"… necessary to make a sexual harm prevention order for the purpose of – (i) protecting the public or any particular members of the public from sexual harm from the defendant, or (ii) protecting children or vulnerable adults generally, or any particular children or vulnerable adults, from sexual harm from the defendant outside the United Kingdom."
"1. How often do you watch porn? (with more detailed follow-ups) 2. Do you masturbate (and how often)? 3. Do you ejaculate (while watching porn for example)? 4. Do you use any social networks (for dating and such)? 5. When was the last time you dated someone? 6. Do you want to find a partner (or get married and such)? 7. Would it be a man or a woman? (as a follow-up to previous question) 8. Do you feel depressed? (and variations of this regarding mental health) 9. Do you take any drugs or medications? (and variations of this regarding physical health)"
“The rules do not in any relevant respect distinguish between represented and unrepresented parties….The rules provide a framework within which to balance the interest of both sides. That balance is inevitably disturbed if an unrepresented litigant is entitled to greater indulgence in complying with them than his represented opponent. Any advantage enjoyed by a litigant in person imposes a corresponding disadvantage on the other side, which may be significant if it affects the latter's legal rights, under the Limitation Acts for example. Unless the rules and practice directions are particularly inaccessible or obscure, it is reasonable to expect a litigant in person to familiarise himself with the rules which apply to any step which he is about to take.”
“12. It seems to me that when an individual is subject to the orders that Mr Lesnik is subject to, both the specific Prevention Order and the more general order, that the questions asked are clearly of a nature to assess risk for the purpose of preventing any further offending or detecting if an individual has reoffended. 13. For that reason, I am satisfied that the questions were pursued for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime, that they were also pursued under the enactments and rules of law which were specifically applied to Mr Lesnik, and that in all of the circumstances, given the findings in the criminal proceedings, given the orders that Mr Lesnik is subject to, that the questions that he is asked are reasonable in nature.”
"It seems to me, so far as it is required, the conduct complained of is not based on any protected characteristic under the Equality Act that Mr Lesnik holds. It is because he is a registered sex offender and subject to the Sexual Harm Prevention Order."
"It also seems to me that the questions are not unwanted conduct of a sexual nature. They are questions, as I found, being reasonably and lawfully asked for the purposes of preventing and detecting crime, complying with the respondent’s duties given the very specific legal requirements imposed on Mr Lesnik, and reasonable given what the public would, no doubt, expect of the respondent in carrying out their duties in those circumstances. For those reasons, the application must also be dismissed."
"… is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
"The Claimant’s application for permission to apply for judicial review was not validly filed until18 March 2025 , about 11 months after the District Judge’s decision. It should have been filed promptly and in any event no later than 3 months after the decision (CPR 54.5 (1)). Although it was first received by the Administrative Court Office in September 2024 (the precise date is disputed), it was rejected on numerous occasions because of various irregularities. The Claimant relies on the fact that he is a litigant in person, and unfamiliar with Court procedures. Litigants in person are bound to comply with Court procedures, like all other litigants, and the Claimant was given advice by Court staff and referred to the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Support through Court Unit at the Royal Courts of Justice. In my judgment, the Claimant has not been able to establish grounds upon which such a lengthy extension of time can be justified."
"…Once the claim was issued, on19 March 2025 , the Claimant failed to serve it on the [interested party] and only served the County Court. This was a critical omission, given the Defendant is a court and therefore not participating in the proceedings. The [interested party] eventually obtained a copy from the Court."
“10. As to the substantive grounds, the scope for judicial review of a decision of the County Court is restricted. Traditionally it has been limited to exceptional cases where the County Court has acted in complete disregard of its duties (see R (Sivasubramaniam) v Wandsworth County Council[2001] EWHC (Admin) 1078 , R (Strickson) v Preston County Court[2007] EWCA Civ 1132 , approved in R (Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal[2019] UKSC 22 , per Lord Carnwath at [125 and 126]). 11. In R (Cart) v Upper Tribunal[2012] 1 AC 663 , the Sivasubramaniam line of cases was disapproved in the context of a judicial review of a refusal to grant permission to appeal by the Upper Tribunal and the second appeals test was applied so that permission should only be granted where the claimant establishes an arguable case with a reasonable prospect of success that the lower court or tribunal was wrong in law and that either the claim raises an important point of principle or practice or there is some other compelling reason to hear it. 12. In my judgment, the Claimant’s grounds do not come close to satisfying either of these tests. I agree with the assessment of the District Judge, which was upheld by the Circuit Judge. I consider that the police questioning was legitimate, reasonable and proportionate. No arguable error of law has been established.”
