“You informed me yesterday, that you did not appeal because you were waiting to receive the written decision sent2nd September 2024 from us You initially advised that you had not received the email of 2nd September from me but later stated you had not seen it, as it had gone into your spam folder. Also, during that conversation when the hearing was being discussed with you, I asked you why you did not chase the authority for the decision notice if you believed it had not been sent especially as you would have been informed at the meeting it would be sent, you told me that you were not informed at the meeting that was the case and you were only told you were revoked, I attach the minutes from that meeting which clearly confirm you were advised “that a written decision notice with full reasons would be provided”
“Although the decision is dated for September, we are told that our client was not aware of the written decision until he received your email of 10th October. It appears that the notice may also have been sent by email but was considered to be ‘spam mail’ by his system and so filtered and was never seen or read. His system apparently deletes such spam after a period of one month. The situation is therefore similar to a letter that is never delivered and the date of your received email on 10th October should therefore be taken as the date of notification.” 11 Also on 24 October, Ms Neale emailed Mr Ahmed to ask if he continued to advise the appellant “after the meeting [of the sub-committee] and specifically in relation to the decision notice”
“(1) Notwithstanding anything in the Act of 1847 or in this Part of this Act, a district council may suspend or revoke or (...) refuse to renew the licence of a driver of a hackney carriage or a private hire vehicle on any of the following grounds- … [b] any other reasonable cause. (2) (a) Where a district council suspend, revoke or refuse to renew any licence under this section they shall give to the driver notice of the grounds on which the licence has been suspended or revoked… within fourteen days of such suspension, revocation or refusal and the driver shall on the demand return to the district council the driver’s badge issued to him in accordance with section 54 of this Act. (2A) Subject to subsection (2B) of this section, a suspension or revocation of the licence of a driver under this section takes effect at the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the day on which notice is given to the driver under subsection (2)(a) of this section. (2B) If it appears that the interests of public safety require the suspension or revocation of the licence to have immediate effect, and the notice given to the driver under subsection (2)(a) of this section includes a statement that that is so and an explanation why, the suspension or revocation takes effect when the notice is given to the driver. (3) Any driver aggrieved by a decision of a district council under subsection (1) of this section may appeal to a magistrates’ court.”
“(1) Sections 300 to 302 of the Act of 1936, which relate to appeals, shall have effect as if this Part of this Act were part of that Act. …”
“(1) Where any enactment in this Act provides— (a) for an appeal to a court of summary jurisdiction against a requirement, refusal or other decision of a council; or … the procedure shall be by way of complaint for an order, and the Summary Jurisdiction Acts shall apply to the proceedings. (2) The time within which any such appeal may be brought shall be twenty-one days from the date on which notice of the council’s requirement, refusal or other decision was served upon the person desiring to appeal, and for the purposes of this subsection the making of the complaint shall be deemed to be the bringing of the appeal. (3) In any case where such an appeal lies, the document notifying to the person concerned the decision of the council in the matter shall state the right of appeal to a court of summary jurisdiction and the time within which such an appeal may be brought.”
“Any notice, order, consent, demand or other document which is required or authorised by or under this Act to be given to or served on any person may, in any case for which no other provision is made by this Act, be given or served either- (a) by delivering it to that person; or ....” 17 Commenting on section 285, paragraph 24 of the respondent’s skeleton argument says it is “accepted that none of these methods apply in this case.”
“7 It is, I think, common ground that the references to serve and served in section 10(15) and 10(17) respectively must have the same meaning so that the issue is whether the receipt by Mr Goulandris of the award in electronic form constituted service of it on him for the purposes of section 10(17) either on 2 September when the e-mail was actually received in his inbox or at least on 3 September when he read it together with the attachment.” (Patten LJ). 25 At paragraph 19, Patten LJ recorded the submission of counsel for the appellant that, unless the relevant legislation expressly excludes service by other means than those specified, a party is “entitled to rely on service which took place by any other means provided that it resulted in the relevant document coming to the attention of the receiving party. At common law service requires receipt of the document.”
“36 Mr Weekes also referred to the practical difficulties which might exist were electronic service of documents to be permissible. Service of a hard copy by one of the means listed in section 15(1) promotes, he says, predictability and certainty in the process under a regime with short time limits. A party wall notice may, as mentioned earlier, include plans and drawings which are likely to be large and bulky and are not ideally suitable for electronic transmission. These are, of course, relevant considerations but in my view they are not decisive. Service by e-mail of documents in a pdf format does produce high quality copies of the relevant document, assuming of course that the originals were themselves legible. In one sense the introduction of electronic service as a result of the amendments introduced by the 2016 Order is a recognition of this. But in any event it is difficult to infer that Parliament intended under section 15 to create an exhaustive list of the possible methods of service so as to avoid difficulties inherent in service by e-mail or fax. If the serving party chooses to use a method of service outside section 15 then the burden is on him to establish receipt of the document in a legible form.”
