Edith Louis v Topaz Finance Ltd & Ors [2026] EWHC 1437 (Ch)

[2026] EWHC 1437 (Ch)Case No CH-2025-000005
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
BUSINESS AND PROPERTY COURTS OF ENGLAND AND WALES
CHANCERY APPEALS (ChD)
ON APPEAL FROM THE ORDER OF HHJ RAESIDE KC DATED 19 DECEMBER 2024 SITTING IN THE COUNTY COURT AT CENTRAL LONDON (K10CL106)
Venue 7 Rolls Buildings,, Fetter Lane, London,Date 19 June 2026
EC4A 1NL
Before
THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE THOMPSELL
Between
EDITH LOUISAppellantTOPAZ FINANCE LTDRespondentJAMES PERRETTRespondentNICOLE PEDROSARespondentMr Alexander Bradford instructed by Pennington Manches Cooper LLP for AppellantMr Thomas Rothwell instructed by TLT Solicitors for RespondentsHearing Hearing date: 12 May 2026
JUDGMENT
[1]INTRODUCTION This judgment follows my hearing of the substantive appeal made by the Appellant, Ms Louis, against the decision of HHJ Mark Raeside KC (“Judge Raeside”), handed down on 12 December 2024 (the “Judgment”). The Judgment was delivered ex tempore, after taking a morning for consideration.[2]In the hearing before Judge Raeside, the Appellant had sought the discharge of the Second and Third Respondents as fixed charge receivers appointed by the First Respondent under the Law of Property Act 1925 in respect of the Appellant’s property at 36 Hereford Road London.[3]The Appellant had been relying principally on two arguments: i) first, that there had been an agreement that she could pay reduced amounts in respect of her mortgage for a period of three months while she overcame difficulties in letting the property and that the First Respondent would not appoint receivers if she paid these reduced amounts; and ii) secondly, that there had been an agreement to terminate the appointment of the receivers in certain circumstances.[4]Judge Raeside dismissed in full the Appellant’s claim. In brief, his reasoning was that there was no evidence for these two agreements other than the witness evidence of the Appellant, despite the copious contemporary record that was available, which included transcripts of recordings of the telephone calls between the Appellant and the First Respondent. He referred to the oft-quoted passages in Gestmin SGPS S.A. v Credit Suisse (UK) Limited, Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Limited [2013] EWHC 3560 (Comm), 2013 WL 6047393 (“Guestmin”) where Leggatt J, as he then was, referred to the fallibility of memory and the lack of correlation between the strength with which a belief is held and the likelihood of that belief being true. He considered that the Appellant had not done enough to prove her claim, and dismissed it on that basis.[5]The Appellant invites the court to allow the appeal and order a full retrial on the basis that Judge Raeside’s decision was unjust because of serious procedural or other irregularities.[6]Before hearing the substantive appeal, I was obliged to consider a preliminary question raised by the Respondents as to whether there was permission for the Appellant to advance one of her proposed grounds of appeal. This was the numbered Ground 3 in the document titled “Amended Grounds of Appeal” that had been produced on behalf of the Appellant. In summary, this ground was that the Judge had failed to treat the Appellant fairly or adopted an approach and temperament towards her that was inappropriate for a litigant in person.[7]I provided an ex tempore judgment during the hearing where I gave my reasons for not allowing consideration of this ground of appeal. In summary, I considered that I could not deal with this ground of appeal because this was not one of the grounds for which there had been permission to appeal within the order of Fancourt J made on 26 February 2026.[8]Fancourt J had given permission by reference to the original grounds of appeal. These had been drafted by the Appellant as a litigant in person (although I understand that she had some help from direct access counsel). They were included in a document that combined her grounds of appeal and her skeleton argument supporting those grounds of appeal. Fancourt J gave permission to appeal on these grounds (excluding one element) and also permission to amend her original grounds of appeal to add a new ground of appeal, which now appears as Ground 1 in the Amended Grounds of Appeal. Fancourt J ordered the filing of amended grounds of appeal reflecting his order and ordered that this should set out only the existing grounds properly so called, and not the argument in support of each ground.[9]On examination, it was clear to me that the new Ground 3 in the Amended Grounds of Appeal was not included in the original Grounds of Appeal as a self-standing ground. At best, it might be considered to represent a development of arguments that were cited in support of one of the original Grounds of Appeal, being a ground of appeal not now pursued. In summary, this was that Judge Raeside was wrong not to take notice of the Appellant’s protestations that her court documents had not been included in the trial bundles prepared by the Respondent.[10]This being the case, it was correct that there was no permission to appeal in relation to this ground, and indeed no permission to amend the Grounds of Appeal to include this ground.[11]For the reasons I have given in my ex tempore judgment, I refused an informal (and very late) application made by Mr Bradford on behalf of the Appellant for the court now to provide permission for this new ground to be added and for permission to appeal to be granted in relation to this new ground.[12]The matters to be considered in the appeal, therefore, are limited to the remaining three grounds, which I will consider in detail below.[13]None of these grounds include any suggestion that Judge Raeside was wrong in his assessment of the evidence, or made any mistake in law in reaching his decision. These grounds are advanced individually and cumulatively with a view to establishing a proposition that the trial was the subject of serious procedural or other irregularities such that an appeal should be allowed under CPR 52.21(3)(b).[2]APPEALS BASED ON IRREGULARITY[14]CPR 52.21(3)(b) provides that that an appellate court will allow an appeal where the lower court’s decision was: “unjust because of a serious procedural or other irregularity in the proceedings in the lower court”.[15]Before considering the individual grounds of appeal it is useful to consider how the courts have approached this rule.[16]Both sides agreed that the test under CPR 52.21(3)(b) may be considered to involve a three-stage test: i) was there a procedural or other irregularity? ii) was that irregularity serious? iii) did that irregularity render the decision unjust?[17]This approach is clearly correct. It is reflected in the Court of Appeal’s explanation in Keith Davy (Contractors) Ltd v Ibatex Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 740 (“Ibatex)” at [20], reproduced in judgment of Trower J in Popely v Poplar Estates Limited [2022] EWHC 2758 (Ch) (“Popely”).

