Addleshaw Goddard
miscarriage of justice

Prior to accepting instructions from Daniel Thwaites Plc for their county court claim, emininent law firm Addleshaw Goddard LLB were informed the defendant, Web4orce Ltd would be represented by their only employee who was acting as a litigant in person. His name was John Duggan, in 2023 he was an 84 year old pensioner and the company’s sole director and shareholder. The claim was launched on 8 August 2023 and the claimant’s legal team which in total comprised of eight lawyers, three trainee solicitors, two paralegals, two office managers, a costs advisor and was led by partner, Gareth Jones. To help get matters in perspective financially, in 2023 Addleshaw Goddard's fee income was £443 million and its net profit was £184 million, Daniel Thwaites Plc’s turnover amounted to £109 million and its net profit was £15 million whereas Web4orce Ltd’s turnover amounted to £4,400 with a net profit of £823.

By the trial date on 29 November 2024 this was in fact John Duggan's first experience as a litigant in person in the county court. On that basis Addleshaw Goddard assumed their sophisticated criminal tactics would not be detected as it was a one day trial and each of the claimant’s three witnesses had to be cross examined. Fortunately for the defendant, Addleshaw Goddard’s plan backfired as they didn’t allow for the judge’s announcement at the end of the trial that he intended to reserve judgement for 20 days to give both parties sufficient time for final submissions.

This was as an absolute disaster for Addleshaw Goddard’s legal team because it meant that the defendant had 20 days to scroll through all the evidence from before and during the trial searching for any errors that might influence the judge to find in the defendant’s favour. Fortunately on the 20th day just an hour or so before the deadline John Duggan discovered serious discrepancies with his first statement of truth that had been tampered with and planted in the court bundles by Addleshaw Goddard just 3 days before the trial. It wasn’t documentary evidence that had been tampered with but electronic evidence and that was their downfall because back in the late 50’s and early 60’s John Duggan served 9 years in the Royal Air Force as an air electronics engineer on ‘V’ bombers.

With the benefit of hindsight Addleshaw Goddard’s achilles heel was their client Daniel Thwaites Plc as they are a multi-million pound private limited company and like all high income law firms they are always in a never ending pursuit of high wealth clients and combined with the knowledge the defendant was represented by an 85 year old with cognitive behaviour problems the claimant's legal team decided to take a calculated risk in the belief that whatever strategies were employed they would not be detected by such a defendant, unfortunately for them this was probably one of the biggest mistakes in their firm’s history.

Back in January 2023 when Addleshaw Goddard originally decided to represent the claimant and launch a county court claim against Web4orce Limited the crux of Daniel Thwaites Plc’s claim concerned two domain names when in February 2020 two of their managers Jen Riley and Linda Brooks contacted the defendant indicating they wanted to lease them as they were in the process of purchasing the Harts Head hotel in Giggleswick and they were required for the hotel’s website. Incidentally this had been an ongoing arrangement between previous owners of this hotel and the defendant going back as far as 2003. Nevertheless terms were quickly agreed to ensure continuity of the website’s existence on the Internet, email addresses were exchanged. Sometime later after contracts had been exchanged concerning the purchase of the Harts Head hotel the defendant invoiced the hotel for the annual leasing of both domain names which had been agreed at £190 per annum. From that point onwards Daniel Thwaites Plc failed to pay any invoices on time, the first two invoices took 18 months before they were finally settled and then matters went from bad to worse. Essentially Richard Bailey in March 2022 attempted to bully the defendant into agreeing a £285 discount but his attempt failed.

The first mistake Addleshaw Goddard made was they failed to establish who were the actual owners of the following two domain names:

hartsheadhotel.co.uk

hartsheadinn.co.uk

Had they done so it would have been discovered that both domain names were actually owned by the Harts Head hotel itself and the claimant had purchased the hotel out of receivership in 2020. In failing to determine the true owner of those domain names and wrongly assuming the defendant owned them, the claimant needlessly leased both domain names costing £100s from the defendant right up to 2024 when they formally cancelled the contract. A short letter from Addleshaw Goddard to Nominet the UK Registration Authority would have quickly identified who the actual owners were but the claimants legal team inexplicably failed to carry out this logical task. The suspicion is they were quite happy with the status quo as the alternative would have resulted in there being no need to proceed with the claim, no trial at court and no legal fees to boost Addleshaw Goddard's profits.

The second mistake was when Addleshaw Goddard’s Leeds based legal team led by Gareth Jones, failed to confirm from the outset that the defendant could afford to pay the claimant’s costs in the event the claimant won their claim. Unfortunately it didn’t occur to them until after nearly 12 months had elapsed and by that time the claimant was already in too deep to back out. This failure highlights Addleshaw Goddard’s fundamental incompetence insofar as a first year paralegal would have been aware of the "golden rule" before launching a claim is to ensure the defendant has sufficient assets to satisfy a judgment, even if one wins a court order it is only a piece of paper if the defendant has no money or assets to pay. Key considerations should have been carried out before filing include, the claimant should have performed a pre-litigation asset check or obtain a pre-litigation report to confirm the defendant is solvent and has reachable assets. Furthermore they should have regularly compared the likely legal costs against the probability of actually recovering them from the opponent, clearly they failed to do so. This has resulted in Daniel Thwaites Plc losing £84,000 in legal costs to date but this is due to escalate exponentially in the near future.