“14 The issue for this court, as identified in the agreed statement of facts and issues, is whether the completion notice was validly served on the date that it was received by UKI, in circumstances where: (i) it was not delivered directly to UKI by the council, but passed through the hands of the receptionist employed by Eco, who was not authorised for that purpose by either party; (ii) it was received by UKI in electronic rather than paper form. Service - the authorities 15 It is common ground that, by virtue of the opening words of paragraph 8 of Schedule 4A to the Act, the three specific methods there set out do not exclude other methods of service available under the general law. There is no serious dispute as to what that entails. In Sun Alliance and London Assurance Co Ltd vHayman[1975] 1 WLR 177 ,185 (a case under the Landlord and Tenant Act1954), Lord Salmon said: “According to the ordinary and natural use of English words, giving a notice means causing a notice to be received. Therefore, any requirement in a statute or a contract for the giving of a notice can be complied with only by causing the notice to be actually received unless the context or some statutory or contractual provision otherwise provides . . . (No distinction is drawn in the cases between serving and giving a notice: see Kinch v Bullard[1999] 1 WLR 423 , 426G.) To similar effect in Tadema HoldingsLtd v Ferguson(1999) 32 HLR 866 , 873 Peter Gibson LJ said (in a case relating to service of a notice under theHousing Act 1988 ): Serve is an ordinary English word connoting the delivery of a document to a particular person. 16 Specific statutory provisions such as paragraph 8 are designed, not to exclude other methods, but rather to protect the server from the risk of non-delivery. As was said by Slade LJ in Galinski v McHugh(1988) 57 P&CR 359 , 365, in relation to a similar service provision in theLandlord and Tenant Act 1927 (section23(1)): “This is a subsection appearing in an Act which . . . contains a number of provisions requiring the giving of notice by one person to another and correspondingly entitling that other person to receive it. In our judgment, the object of its inclusion . . . is not to protect the person upon whom the right to receive the notice is conferred by other statutory provisions. On the contrary, section 23(1) is intended to assist the person who is obliged to serve the notice, by offering him choices of mode of service which will be deemed to be valid service, even if in the event the intended recipient does not in fact receive it. (Original emphasis.) ... Discussion 35 The method of attempted service adopted by the council was far from ideal. As already noted, the purpose of specific provisions such as paragraph 8 is to provide reliable methods of service and to minimise the risk to the council of non-delivery. Given that, as is now accepted, the name and address of the owner could have been discovered by reasonable inquiry, it is not clear why this was not done. We have had no satisfactory explanation for this failure, nor indeed for the failure to take corrective action when the objection to service was raised. Nothing in this judgment should be taken as detracting from the good sense of the President’s observation (Valuation Tribunal, para 43): In practice, billing authorities would be well advised to secure the protection afforded by paragraph 8 and not serve outside those provisions unless confident that the circumstances are such that good service will be effected. However, the two legal issues on which the judges below disagreed are of some general importance and merit consideration by this court. Hence the grant of permission to appeal. Indirect service 36 The difference between the Upper Tribunal and the Court of Appeal comes down to a narrow point. The Upper Tribunal thought that, since the notice issued by the council reached the hands of the intended recipient, it mattered not that the route was unorthodox. Gloster LJ thought that this approach failed to give effect to the concept of service on the owner by the authority (emphasis added). For my part I would accept that the means by which the notice arrives at its destination is not wholly immaterial. In itself the reference to the billing authority is simply to identify the body responsible for service; it says nothing about how that is to be done. The real issue, as I see it, adopting the words of Lord Salmon in the SunAlliance case[1975] 1 WLR 177 , 185 is whether the authority caused the notice to be received by UKI. In other words there must be a sufficient causal connection between the authority’s actions and the receipt of the notice by the recipient. 