(b) ground:

“...is onerous because it is not enough to show that there has been irregularity; it must be serious and have caused injustice to the affected party.”
[18]In his Skeleton Argument on behalf of the Appellant, Mr Bradford makes the point that if the court finds that there is a serious procedural irregularity, the question of whether there is injustice is not necessarily determined by the question whether the judge was right in the conclusion reached.[19]In support of this point, he quotes Trower J in Popely. After considering the decisions in Dunbar Assets PLC v Dorcas Holdings Ltd & Ors [2013] EWCA Civ 864 (“Dunbar”) (which itself considered the decision in Frey v Labrouche [2012] 1 W.L.R. 3160 (“Labrouche”)), Trower J found (at [10]) that: “if there were to have been a serious procedural irregularity in the proceedings, the court must still go on and consider the question of injustice to the appellant having regard to the question of whether or not the Judge was right in the conclusion he reached but without allowing that to be a determinant as to the final outcome”.[20]It is clear then that the question whether there is injustice is not solely determined by the question as to whether the original judge was right or not, although this will be an important part of the analysis. However, it appears that, in circumstances where the court considers that the original judge was right in his conclusion, the courts have only very rarely found for an appellant on the basis of a serious procedural or other irregularity.[21]The court did not do so in Popely. In Popely, the chief serious procedural irregularity that formed the basis of the appeal was the fact that the order that had been made against the appellant had been made in the appellant’s absence, and after the appellant having made an informal request to adjourn the hearing, citing medical reasons and difficulties with his representation. Trower J noted that the trial judge in that case had not had this informal request drawn to his attention. Neither had it been served on the respondent. In view of the inadequacy of the medical evidence provided, and the failure of the appellant to serve his application on the respondent, Trower J was not satisfied that there was in fact a serious procedural or other irregularity rendering the decision appealed unjust. He also found no substance in a second procedural failing, being a failure to provide a hearing bundle where the appellant had failed to provide an email address when he gave notice of change to litigate as a litigant in person.[22]Neither was a serious procedural or other irregularity found in the case in Ibatex, the case quoted byTrower J that I refer to at [‎17] above. In that case the procedural or other irregularities under consideration were not considered to be serious on the facts.[23]If we consider the cases where a serious procedural or other irregularity has in fact led to an appeal being allowed, it may be seen that the court has considered that this has led to injustice only where the procedural irregularities have either raised a real question over whether the decision being appealed was correctly reached or in particular circumstances where there has been an unjust denial of the ability of the appellant to make his or her case in the lower court.[24]The cases cited to me where injustice was found included the following.[25]First, Labrouche. In this case the judge whose decision was the subject of the appeal was dealing with an application to strike out a claim. Having read the papers, the judge began the proceedings by determining that the argument he was considering, that the proceedings should be struck out as being an abuse of process, was “beyond the reach of sustained argument” and that the parties should have instead proceeded straight to a merits-based trial. The appellants complained that the judge’s effective refusal to hear that strike-out application had breached a fundamental common law right to present their case.[26]The Court of Appeal agreed with this contention. Lord Neuberger (with whom the other members of the Court of Appeal agreed) considered (at [38]) that:
“in the light of the importance of the principle that a party has a right to have his case heard, it would, in my opinion, require an overwhelming case before a refusal by a judge to strike out a claim without hearing any argument could be upheld by an appellate court without even that court hearing any argument on the substantive merits, and this is not an overwhelming case.”
