggested to me that she somehow sought to link the costs of the appeal with the costs of her underlying claim. Such an order would not generally be appropriate and certainly not here when the underlying claim has been struck out. CPR 52.19 is not really applicable to this case. In my judgment the Respondent was right to contend, as it did in its 15 December 2022 letter, that the normal rules as to costs should apply.

However, application of those normal rules does not lead me to conclude that any costs order should be made on this appeal. Despite the length of this appeal process, ultimately it has not proceeded beyond the permission stage. The Respondent has very sensibly limited its costs exposure, has not filed a Respondent’s Notice and did not attend the renewal hearing. In those circumstances it is appropriate to make no order for costs, meaning the Appellant will bear her own costs and the Respondent will bear theirs.

The costs orders made in the County Court stand.

Accordingly, I will make an order to the effect that (1) any application by a non-party for access to a copy of a statement of case, judgment or order on the court file under CPR 5.4C(1) or a copy of any other document filed by a party, or communication between the court and a party or another person under CPR 5.4C(2), must be made on 7 days’ notice to the parties; (2) permission to appeal is refused; and (3) there is to be no order for costs on this appeal.