37 Mr Kolinsky appeared implicitly to accept that analysis, but he submitted that the chain of causation was broken by the interposition of a third party in the form of the Eco receptionist. He challenged Mr Kokelaar’s suggestion that the receptionist was given implied authority to serve the notice, at least in any formal sense. To that extent I would agree with him; but it is unnecessary and unrealistic in my view to introduce concepts of agency or statutory delegation into this simple sequence of events. As the Deputy President accepted, the Eco receptionist, on receiving from the council officer a hand-delivered notice addressed to the “Owner”, did no more than would reasonably be expected of a responsible employee in that position: that is, pass on the notice to the person to whom it was addressed. It was the natural consequence of the councils actions. 38 Mr Kolinsky objected that the receptionist was not under the control of the council, as would have been for example a process server acting under contract. However, causation does not necessarily depend on control. Mr Kokelaar countered with the example of a notice correctly addressed, but mistakenly delivered to a neighbouring address and then passed on by the occupant to the intended recipient. Like him I see no reason why that should not be treated as effective service under ordinary principles of causation, even though the friendly neighbour was not under the control of either party. ... 42 A further argument against the Upper Tribunal’s approach was the potential uncertainty it leaves as to the date of service. As Mr Kolinsky points out, it may be important not only for both parties, but also for the valuation officer, to be able to identify the date of service with precision. Thus, in respect of a building which appears to have been completed, the date of service must be identified in the notice (paragraph 2(3)), and, subject to appeal, is treated as the completion day so triggering liability to rates. In respect of a building yet to be completed the proposed completion day must be not later than three months from and including the date of service: paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 4A. 43 The difficulty with this argument, in my view, is that some uncertainty in this respect is inherent in the legislation, in which neither the methods of service, nor the dates of service in different circumstances, are exhaustively defined. The simple answer for the authority may be that, where the date of service is critical, it is able to choose a statutory method which eliminates or minimises the risk of the notice being rendered invalid by failure to specify the correct date of service. If it chooses a non-statutory method it must bear that risk. The risk of prejudice to the owner is limited, since outside the statutory grounds service depends on actual receipt by the intended recipient, and the time for appeal is also related to receipt. Electronic communication 44 In spite of the misgivings expressed by Lloyd LJ in the Hastie case[1990] 1 WLR 1575 , it does not appear that the reasoning of the majority has been questioned in any subsequent cases, before or since the enactment of the 2000 Act. Notably it was applied in the PNC Telecom case[2003] BCC 202 notwithstanding the recognition that modifications had been made under the 2000 Act to other parts of theCompanies Act 1985 . Although those cases were concerned specifically with fax transmission of a copy of the relevant notice, no good reason has been suggested for distinguishing that from transmission by e-mail as in this case. 45 Given that this was the state of the general law immediately preceding the enactment of the 2000 Act, Parliament must be taken to have legislated against that background. Mr Kolinsky would need to point to some provision of that Act which expressly or impliedly restricts the previous law, or overall inconsistency sufficient to overcome the general presumption that Parliament does not intend to change the common law: see Bennion on Statutory Interpretation, 7th ed (2017), sections 25.6, 25.8. In my view he was unable to do so. Nor did he refer to any authority to support such a submission. It is not enough that the new law may overlap in certain respects with the general law. The purpose of the 2000 Act, as stated in its long title, was to make provision to facilitate the use of electronic communications. There is nothing to indicate an intention to cut down the existing law. 46 Against the background of the detailed scheme established by or under the 2000 Act, it may seem anomalous that the same result may be achieved in some cases by more informal means. However, the purpose of the Act and Orders made under it is to provide a clear and certain basis for the routine use of such methods by authorities. That purpose is not undermined by a conclusion that under general principles, and on the particular facts of this case, the notice was successfully served.”