[27]He therefore considered that the strike-out applications must be remitted, despite his reservations whether they would be held to be well-founded.[28]Secondly, there is Dunbar. In this case, the serious procedural irregularity under consideration was that the judge (who was hard pressed on other matters) had moved straight to judgment for possession after dealing with various of the defendants’ applications but had failed entirely to conduct a trial of the claim. The court found (at [17]) that:
“Although there is no automatic right to a full trial of a case where it is alleged that the pleadings fail to disclose a triable issue, it is fundamentally unjust for a judge to conclude that a defence is defective in that sense without first inviting, hearing and considering argument from the defendants on that question.”
[29]Briggs LJ (with whom the other members of the Court of Appeal agreed) summed up at [28]:
“… it is not every case in which a conclusion that a judge’s decision was right prevents a serious procedural irregularity from amounting to an injustice. As the Labrouche case makes clear, the denial to a party of any opportunity to make submissions in support (or defence) of its case is a fundamental denial of procedural justice in its own right, regardless of the consequences. While there will be many cases in which, (as noted in the 2013 White Book Vol. 1 at page 1754), the absence of any adverse consequences flowing from a serious procedural irregularity will mean that an appeal based upon on it will fail, there is a residue of cases of grave procedural irregularity, and the present case is one of them, where the absence of consequences does not displace the injustice constituted by the inappropriate treatment of the complaining party.”
[30]The question that I need to consider is whether the case before me is within this “residue of cases of grave procedural irregularity … where the absence of consequences does not displace the injustice constituted by the inappropriate treatment of the complaining party”.[31]The final case cited on this point by the Appellant is Serafin v Malkiewicz [2020] 1 W.L.R. 2455; [2020] UKSC 23 (“Serafin”). This was a case before the Supreme Court and related to libel and a public interest defence.[32]At trial, the judge dismissed the action on the grounds that, in relation to each of the 13 defamatory meanings borne by the article, the defendants had shown either that the statement complained of was substantially true, or that the statement was not likely to cause harm to the claimant’s reputation, or that a public interest defence was made out.[33]This decision was reversed in the Court of Appeal on various grounds including that the judge’s conduct of the hearing, in particular his interventions during oral evidence, had rendered the trial unfair.[34]The Court of Appeal’s decision was further appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. The decision is summarised in the headnote in the report of the judgment in the Weekly Law Reports as follows:
“Held, dismissing the appeal, that a judge’s interventions during oral evidence (as opposed to during final submissions) generated a risk of the judge’s descent into the arena, which should be assessed not by whether it gave rise to an appearance of bias in the eyes of the fair-minded observer but by whether it rendered the trial unfair; that, further, a judge should not forget that a litigant in person was not equipped, as a professional advocate was, to withstand judicial pressure and, undaunted, continue within reason to put his case; that, in the present case, the transcript of the oral evidence at the trial showed that during the giving of oral evidence the judge had intervened in a way that had been hostile towards the claimant and his case, using immoderate, ill-tempered and sometimes offensive language; that the ostensible quality of the judge’s judgment, in which the judge had in no way accepted all the defendants’ arguments, could not redeem a hearing which had been unfair; that, therefore, the Court of Appeal had been correct in its conclusion that the trial had been unfair because the judge had not allowed the claimant to present his case properly and so could not have fully appraised it; that, in logic …”
[35]It should be noted that in this case the Supreme Court did not reach the view that this was one of the cases where the appellate court considered that an appeal should be allowed even though the trial judge’s decision was clearly correct. The Supreme Court considered that the matter should be remitted for a re-hearing and in this case did not express any suggestion (as was the case in Labrouche and in Dunbar) that this may have been a case where the trial judge was correct in his decision, notwithstanding the procedural irregularity.[36]I conclude from my review of the above cases that: i) succeeding on a case based on CPR 52.21(3)(b) is an onerous task and requires the appellant to demonstrate irregularity that is serious and leads to injustice; ii) the Supreme Court has noted that the question is not whether the judge’s conduct gives rise to an appearance of bias, but rather it is whether the judge’s conduct rendered the trial unfair; iii) the categories of what constitutes serious irregularity of what constitutes injustice are not closed, but to date the matters accepted as grounds for granting an appeal have either involved a complete and unjustified denial of the ability of a litigant to make his or her case or have caused the judge’s decision to be unsafe.[37]With these points in mind I turn to the individual grounds raised.[3]GROUND 1[38]Ground 1 is, in summary, that Judge Raeside wrongly shut his mind at an early stage to the possibility that the Appellant’s oral evidence could have any real weight on the factual issues for decision.[39]The Ground goes on to particularise various statements made by the Judge Raeside said to be examples that substantiate this point. These are said to include: i) a comment at the outset of the trial, that:
“Courts of this sort follow documents; we know from years of experience that if it is not in the documents, people misremember what took place.” ii) a later comment, still in his opening remarks, that: “And the second thing that you need to understand clearly is that Courts of this sort decide cases on the documents. We have found that witnesses very often misremember or muddle what took place, and the most certain, assured approach to take is to follow the documents. That is what I will be doing in this trial.” and and iii) a comment during the Claimant’s closing submissions that: “You need to listen to what I am saying. Otherwise we will get nowhere. I have told you at the outset of this trial, we decide things on documents. I am a commercial court. We look at documents. Just listen, do not try to interrupt me again.”