The third mistake occurred in December 2023 when Addleshaw Goddard announced the claimant’s costs amounted to £36,000 and at that juncture they should have proposed an out of course settlement by offering to write off the claimant’s costs and award a payment of £20,000 to the defendant. Had they done so they would have saved their claimant from losing a further £100,000, ensured the removal of 140 derogatory websites, they could have ensured that Richard Bailey avoided the ignominy of two lies in his first statement becoming public knowledge. It would also have helped their claimant and Richard Bailey from having to face the prospect of a number of criminal charges awaiting them in future. Incidentally less than 12 months later and in the weeks leading up to the trial Addleshaw Goddard, made 3 separate offers circa £150,000 to settle out of court but it was obvious to the defendant when the final offer was delivered just 2 days before the trial that they were really desperate and the offer was rejected.

The first miscarriage of justice was that Addleshaw Goddard should have drawn Richard Bailey’s attention to the inadvisability of naming his third statement of truth as his first statement of truth which was virtually identical to his original first statement of truth except that both lies were missing in this later version. They should have explained an omission of lies highlighted a potential crime in the wrong circumstances particularly when Gareth Jones later conspired with Richard Bailey to withhold Richard Bailey’s original first statement of truth from the trial.

The second miscarriage of justice which was an abuse of process occurred when Gareth Jones failed to inform the court that the claimant’s main witness, multi-millionaire Richard Bailey had lied in his first statement of truth. Richard Bailey then admitted in his second statement of truth that he had lied and in doing that he perverted the course of justice.

The third miscarriage of justice was Addleshaw Goddard failed to include the defendant’s fifth statement of truth together with sixth and seventh statements of truth in the trial bundles despite being requested to do so by the defendant’s 2 separate emails to Addleshaw Goddard which was also emailed to the court. This triggered potential charges of fraud by false representation under Section 2 of the Fraud Act of 2006 as they benefitted from costs.

The fourth miscarriage of justice was Gareth Jones, partner, team leader and ‘guiding mind’ at Leeds based Addleshaw Goddard withheld Richard Bailey’s first statement from the trial and that was perverting the course of justice and probably aided and abetted by Richard Bailey's ‘guiding mind’ for the claimant. Both firms are likely facing charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and conspiracy to defraud.

The fifth miscarriage of justice happened when Addleshaw Goddard forged John Duggan’s first statement of truth by layering it in such a way that instead of it comprising of pages of text it was pages of images of text which meant they were incapable of being searched electronically. Addleshaw Goddard are now facing charges of forgery and perverting the course of justice and also a charge of fraud by false representation under Section 2 of the Fraud Act of 2006.

The sixth miscarriage of justice happened as result of costs being awarded in favour of Addleshaw Goddard amounting to £84,000 and this triggered potential charges of fraud by false representation under Section 2 of the Fraud Act of 2006 and because Daniel Thwaites Plc benefitted from the costs award of £84,000 both firms are facing charges of Conspiracy to Defraud.

The seventh miscarriage of justice is concerning potential abuses of process. This is particularly distressful to Addleshaw Goddard’s lawyers because as officers of the court they owe an overriding duty to the court to report abuses to the judge but none were reported. This has serious implications for those concerned because it can leave them open to findings of contempt of court. There is also the danger that Richard Bailey may also be vulnerable to a finding of contempt of court.

Addleshaw Goddard's Hall of Shame

It is worth noting that each of the members of staff listed below were employed by Addleshaw Goddard following their Letter before Claim in February 2023. They were a lot younger, better paid, better qualified and enjoy far superior mental capacity than their opponent an 85 year old Litigant in Person representing the Defendant and yet it's unforgivable that not one of them noticed Addleshaw Goddard was in abuse of process, behaved criminally including tampering with evidence, conspiracy to defraud, forgery and contempt of court.

(1) David Engel, Grade A Partner charged at £785.00 per hour

(2) Gareth Jones, Grade A Partner charged at £580.00 per hour

(3) Neil O'Sullivan, Grade C Senior London Associate charged at £550.00 per hour

(4) Steve Murphy, Grade B Managing Associate charged at £445.00 per hour

(5) Katie Derry, Grade B Managing Associate charged at £415.00 per hour

(6) Jayd Haigh, Grade C Senior Associate charged at £415.00 per hour

(7) James Damarell, Grade C Senior Associate charged at £415.00 per hour

(8) Craig Johnson, Grade C Associate charged at £370.00 per hour

(9) Emily Howard, Grade D Trainee Solicitor charged at £200.00 per hour

(10) Max O'Casey, Grade D Trainee Solicitor charged at £200.00 per hour

(11) Anna Gilchrist, Grade D Trainee Solicitor charged at £200.00 per hour

(12) Imogen Speight, Grade D Parelegal charged at £180.00 per hour

(13) Isabella Horobin, Grade D Parelegal charged at £180.00 per hour

(14) Warren Field,, Senior Court Manager charged at £550.00 per hour

(15) Susan Fox, Grade C Senior Costs Manager charged at £370.00 per hour

(16) Anya Cross, Grade C Costs Advisor charged at £270.00 per hour

Addleshaw Goddard Office Markers

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