“20 The issue which really divided the parties on this appeal was what amounts to the giving of notice. On the most generous approach (to the appellants) to this issue, the requirement for the giving of notice could mean that the person affected must become aware of the contents of the decision. On this approach the person affected must not only have the notice in his hands, but must also have opened the envelope or other medium by which it is delivered and read it. The difficulty with this approach is that those who do not trouble to open their mail, or collect recorded delivery items from the Post Office, or look at their emails, can effectively insulate themselves from being given notice... 21 Mr Biggs, who appeared for the appellants, supported this approach in his skeleton argument. In oral submissions, however, he did not support the good faith/bad faith distinction. In my judgment he was right not to do so, both because there is no basis in the language of the 2000 Order for such a distinction, and because the resultant approach is unworkable. Mr Biggs did recognise, however, that the court would be unlikely to accept that a person affected had not been given notice when he had had the envelope in his hand but declined to open it. 22 Mr Biggs also relied on statements in the authorities that in order for notice to be given it had to be “communicated” to the person affected. Thus, in R(Anufrijeva) v SSHD[2003] UKHL 36 ;[2004] 1 AC 604 , the appellant asylum seeker had been refused asylum, and consequently lost her entitlement to state benefits, without any communication notifying her of the refusal of her asylum application. The majority of the House of Lords held that the decision to refuse her asylum had not taken effect when it was “recorded” as having been determined, as the SSHD contended. As Lord Steyn explained at paragraphs [26]: “Notice of a decision is required before it can have the character of a determination with legal effect because the individual concerned must be in a position to challenge the decision in the courts if he or she wishes to do so. This is not a technical rule. It is simply an application of the right of access to justice.” 23 He went on to explain the importance of this principle for the rule of law at [28]: “This view is reinforced by the constitutional principle requiring the rule of law to be observed. That principle too requires that a constitutional state must accord to individuals the right to know of a decision before their rights can be adversely affected. The antithesis of such a state was described by Kafka: a state where the rights of individuals are overridden by hole in the corner decisions or knocks on doors in the early hours. That is not our system.” 24 Anufrijeva was, of course, not concerned with what amounts to the giving of effective notice, because there was no question of any attempt at all having been made to communicate the decision to the appellant. Lord Steyn did, however, at [29], go on to compare the European law approach which requires that the person affected must have the opportunity to make themselves acquainted with the decision: “In European law the approach is possibly a little more formalistic but the thrust is the same. It has been held to be a "fundamental principle in the Community legal order … that a measure adopted by the public authorities shall not be applicable to those concerned before they have the opportunity to make themselves acquainted with it": 25 It was in this context that Lord Steyn explained, at [30], that the underlying principle was one of fairness: “Until the decision in Salem [which was overruled by this decision] it had never been suggested that an uncommunicated administrative decision can bind an individual. It is an astonishingly unjust proposition. In our system of law surprise is regarded as the enemy of justice. Fairness is the guiding principle of our public law. In R v Commission for Racial Equality, Ex p Hillingdon London Borough Council[1982] AC 779 , 787, Lord Diplock explained the position: "Where an Act of Parliament confers upon an administrative body functions which involve its making decisions which affect to their detriment the rights of other persons or curtail their liberty to do as they please, there is a presumption that Parliament intended that the administrative body should act fairly towards those persons who will be affected by their decision." Where decisions are published or notified to those concerned accountability of public authorities is achieved. Elementary fairness therefore supports a principle that a decision takes effect only upon communication.” 26 These passages do not support the notion that a communication will only be effective if the decision has been read and understood by the person affected. The European law approach described by Lord Steyn speaks in terms of the party affected being given the opportunity to make themselves acquainted with the decision. If Lord Steyn had been contemplating a requirement for the decision to have been read and understood by the person affected before it was communicated to the person affected, he could hardly have considered the broad thrust of the European law as being the same, when that law merely requires that persons affected should “have the opportunity to make themselves acquainted with” the decision. 27 Lord Millett, at [43], thought that reasonable steps to communicate with the person affected could be enough: “I do not subscribe to the view that the failure to notify the appellant of the decision invalidated it, but I have come to the conclusion that it could not properly be recorded so as to deprive her of her right to income support until it was communicated to her; or at least until reasonable steps were taken to doso.”