and

[40]Ground 1 goes on to say that:
“These comments were effectively an advance notice from the Judge that unless the Appellant’s evidence was supported by documents, her evidence would be rejected. That was a serious procedural irregularity that caused the decision to be unjust, particularly because the Appellant was the only witness of fact to the relevant phone calls and oral agreements she claims she reached with the First Respondent in 2019 and 2021.”
[41]In support of this Ground, the Appellant provides other examples where Judge Raeside was cutting short answers where the Appellant was not, in the Judge’s view, answering the questions put to her, but rather was seeking to explain other matters relevant to her case, stating at one point:
“… It is better you try and answer his questions, as I keep telling you, rather than offering new evidence of matters that are not recorded here at all.”
[42]Another example is provided of what

Judge Raeside said during the Appellant’s closing submissions:

“And, this is very important, you have not shown me a single piece of paper, not a single piece of paper or any record of any meeting which you had an agreement for concession [inaudible], it does not exist …. In your mind, it does because you remember these matters. But there is not a single piece of paper before my court to show you, in fact, had an agreement with someone that is binding in law that you did not have pay this money. You did not have the agreement, it does not exist.”
[43]Mr Bradford draws my attention to paragraph 95, Chapter 1 of the Equal Treatment Bench Book (July 2024, May 2025 update) (the “ETBB”) which provides that judges may need to assist a litigant in person by, amongst other things: “Making clear the concept of a just trial on the evidence, i.e. that the case will be decided on the basis of the factual evidence presented and the truthfulness and accuracy of the witnesses called”.[44]Mr Bradford suggests that Judge Raeside failed to do this, and instead adopted a binary approach whereby he suggested that he would not consider the truthfulness or accuracy of the witnesses other than if their evidence was supported by documents.[45]Mr Bradford also draws a comparison between these statements and statements made by the trial judge in Serafin (recorded at page 2479 at letter C in the WLR version of the Supreme Court Judgment) that were there criticised by the Supreme Court as providing:
“Advance notice that, unless supported by documents, C’s evidence will be rejected.”
[46]In my view there is much to be regretted in the way that Judge Raeside dealt with the Appellant, and I will say more about this later. However the question in relation to Ground 1 is not whether Judge Raeside was complying with the ETBB. It is whether he wrongly shut his mind at an early stage to the possibility that the Appellant’s oral evidence could have any real weight on the factual issues for decision. This is different to the question that the Supreme Court was considering in Serafin, which is whether the conduct of the trial judge in that case rendered the decision unjust.[47]Mr Rothwell, for the Respondents, has made a number of arguments against this proposition.[48]He notes that Judge Raeside was following the guidance in Gestmin and the many cases that have followed that decision in distrusting unsupported oral evidence and placing greater reliance on contemporary documents.[49]He notes further that a striking feature of this case was that there was a huge amount of contemporaneous documentary evidence available to the trial judge, including recordings and transcripts of relevant telephone calls between the First Respondent and the Appellant. There was also witness evidence in the form of a witness statement, accepted as hearsay evidence, to the effect that it was the practice of the First Respondent to record all calls. In such circumstances, the judge was in a particularly good position to test the Appellant’s pleaded case against the contemporaneous documentary record.[50]A further argument advanced by Mr Rothwell is that Judge Raeside had refused to allow cross-examination of other witness evidence where he had considered that this could not have been material to the trial but accepted the importance of the Appellant’s witness evidence and allowed cross-examination of this evidence for most of a day. This demonstrated that Judge Raeside had concluded that the Appellant’s evidence was relevant to the issues and that he had to hear from her.[51]Mr Rothwell argues further that, whilst it is true that Judge Raeside made the comments complained of by Mr Bradford, these are balanced by other comments that show that Judge Raeside was indeed taking the conventional approach of considering the oral evidence alongside the documentary evidence and he draws my attention to three statements where this was made clear. Mr Rothwell drew my attention to the following statements:
“I will look at the pleadings and I will look at the documents and then I will test the witness evidence and come to a conclusion”