“6. In Ideal Shopping Direct Limited v Mastercard Incorporated[2022] EWCA Civ 14 , per Sir Julian Flaux C, at [137], [145] and [146], the Court of Appeal held that service of an unsealed claim form is not valid service and a claimant could not rely onCPR 3.10 to rectify the defect. 7. In R (Good Law Project) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care[2022] EWCA Civ 355 , the Court of Appeal held that the principles inCPR 7.6 should be applied to any application to extend time for service of a judicial review claim form made underCPR 3.1 (2)(a) ... 8. The Court of Appeal in Good Law held that the approach to an application for relief from sanctions set out in Denton v TH White[2014] EWCA Civ 906 , and applied in public law claims in R (Hysaj) v Secretary of State for the Home Department[2014] EWCA Civ 1633 , should not be applied to failures in service of originating process. This is because valid service of a claim form founds the jurisdiction of the court over the defendant. Parties who failed to take reasonable steps to effect valid service expose themselves to the very real risk of losing the right to bring the claim, per Carr LJ at [83]. 9. The Court of Appeal considered that matters such as to the lack of prejudice to the defendant by the invalid service, because a claim form had been served by other means, the public interest in the claim and the merits of the claim were not relevant to determining whether the claimant met the requirements ofCPR 7.6 (3) . There will be detriment to the defendant by reason of the loss of an accrued limitation defence, per Carr J at [36], [58], [64] and [65]. 10. ByCPR 54.7 , the claim form must be served on the defendant and any interested party "within seven days after the date of issue". The claim form must be sealed. Here the claim form was issued by the court on14 May 2024 and so the time for service expired on21 May 2024 .”
“27. In my judgment, the consequence of the failure to serve a valid claim form on the defendants in time and a failure to obtain an extension of time to effect valid service is that the claim form has to be set aside and the Court has no jurisdiction to hear the claim. 28. This conclusion brings the claim to an end. However, I consider that it will be helpful to the parties and any appeal court for me to set out my conclusions on the other issues.”
“The claimant must serve a sealed copy of the Claim Form together with a copy of the bundle of the documentation filed with it, on the defendant(s) and any interested parties within 7 days of the claim being issued. This must be actual, not deemed, service. In the event that the claim form has not been served within 7 days, an application must be made for an extension of time for service (see para 13.7 of this guide). If the claimant fails to serve a valid claim form on the defendants in time and fails to obtain an extension of time to effect valid service, the claim form has to be set aside and the Court has no jurisdiction to hear the claim.”
“Where there was a right of appeal, of course, an aggrieved party would be expected to use that rather than judicial review. Judicial review was always a remedy of last resort.”
“…judicial review is customarily refused as an exercise of judicial discretion where an alternative remedy is available. Where Parliament has provided a statutory appeal procedure, it will rarely be appropriate to grant permission for judicial review. The exceptional case may arise because the statutory procedure is less satisfactory than the procedure of judicial review. Usually, however, the alternative procedure is more convenient and judicial review is refused.”
“[c]onduct ‘of a sexual nature’ can cover verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct including unwelcome sexual advances, touching, forms of sexual assault, sexual jokes, displaying pornographic photographs or drawings or sending emails with material of a sexual nature.”
“if a case is unarguable is it not bound to fail?”
“In our view the key to the conundrum is to recognise that the conventional criterion for the grant of permission does not always in practice set quite as low a threshold as the language of “arguability” or “realistic prospect of success” might suggest. There are indeed cases in which the judge considering an application for permission to apply for judicial review can see no rational basis on which the claim could succeed: these are in our view the cases referred to in the Grace case as “bound to fail” (or “hopeless”). In such cases permission is of course refused. But there are also cases in which the claimant or applicant (we will henceforth say “claimant” for short) has identified a rational argument in support of his claim but where the judge is confident that, even taking the case at its highest, it is wrong. In such a case also it is in our view right to refuse permission; and in our experience this is the approach that most judges take. On this approach, even though the claim might be said to be “arguable” in one sense of the word, it ceases to be so, and the prospect of it succeeding ceases to be “realistic”, if the judge feels able confidently to reject the claimant's arguments. The distinction between such cases and those which are “bound to fail” is not black-and-white, but we believe that it is nevertheless real; and it avoids the apparent anomaly identified at para 13 above.”
“A defendant or other party who attends and successfully resists the grant of permission at a renewed hearing will not usually recover from the claimant the costs of attending the hearing.”