“According to the ordinary and natural use of English words, giving a notice means causing a notice to be received. Therefore, any requirement in a statute or a contract for the giving of a notice can be complied with only by causing the notice to be actually received—unless the context or some statutory or contractual provision otherwise provides…” 29 In my judgment, the giving of notice for the purposes of section 4(1) of the 1971 Act and the 2000 Order does not require that the intended recipient should have read and absorbed the contents of the notice in writing, merely that it be received. If it were not so, a failure to open an envelope containing the notice, for whatever reason, would mean that notice was not given. Similarly, I do not consider that the recipient must be made aware of the notice. Again, a recipient who allows mail to accumulate in a mailbox or on a hall table will not be aware of the notice. Proof of such facts should not enable the person to whom the mail is addressed to establish that the notice was not given, by being received. 30 Receipt, and thus the giving of notice, can plainly be effected by placing the notice in the hands of the person affected. So much is recognised by Article 8ZA(2)(a). In my judgment, however, receipt in the case of an individual is not so limited. Receipt of an email, for example, will be effected by the arrival of the email in the Inbox of the person affected. Likewise, documents arriving by post will normally be received if they arrive, addressed to the person affected at the dwelling where he or she is living, at least in the absence of positive evidence that mail which so arrives is intercepted. A document received at an address provided to the SSHD for correspondence is received by the applicant, even if he does not bother to take steps to collect it.” “Notice of a decision is required before it can have the character of a determination with legal effect because the individual concerned must be in a position to challenge the decision in the courts if he or she wishes to do so. This is not a technical rule. It is simply an application of the right of access to justice.” “This view is reinforced by the constitutional principle requiring the rule of law to be observed. That principle too requires that a constitutional state must accord to individuals the right to know of a decision before their rights can be adversely affected. The antithesis of such a state was described by Kafka: a state where the rights of individuals are overridden by hole in the corner decisions or knocks on doors in the early hours. That is not our system.” “In European law the approach is possibly a little more formalistic but the thrust is the same. It has been held to be a "fundamental principle in the Community legal order … that a measure adopted by the public authorities shall not be applicable to those concerned before they have the opportunity to make themselves acquainted with it": "Where an Act of Parliament confers upon an administrative body functions which involve its making decisions which affect to their detriment the rights of other persons or curtail their liberty to do as they please, there is a presumption that Parliament intended that the administrative body should act fairly towards those persons who will be affected by their decision." Where decisions are published or notified to those concerned accountability of public authorities is achieved. Elementary fairness therefore supports a principle that a decision takes effect only upon communication.”
“47 For the purposes of this appeal, I confine myself to noting the following relevant points extracted from these sources. First, the natural meaning of the word notice is that it is received. But that is not an invariable rule. The meaning of notice varies from case to case, and there will be exceptions to the idea that notice equates with receipt (Goodyear; Sun Alliance). Secondly, receipt does not mean full knowledge. At most, receipt means that the person receiving the notice should have an opportunity to inform him or herself about the contents of the notice (Alam). So even if a notice is received, in a legal sense, there is no certainty that the recipient will in fact become aware of the contents of the notice. Thirdly, it is possible for a contract or provision of statute to deem notice to have been given. Once notice is deemed to have occurred, it is possible that notice has not actually been given or received at all (Sun Alliance; UKI). 48 Mr Squires submitted that notice necessarily involves receipt at common law. That submission is not supported by these authorities and must be rejected. I would accept that receipt is in general the intended outcome of any process which involves giving notice, and that the purpose of giving notice is to allow the person to have the opportunity to know of the decision. But there are exceptions to that general position and notice can in some circumstances have been validly given, even in the absence of deeming provisions, and even where there has been no receipt in fact.”
“It is provided, as what I may call at any rate the primary means of effecting service, that it is to be done either by personal service or by leaving the notice at the last-known place of abode, or by sending it through the post in a registered letter, or . . . in a recorded delivery letter. If any of those methods are adopted, they being the primary methods laid down, and, in the event of dispute, it is proved that one of those methods has been adopted, then sufficient service is proved. Thus, if it is proved, in the event of dispute, that a notice was sent by recorded delivery, it does not matter that that recorded delivery letter may not have been received by the intended recipient. It does not matter, even if it were to be clearly established that it had gone astray in the post.”
“the object of its inclusion in the 1927 Act . . . is not to protect the person upon whom the right to receive the notice is conferred by other statutory provisions. On the contrary, section 23(1) is intended to assist the person who is obliged to serve the notice, by offering him choices of mode of service which will be deemed to be valid service, even if in the event the intended recipient does not in fact receive it.” ... 41 In all the circumstances, I agree with Mr Manning that it is irrelevant when Mr Bravington became aware of the Notice. Like section 23 of the 1927 Act, section 233 of the 1972Act is, in my view, designed to allocate the risks of a failure of communication and to avoid disputes on issues of fact . . . where the true facts are likely to be unknown to the person giving the notice, and difficult for the court to ascertain . To adapt Slade LJs words, section 233 offers a local authority “choices of mode of service which will be deemed to be valid service, even if in the event the intended recipient does not in fact receive [the notice]”