(emphasis added); “It all turns on your evidence, whether I believe you or not”; and “Whatever you do in the witness box I am watching. I have got to write it in my judgment. And I have got to measure you, you see ….”[52]In considering Ground 1 it is important to look at what Judge Raeside says was his approach within his judgment. I agree with the Respondents that it is clear from the terms of his judgment that Judge Raeside did not disregard the Appellant’s witness evidence and decide the case on the basis of the documents alone. He expressly noted (at [72]) that there was no presumption that the documents would take precedence when there was a conflict with the witness statements. He did consider Ms Louis’ witness evidence but ultimately formed the view that Ms Louis had fallen into the well-known trap, described in Gestmin, of thinking that: “(1) the stronger, more vivid is our feeling or experience of recollection, the more likely the recollection is to be accurate, and (2) that the more confident another person is of their recollection, the more likely their recollection is to be accurate” and accordingly he found that Ms Louis’ recollections, contradicted by a documentary record that was substantially complete, were inaccurate.[53]Whilst I can see that some of Judge Raeside’s comments may have suggested that he would pay no regard to oral evidence, I accept that others made it clear that he would consider Ms Louis’ witness evidence, and indeed this is in part demonstrated from the fact that he heard such evidence over much of a day. Furthermore, there is nothing to criticise in the way that he dealt with Ms Louis’ witness evidence within the Judgment. Taking all of these points together, it is clear to me that the appeal on the basis of Ground 1 must fail.[3]GROUND 2[54]Ground 2 is framed as follows:
“The Judge did not allow the Appellant to make opening submissions, or adequately or appropriately explain matters at the start of trial. Although the Judge was not obliged to allow the Appellant to make opening submissions, the Judge effectively afforded Counsel for the Respondents to make opening submissions in all but name, whilst denying the Appellant that opportunity. This was another serious procedural irregularity that caused the decision to be unjust. The Judge engaged in a lengthy, legalistic discussion with Counsel at the outset which excluded the Appellant. The Judge discussed with Counsel the issues to be determined, the Appellant’s case on the issues and the remedies she sought, and what the relevant documents were (see pages 5-16 of the transcript). By contrast, the Judge merely dictated to the Appellant what the timetable of the trial was going to be (see pages 1-5). At the end of his exchange with Counsel, the Judge commented: “So, I have now just, you have heard a conversation with counsel, I am trying to understand how they put their case because counsel knows how the trials work, whereas I am explaining to you how this trial will work.” (page 16, lines 30-32).”
[55]Mr Bradford accepts that it is not procedurally irregular for a judge to dispense with opening speeches and proceed straight to evidence. However, he draws my attention to comments made by Fancourt J in giving his reasons when he originally refused permission to appeal in his order of 5 December 2025. He notes that matters were:
“not adequately and appropriately explained to the Appellant by the Judge at the start of the trial”, and that the start of the trial took an “unusual course” with the Trial Judge having a “lengthy exchange with counsel” but not allowing the parties to formally open their cases.”
[56]Fancourt J went on to say that:
“but for the course taken in closing submissions, I would have been concerned about the fairness of the trial generally. Matters were not adequately and appropriately explained to the Appellant by the Judge at the start of the trial. However, eventually in closing submissions, the Appellant was given the chance to explain her case as to why the receivers could not properly have been appointed, and to rely on additional documents that had not made their way into the trial bundles, as she had asserted.”
[57]In other words, at that point, Fancourt J considered that any unfairness in the way that the trial was dealt with in opening, was remedied by the opportunity given to the Appellant to make her case in closing. Following a rehearing of his decision in this order he subsequently allowed permission to appeal, but his reasons for doing so are not available.[58]In essence, Mr Bradford’s argument is that Judge Raeside got off on the wrong foot by not allowing the Appellant to outline her case at the beginning the trial and this was not remedied by the opportunity that the Appellant was given to explain her case after the evidence had been collected because, by that time, the Appellant was so demoralised by the content and tone of her exchanges with Judge Raeside.[59]A problem with this argument is that it is not expressly made within Ground 2. Ground 2 in effect acknowledges that it was open to the judge not to allow arguments to be made in opening, but complains that Judge Raeside treated the litigants unequally in having a lengthy discussion with the Respondents’ counsel about process and the issues to be determined but not giving a similar opportunity to the Appellant.[60]Neither is this argument clearly advanced within Ms Louis’ witness statement made in support of the appeal on 11 December 2025. She mentions, under a section of her witness statement headed “Missing documentation in the trial bundle”, which I take to be supporting the ground of appeal that she was previously advancing, but is no longer advancing, relating to missing documentation that:
“At the outset I consider I was at a disadvantage. As this was the first time I was involved in the trial and as a litigant in person I had difficulties from the start. I found the Trial Judge intimidating on he [sic] limited my ability to speak in order that I could raise issues like the failure by the Respondents’ solicitors to include documentation in support of my claim. That was further compounded by me not being able to ask questions to the First Respondents’ witness who was not present at any of the conversations that go to the main issues in the claim. In contrast to the Respondents, they were able to spend much of the first day asking me questions and drawing the Trial Judge’s attention solely to those documents that supported their case. By reference to the transcript, when I attempted to draw that documentation to the Trial Judge’s attention I was interrupted and to answer the questions put to me preventing me from fairly presenting my case.”
