Claudia Nestola v Leicestershire County Care Ltd & Ors [2026] EWHC 2075 (KB)

Ref. KA-2025-000201

NCN: [2026] EWHC 2075 (KB)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

KING’S BENCH DIVISION

Venue Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London

Before THE HONORURABLE MR JUSTICE CHOUDHURY

IN THE MATTER OF

CLAUDIA NESTOLA

REPRESENTATIVE OF FERNANDO NESTOLA (DECEASED)

Applicant

- v -

(1) LEICESTERSHIRE COUNTY CARE LTD

(2) WARTNABY HEFFORD SOLICITORS

(3) MS GABRIELLA COOPER

(4) MS MARISA NESTOLA

Respondents

MS CLAUDIA NESTOLA appeared as Litigant in Person

THE FIRST RESPONDENT did not attend and was not represented

MR STEER appeared on behalf of the Second Respondent

MR WOODHEAD appeared on behalf of the Third and Fourth Respondents

JUDGMENT

23 rd JUNE 2026

(APPROVED)

__________________

This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved.

Between

Claudia NestolaClaimant

Leicestershire County Care Ltd & OrsDefendant

Date 2026-06-23

Introduction

[1]This is a renewed application for permission to appeal against the strike out order made by Master Sullivan on 28 July 2025, permission having been refused on the papers by Mr Justice Moody.

Factual Background

[2]The background to this matter may be briefly summarised as follows. The Claimant’s father, Fernando Nestola, died in August 2018. His only Will was one drawn up in Italy in 2013. At the time of his death Mr Nestola was residing in a care home operated by the First Defendant. Although the Claimant had been close to her father she had not been in contact with him for around 14 months prior to his death, the reasons for which are not explained.

[3]It is contended that on Mr Nestola’s death, the First Defendant, through the actions or inaction of the care home manager, Ms Helen Preston, failed to contact the Claimant, as his next of kin, and instead contacted the Third and Fourth Defendants, the Claimant’s estranged mother and sister respectively; and more specifically that her father’s belongings, including the title deeds to all of his assets in Italy, were handed over to her mother, the Third Defendant.

[4]The First Defendant’s case is that it tried to contact the Claimant but there was no response and as such proceeded to contact the Third and Fourth Defendants. The Claimant contends that neither the Third or Fourth Defendant had been in contact with Mr Nestola for nine or seven years prior to his death. The Third and Fourth Defendants engaged the services of the Second Defendant and in particular Ms Sarah Austin-Clark, a legal executive at that firm, to assist them with probate in relation to Mr Nestola’s estate.

[5]Various items of correspondence were generated, including letters to Mr Nestola’s bank, which were, on the face of them, signed by the Fourth Defendant. An application for Letters of Administration was made in October 2019. Meanwhile by April 2020 lawyers in Italy had obtained the Claimant’s contact details and informed the Claimant that her father had sadly passed away. A letter from the lawyers informed the Claimant that there was a bank account awaiting closure and that Mr Nestola’s estate in Italy had been settled some nine months previously. Shortly thereafter, the Claimant was in contact with her sister, the Fourth Defendant, and communications continued after that.

[6]The Claimant claims that there was an unlawful means conspiracy, the unlawful means alleged being fraud in that various steps had been taken by the Third and Fourth Defendants with the assistance of the First and Second Defendants to deprive her of her inheritance and/or to diminish its value, including by acts of vandalism carried out in respect of a flat that belonged to Mr Nestola.

Particulars of Claim

[7]The Claimants claims are set out in particulars of claim extending to some 187 paragraphs. The original particulars of claim were squeezed into 29 pages with the inevitable consequence that the font size became so small as to affect legibility, although it was still legible. Unsurprisingly for a document prepared, it would appear without legal assistance, it is prolix and does not contain a concise statement of the facts relied upon, as required by CPR 16.4(1). However, I do not agree that it is “totally incoherent” or “indecipherable”, two of the epithets used by the Second Defendant to the Fourth Defendant to describe it.

[8]At paragraph 80 of the particulars of claim, the Claimant sets out the elements necessary to establish the unlawful means conspiracy cause of action by reference to the decision in Kuwait Oil Tanker Company SAK v Al Bader (No.3) [2000] 2 All ER (Comm) 271. (I should say for Ms Nestola’s information that I am giving this oral judgment which will be transcribed by a transcriber and I may give the transcriber instructions every so often to insert certain passages).

