Wirral Borough Council v McAdam and S & E Lomax trading as Lomax Transport Services v Sherrard, Sherrard and Wirral Borough Council
There are two cases coming up this week in the Birkenhead County Court involving Wirral Council.
The first is on Tuesday 18th March 2014 in front of Deputy District Judge Abberton starting at 2pm and is expected to last ten minutes. The case is because Wirral Council is seeking a charging order (a charging order is a charge on a property registered with Land Registry which is paid if the property is sold) against a defendant referred to as McAdam. The case reference number for that case is 3bi07744.
In the second case Wirral Council looks like it’s listed as a defendant. The second case is down for Thursday at noon in front of Deputy District Judge Grosscurth (the same Deputy District Judge who decided on a court order last year in the case involving Kane and Woodley and a possession order for Fernbank Farm). It’s for a one hour case management conference. The party’s names in that case are listed as “S & E Lomax T/A Lomax Transport Svcs – Sherrard/Sherrard/WBC” which I presume means that the plaintiff is S&E Lomax trading as Lomax Transport Services and the defendants are Sherrard, Sherrard and Wirral Borough Council. The case reference number for that case is 3YJ60591.
I would guess that the first case is either a charging order to do with either work that the Council has carried out following a planning enforcement matter or about an outstanding debt. Lomax Transport Services is a road haulage business based in Rochdale. Quite who or what Sherrard are I’m not sure.
If anyone has further details on what these two mystery cases are about please leave a comment.
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John, why not just let the proceedings take place and then report on it afterwards? And if they’re listed to be heard in open court, then they’re hardly a mystery!
You are right there is a presumption that matters are held in open court.
The problem is that the electronic court listings don’t state whether they are to be held in open court or not and it’s only by turning up at the court on the day itself that you can find out whether they’re held in the open or not.
I know of a previous charging order that was decided at Birkenhead County Court that was held in Judge’s Chambers (which generally means in private) so I’d presume that in both cases that would be the case.
Admittedly I can turn up on the day and request to be there (as the Civil Procedure Rules states cases should be held in public except for a very small range of circumstances in which they shouldn’t be). In which case the clerk asks the Judge (or Deputy Judge) who generally says it’s ok if the parties to the case agree.
There’s also a regime whereby non parties to a case can request from the court the statement of case and any judgements or orders issued as generally these matters fall within an Freedom of Information Act exemption if I made a request to Wirral Council. Although I’ve tried to do this in the past (and the Civil Procedure Rules state it can be done) I’ve not received a response from the Birkenhead County Court last time I tried.