[61]This is not a clear statement that the Appellant was prevented from fully explaining her case in closing argument. The main complaints appear to be that: i) Documentation she wanted to be included in the bundle was not there. This was supporting a ground of appeal that she was not advancing in the hearing before me, and does not provide any evidence of the point now being advanced. ii) She was not allowed to cross-examine a witness who was not a witness to any of the conversations that she claimed go to the main issues in the claim. This amounts to challenge to Judge Raeside’s conduct of the trial in excluding cross examination of a witness on the grounds that that witness had no direct knowledge of the main points in issue. This point is not advanced as a ground of appeal, and I think would fail if it was so advanced. iii) She was cut off by Judge Raeside who intervened on those occasions when she tried to give answers to questions posed to her during her cross examination where she was seeking to make a point that was not directly relevant to the question that was put to her. In my view, based on the transcript, and of course it is difficult to read tone from a transcript, Judge Raeside was unduly abrupt in the way that he intervened on these occasions. He could have and, having regard to the ETBB, should have, been much gentler in explaining how the cross-examination was to work and that the Appellant would have an opportunity to argue her case.[62]However, whatever criticisms can be made of Judge Raeside for failing to deal with Ms Louis in the manner advocated in the ETBB, nowhere does Ms Louis in her witness statement make the point, now relied upon, that Judge Raeside’s earlier interventions prevented her from fully making her case in her closing arguments as a result of any feelings of intimidation that she may have experienced earlier in the proceedings.[63]Mr Bradford makes the point that the Judge Raeside had a lengthy exchange with Mr Rothwell (for the Respondents) discussing the issues to be dealt with and the trial timetable but did not consult the Appellant on either of these points, but rather told her that the timetable was not negotiable.[64]As regards the exchange with Mr Rothwell, I would characterise this as the Judge telling Mr Rothwell what Judge Raeside understood about the case and the decisions that he proposed making concerning case management. Mr Rothwell was given limited opportunities to disagree and comment, but generally Judge Raeside had determined how he thought the trial should proceed and was confirming these arrangements with Mr Rothwell.[65]It is not quite correct that Judge Raeside did not consult Ms Louis at all. He said to her:
“So, I have now just, you have heard a conversation with counsel, I am trying to understand how they put their case because counsel knows how the trials work, whereas I am explaining to you how this trial will work. Is there anything I have said which you would like to comment on that you may have listened to or you are concerned about, about our conversation now?”
[66]Ms Louis replied “No” to this question.[67]No doubt Ms Louis was at a disadvantage in that she did not have the experience of how trials work to know whether there was anything that Judge Raeside was proposing to do in relation to the trial that might work to her disadvantage, but that was inherent in the inequality of arms involved where there is a litigant in person on one side and an experienced barrister on the other. It is natural that the trial judge would want to check in detail his understanding of what the issues were and what the procedure should be with a barrister who could be presumed to have been on top of all of the papers, and would have thought that he could get less assistance from the litigant in person on the other side. However, I cannot see how the fact that Judge Raeside did not spend just as long consulting Ms Louis as he spent consulting Mr Rothwell on these matters created any procedural unfairness, even if it may have felt that way to Ms Louis.[68]There is no allegation that the directions for how the trial would proceed that Judge Raeside gave were of themselves unfair. The Appellant accepts that it was not of itself unfair to proceed without opening statements. Ground 2, then, can only stand if I accept the argument that the decision to dispense with opening statements was rendered unfair by an effective inability for the Appellant to make her arguments in closing, caused by her being intimidated by Judge Raeside. There is no evidence for this.[69]It is true that in many of the exchanges during the trial between Judge Raeside and Ms Louis, the Judge was abrupt in cutting her off. Overall I do not think that she had the treatment that she was entitled to expect in accordance with the ETBB. Of course a trial judge has a particular difficulty in dealing with litigants in person. It is the judge’s job to keep the proceedings to time, and he or she must consider the overriding objective, which includes keeping trials proportionate. It does become necessary at times to cut short a digression made by a litigant in person where it is clear to the court that this is necessary. Nevertheless, this should be done in a kindly manner and with a great degree more explanation than was often the case in the interventions by Judge Raeside. The transcript shows many interventions that come over as being abrupt and as providing assertions of authority, rather than a kindly explanation of the rules. I am sure that this would have been discouraging for Ms Louis, but I do not consider that there is any evidence that this prevented her from making her best case in closing.[70]In fact, in closing, Judge Raeside went out of his way to give the Appellant a full opportunity to state her case. He allowed her three times the amount originally allowed for her closing statement and to introduce new written evidence during her closing, which the Appellant thought supported her contention that she had been allowed three months’ grace to make a reduced payment. The Judge read this carefully and determined that this was not what that document said.