[9]The paragraph in that judgment to which the particulars refer, paragraph 108, is as follows:

[10]The Claimant then proceeds in her particulars of claim to identify five separate features which she contends establish the conspiracy. Breach 1 is the First Defendant’s failure to notify her of Mr Nestola’s demise and the handing over of his belongings to the Third Defendant. The Claimant has referred to this alleged breach as the “foundational unlawful means” of the conspiracy and infers that an agreement had been made between Ms Preston and the Third and Fourth Defendants before her father’s death to act unlawfully on his death, including by not telling the Claimant about his death. See particulars of claim at [91].

[11]It has to be pointed out that the allegation of some sort of agreement between Ms Preston and the Third and Fourth Defendants appears wholly speculative. Certainly, no facts are pleaded from which one could reasonably infer that there was such an agreement, it being acknowledged by the Claimant that there had been no contact between the Third and Fourth Defendants and her father for years before his death, and presumably, therefore, no contact between the Third and Fourth Defendants and the care home.

[12]The notion that, notwithstanding the absence of such contact, the Third and Fourth Defendants would have approached Ms Preston and persuaded her to act unlawfully seems fanciful. A far more plausible explanation of the limited facts pleaded is that Ms Preston contacted the Fourth Defendant, having been unable to contact the Claimant, there being nothing sinister or underhand about that. In other words, the facts which are pleaded are more consistent with innocence than any unlawful conspiracy.

[13]Breach number 2 relates to the Third Defendant’s receipt of Mr Nestola’s belongings. The Claimant relies on that fact and the supposed urgency with which the Second Defendant acted in relation to probate matters, as set out in paragraph 104, as leading to the inference, “demonstrating” as she puts it - see paragraph 105 - that Ms Austin-Clark, the Third and Fourth Defendants had “undoubtedly intentions to defraud” the Claimant. However, even a cursory glance of the matters relied upon demonstrate nothing of the sort. The first matter relied upon at paragraph 104 of the particulars of claim is the suggestion that the Third Defendant had forged the Fourth Defendant’s signature on a letter to Mr Nestola’s bank. The suggestion of forged signatures is a recurring theme in the Claimant’s case. However, the basis of the suggestion is the Claimant’s assumption that the signatures to all these documents say “mum” rather than Marie Louise Nestola (or some version of that name or its initials).

[14]The judge below described that allegation as “frankly absurd”, and it is difficult to describe it in any other way. It would be bizarre for the Third Defendant to sign a document falsely as the Fourth Defendant by writing “mum”. Why, one asks rhetorically, would one sign the document in that way if the intention was to make it appear that the signature was in fact that of the Fourth Defendant? There is no credible answer to that question, and no facts are pleaded to support the inference of fraud. The Claimant appears to have become somewhat fixated on this notion, no doubt because the Third Defendant’s hand-written signature bears a passing resemblance to the word “mum”. The Claimant suggests that this must have been a forgery because the Fourth Defendant was not in the UK at the time of the purported signature. However, even if that were correct, and there does not appear to be any specific pleaded factors supporting that contention, beyond bare assertion, it would not explain why the same signature appears in other documents when even the Claimant does not contend that the Fourth Defendant was abroad.

[15]This leads to a further point which is that this alleged forgery gets the Claimant nowhere because it is not pleaded that the Fourth Defendant disavows purportedly forged documents. That could not be pleaded because the Fourth Defendant does not in fact disavow any of them.

[16]The second matter is that the two deceased estate notices were published in the gazette. Even if that is not “normal or usual” as asserted by the Claimant, it hardly establishes any fraudulent intent, given that there could be numerous legitimate explanations for such action.

[17]The third matter relied upon is that Ms Austin-Clark acted with alacrity in dealing with probate matters after being instructed. The fact that a legal representative acted promptly is more consistent with an innocent explanation of the conduct than any fraudulent intent or agreement to defraud, as alleged in paragraph 107. Nothing else pleaded gives rise to the inference that the Claimant seeks to draw.

[18]Breach No. 3 relates to the Second Defendant’s failure to inform the Claimant of her father’s death and the fact that a Will had been discovered in Italy declaring the Claimant to be sole heir and executor. The Claimant contends that no innocent explanation is possible and that the only intent must have been to cause her loss. It may rightly be said that the Second Defendant’s failure in this regard raises some questions. However, the conduct is as consistent with negligence or innocence as any fraudulent intent and there are no specific facts pleaded which support the contention of fraud.