“There can in principle be no reason why the telex should be in any different case, for all that the sender has done is to adopt a modern means of leaving the notice at the address. The telex must of course be received, that is to say, the machine must be left switched on, but so long as it is, when the office re-opens on Monday there will be waiting for attention four identical written notices, the letter, the cable, the notice dropped through the letter box and the telex”
“26 The e−mails sent to info@bernuth.com were received at that address and not rejected. Jackson Parton's fax of12th August 2005 indicated that they: " .. would have been ignored by the clerical staff in receipt of such messages" 27 In his first Witness Statement Mr Hughes of Jackson Parton said that the persons who received the e−mails did not know what to do with them and ignored them. In his third witness statement he says that the e−mails were ignored as "spam". He states that the address receives hundreds of spam and unsolicited e−mails every day and that "the Customer Service Representative took the view that no serious legal matter would be sent to the Applicant using that address " and "that the email was not serious and that serious legal correspondence would go through appropriate channels". He adds "One has in mind the frequency with which junk e−mail is received containing apparently legitimate legal email correspondence which is in fact spurious." It is apparent from that evidence that the representative in question saw the e−mail of 5th May and consciously decided to ignore it. Presumably something similar happened with the others. ... 29 That is not to say that clicking on the "send" icon automatically amounts to good service. The e−mail must, of course, be despatched to what is, in fact, the e−mail address of the intended recipient. It must not be rejected by the system. If the sender does not require confirmation of receipt he may not be able to show that receipt has occurred. There may be circumstances where, for instance, there are several e−mail addresses for a number of different divisions of the same company, possibly in different countries, where despatch to a particular e−mail address is not effective service. 30 But in the present case none of those difficulties arise. The e−mail of5th May 2005 and, so it would appear, all subsequent e−mails, were received at an e−mail address that was held out to the world as the, and so far as the evidence shows, the only e−mail address of Bernuth. Someone looked at the e−mails on receipt and, apparently, decided that they could be ignored, without making any contact with the sender. The position is, to my mind, no different to the receipt at a company's office of a letter or telex which, for whatever reason, someone at the company decides to discard. In both cases service has effectively been made, and the document received will, in the first instance, be dealt with by a clerical officer.” " .. would have been ignored by the clerical staff in receipt of such messages" The case for the appellant 33 The appellant no longer seeks to rely upon Question 1 of the questions posed by the Magistrates’ Court at the appellant’s request. Before that Court, the appellant argued that the respondent’s email of2 September 2024 was not good service because the respondent had failed formally to confirm to the appellant that he was willing to accept service of the notice of reasons etc by email. The appellant’s case then was that this requirement exists in the case of the Civil Procedure Rules and ought to be implied in the statutory provisions concerning the licensing of private hire and hackney carriage drivers. Further or in the alternative, the appellant contended that it would be procedurally unfair to do otherwise. 34 The appellant submits that the reliance placed by the Magistrates’ Court on the findings of the Supreme Court in UKI, as to the causal connection between the handing of the notice to the building receptionist and the receipt of the notice in electronic form by the company, was in effect beside the point. What matters in the present case, the appellant says, is the issue of receipt. That was not a contentious matter in UKI, since it was accepted the company had received the notice, via the receptionist. 35 In the present case, the appellant says that he has never accepted that he “received” the notice on 2 September. Instead his position is that the notice was received on or around21 October 2024 . In this regard, the appellant points to the evidence he gave to the Magistrates’ Court, as set out at paragraphs 52 to 57 of the Case document produced by that Court for the purpose of these proceedings. There, the appellant was recorded as saying he was informed at the hearing that his licence was revoked; it was not explained at the meeting how the respondent’s notice would be sent to him and he believed the decision and reasons would be sent to him by letter. The appellant’s evidence was that the email of 2 September “went to his spam email folder. The Appellant stated he did not see this email until 19th, 20th or21st October 2024 and upon seeing the email he acted immediately, contacted a solicitor and issued an appeal.” 36 The appellant says it was for the respondent to show that the appellant was aware of the notice emailed to him on 2 September or, in the light of the judgment of Whipple LJ in D4, that the appellant had the opportunity to be aware of the decision. Addressing the Magistrates’ Court’s reasons (paragraph 1 above), the appellant submits that the Court’s reference to the 2000 Act does not assist the respondent. If the power in section 8 to modify the relevant legislation had been exercised, the modifications would have included a requirement for the respondent to notify and seek assent from the receiving party. 37 The respondent had to demonstrate to the Magistrates’ Court that the notice came to the attention of the appellant. The Court’s decision, however, contains no such finding. Even if there was no requirement to show “actual receipt”, applying paragraph 47 of D4, the entering of the email into the appellant’s spam folder gave the appellant no opportunity to inform himself about the contents of the notice. Accordingly, what happened cannot be categorised as “notice”
“Had the Council taken reasonable steps to inform him that this would be the method of giving notice, then perhaps he would have taken measures to check that folder.”