[71]In my view, the Judge cannot be criticised for warning the Appellant during closing arguments, after he had seen and heard all the evidence, that he was minded to trust the documentary record over the Appellant’s recollection of matters. It is helpful to a litigant to know what part of their case a judge is having difficulty in accepting so that they can concentrate their arguments on that point.[72]In the absence of any real evidence that Ms Louis was prevented from fully laying out her arguments in closing, the case for Ground 2 must fail. There is no evidence that the Judge’s failure to allow the Appellant to make opening submissions, or any failure adequately or appropriately to explain matters at the start of trial, prevented the Appellant from making her best case, given the opportunity that she was afforded to explain her case fully in closing. The Judge’s often abrupt treatment of her is greatly to be lamented, and may amount to a procedural irregularity, but the case has not been made out that this caused her not to obtain a fair trial.[73]As the Respondents point out, this is very far removed from cases – such as Dunbar and Labrouche – where the Court refused to hear any argument and proceeded to decide the case. On the contrary, in this case, the Court was at pains to ensure that the Claimant was able to explain her case as fully as she was able. The fact that the judge rejected that case, preferring the clear and consistent thrust of the documentary record to the Claimant’s own unsupported recollections, does not mean that the trial process itself was unfair.[4]GROUND 4[74]Ground 4 is framed as follows:
“The Judge did not give due weight to the Appellant’s Reply to Defence. At paragraphs 15 to 61 of his judgment, the Judge meticulously went through the pleaded cases set out in the Amended Particulars of Claim and the Amended Defence, but failed to make any comment on the Appellant’s Reply, save that at paragraph 61 he noted that: “Despite an order, there is no Amended Reply from Edith”
. The Appellant concedes she did not file any Amended Reply, but her Reply to Defence was contained in Bundle B of the trial bundle rather than Core Bundle A, which perhaps explains the Judge’s omission to go through the Reply in his judgment. The Reply to Defence still responded to many of the allegations in the original Defence that were retained in the Amended Defence, and should have therefore still been given due consideration by the Judge. The Judge’s failure to give due weight to the Reply to Defence was another serious procedural irregularity that rendered the decision unjust.”[75]The background to this point is that the pleadings originally comprised the Appellant’s Particulars of Claim; a Defence and a Reply. After the Reply had been served, the Appellant (having obtained permission to do so) served an Amended Particulars of Claim. The Respondents served an Amended Defence. The Appellant did not serve an Amended Reply.[76]Presumably taking the view that the original pleadings had been supplanted by the revised pleadings, the solicitors for the Respondents when they prepared the trial bundle included the amended pleadings in the first volume of the bundle and left the original pleadings (including the Reply) in the second bundle.[77]It is true that at no point did Judge Raeside refer to the Reply, even when meticulously considering the pleaded cases set out in the Amended Particulars of Claim and the Amended Defence, except to comment that the Appellant had failed to produce any Amended Reply despite an order providing for this.[78]The Appellant accepts that she did not file any Amended Reply; that her Reply was in the trial bundle; and that the Reply does not raise any fundamentally new allegations of fact. However, it is argued on her behalf that her Reply reinforced key aspects of her case and Judge Raeside should have gone through it in the same meticulous manner as he did the other pleadings.[79]The Respondents argue that as the Reply was contained within the trial bundle, and the Judge had had a full day to read in and said that he had read the parties’ pleadings, the court cannot assume that he had not read the Reply. They cite the Supreme Court case of Henderson v Foxworth Investments Ltd [2014] UKSC 41 at [48] as determining the stance that the court should take when it is alleged that a judge has failed referred to a particular document. There, Lord Reed stated (citing earlier authority): “An appellate court is bound, unless there is compelling reason to the contrary, to assume that the trial judge has taken the whole of the evidence into his consideration”.[80]The Respondents point out also that the Appellant made no reference to the Reply in argument.[81]They point out further that the Reply merely took the opportunity to reiterate the Claimant’s factual assertion that the parties had reached an oral agreement that the Second and Third Respondents would be stood down as receivers, and so added nothing to her argument or evidence. They argue further that if there is any implication that the Reply changed or widened the ambit of her pleaded claim this would not have been permissible in any event. As authority for this point they cite Martlett Homes Ltd v Mulalley & Co Ltd [2021] EWHC 296 (TCC) where Peperall J said, at [20]:
“In my judgment, the terms of r 16.4(1)(a), the optional nature of the Reply, the rule restricting subsequent statements of case and the terms of the Practice Direction all point to the clear conclusion that any ground of claim must be pleaded in the Particulars of Claim. New claims must be added by amending the Particulars of Claim and cannot simply be pleaded by way of Reply.”
[82]The Respondents’ arguments seem to me to be correct. If Judge Raeside’s failure to refer to the Reply was an irregularity at all, it was not a serious one and certainly not one that affects the justice of the trial or of his decision. It is clear that the Judge considered the central issues of the case, which were based on the Appellant’s assertion (which the Judge found to be evidenced by nothing more than her own recollection) that there had been two agreements. There can be no presumption that the Judge did not consider the contents of the Reply, and even if he did not, this would not have changed his decision. The mere fact that the Appellant may have made the same assertion in more than one place does not make it any more true.[83]Therefore I must find against any appeal on Ground 4.

CONCLUSION

[84]Mr Bradford argues in his skeleton argument that, even if the court does not agree that any of the individual procedural irregularities alleged were serious or rendered the decision unjust, taken together, those procedural irregularities were serious and rendered the decision unjust.[85]This point might possibly (and I say “might possibly” advisedly, given my observations at [‎36] above) have had more traction if the court was considering the proposed Ground 3, but given that there is no permission to consider this ground, that is not something that I can take into account. Looking at my findings on the three grounds of appeal that I have considered: i) any evidence in the transcript that Judge Raeside shut his mind at an early stage to the possibility that the Appellant’s oral evidence could have any real weight on the factual issues for decision is contradicted by other statements by the Judge and the fact that he heard this evidence at length; ii) that it was not a serious procedural irregularity for the Judge not to allow the Appellant to make opening submissions, or in failing to adequately or appropriately explain matters at the start of trial; and iii) that Judge Raeside’s failure to reference the Reply did not amount to a serious procedural irregularity, I cannot see that the totality of these appeal points is any more compelling when considered cumulatively than they are when considered individually. I therefore dismiss any appeal based on the cumulative effect of the three grounds of appeal that I have considered.[86]I therefore dismiss the appeal.[87]I should add however that I do not consider that Judge Raeside met the expectations of a trial judge in dealing with a litigant in person, as explained in the ETBB. He may be criticised for this. However, any such criticism does not provide a basis that sustains any of the grounds of appeal that I have heard.[6]POSTSCRIPT[88]After I had handed down a draft of this judgment in accordance with paragraph 2 of Practice Direction 40E, I received from Ms Louis an Application Notice on Form N244. This was dated 12 June 2026, but was stamped by the court 17 June 2026.[89]I had been told that she had dispensed with the services of her counsel, and I think it was apparent that she had produced her application, and the documentation supporting it, without the benefit of counsel.[90]Box 3, on the form of Application Notice, which asks “What order are you asking the court to make and why” was filled in as follows: “See attached Draft Order and continuation sheets for the multiple orders sought”. “Why” – please see the attached Witness Statement and continuation sheets for the supporting reasons”.[91]No Draft Order was originally included with the application but one was subsequently received in the late afternoon before the morning on which this judgment is handed down. This sought (in summary) the following relief: i) that the handing down of this judgement be stayed “pending the final determination of the application”; ii) The appeal be re-listed for a full rehearing (or the original trial be set aside and a re-trial before a different judge; iii) that she be granted permission to rely upon certain evidence which she says was wrongfully excluded during the original proceedings; iv) that the Respondents file and serve any evidence in response to her application by 4 PM on 25 June 2026; and v) that costs of this application and the hearing be reserved or determined at the substantive rehearing.[92]Ms Louis in a supporting witness statement explained her reasons as including: i) “severe concerns regarding potential conflict of interest”, although who was conflicted, and the nature of the conflict was not explained; ii) that the draft judgment was based on a flawed/bundle/supplemental bundle which she was not aware of; iii) an approved waiver of vital evidence and inadequate legal advice by former legal representatives.[93]In essence, I think her main complaints were that her legal representatives failed to advocate in her best interests, in particular by not raising issues about missing documentation in the original file, which was one of the original grounds of appeal approved by Fancourt J but which was not pursued at the hearing.[94]This application is not an application that the court can grant. Ms Louis has had her opportunity to overturn Judge Raeside’s order through the appeal that I heard. That appeal has now been concluded and my judgment set out above is the result of the hearing of that appeal.[95]If Ms Louis considers that this judgment (and/or the ex tempore judgment I refer to at [‎7] above (together “my Judgments”) were wrong or unjust because of serious procedural or other irregularity, her recourse is to seek permission to appeal my Judgments. Such an appeal is commenced by an Appellant’ Notice, which should be accompanied by clear grounds of appeal. These grounds of appeal would need to refer to reasons why my Judgments (rather than the order of Judge Raeside) are wrong or unjust because of serious procedural or other irregularity.