[19]Breach No. 4 is said to provide the strongest evidence of the group’s intention to defraud the Claimant. This relates to the allegation that the Second Defendant had made two applications for probate, and having done so concealed the fact in an affidavit submitted in support. The basis for this contention appears to be that the application is made to the Oxford Registry Office in August 2019 and yet the Letters of Administration were eventually issued in October 2020 out of the Brighton Registry Office.

[20]The contention is wholly without foundation. The particulars of claim fail completely to address the point that both the acknowledgment of the application and the issuing letter bear the same reference number. In other words, there was only ever one application, albeit dealt with by two offices. This breach is also said to be supported by forged documents by reason of the false signatures. For reasons already discussed, that contention is also not credible.

[21]Breach No. 5, the final breach relied upon, is the involvement of the Second Defendant, which the Claimant contends was part of a deliberate design to give the Third and Fourth Defendants’ unlawful actions the sheen of credibility, and to render false assertions made in respect of Mr Nestola’s estate more believable. However, a far more plausible explanation is that a legal representative was engaged purely because probate matters are not straightforward, particularly where there may be cross-border issues. The errors attributed to Ms Austin-Clark are readily reconcilable with innocence and/or negligence rather than fraudulent intent.

[22]The particulars of claim go on to claim over £12 million in damages including general damages of £3 million and punitive damages of £3 million. The remaining £6 million plus of special damages and interest are said to arise from the loss of rental income in respect of property, through to retirement age. The basis for these wildly inflated claims, given that the estate has been valued at somewhat in excess of £100,000, is wholly unclear.

Judgment below

[23]The Master considered two applications on 28 July, the first made by the Third and Fourth Defendants was a jurisdictional one on the basis that the subject matter of the claim had a closer connection with Italy; and the second one made by the Second, Third and Fourth Defendants that the claim be struck out.

[24]The First Defendant lodged a defence on 17 March 2025 in which an invitation was made to the court to strike the matter out. However, it had not made an application to do so and did not appear and was not represented at the hearing.

[25]The Master decided the jurisdictional issue in the Claimant’s favour, and I say no more about it.

[26]As to the strike out application, the judge summarised the submissions of the Second to Fourth Defendants at paragraphs 7 to 17, and then the Claimant’s response at 18 to 22. At paragraph 9 the judge made the following remark:

[27]The judge’s conclusions are at paragraph 23 onwards: “23. In my judgment, the particulars of claim do fail to set out a coherent case. It seems to me, from what I have heard, that the facts required to be pleaded for unlawful means conspiracy are not properly pleaded. There are no facts pleaded from which a court could infer an agreement between the four defendants, or groups of them, of dishonesty or an intention to cause the claimant harm.

[24]The fact that the second, third and fourth defendants knew of the claimant’s address in 2018, does not take the weight that the claimant puts on it. It so not evidence on its own of a conspiracy. In addition, even assuming that they did not tell her of her father’s death deliberately, in my judgment, that is not sufficient fact to lead to a claim of unlawful means conspiracy against the defendants. It does not lead to an inference that they intended to cause her loss.

[25]There are no facts pleaded to show how the first defendant is involved at all, or indeed any facts pleaded to show how anything that the second defendant has done could intend to cause the claimant harm, or how it is in any way dishonest or fraudulent conduct. In respect of the third and fourth defendants, the fact that they knew the claimant’s address in 2018 and, I assume for the present purposes, that they did not contact the claimant to tell her of her father’s death, because that is a fact that is pleaded, and even if they knew of the Italian will, they are not facts, which, taken on their own, are more likely to lead to an inference of fraud than innocence or negligence or some other conduct.

[26]The third and fourth defendants’ witness statement, or the witness statement on their behalf for the purpose of this application, for example, states that they were advised that the Italian will was invalid. In that context, it would have clearly been consistent with something other 94 5 than fraud. In fact, I note that the claimant was contacted in April 2020 by the second defendant prior to the letters of administration being granted. Again, that is consistent with being matters other than fraud, namely acting properly.

[27]No facts, in my judgment, are pleaded, which could show that the second defendant owed a fiduciary duty to the claimant and, in my judgment, there is no factual pleading or explanation of how the losses claimed are said to arise out of the alleged conspiracy. There is no pleading that there was any intention to cause the harm that is claimed.

[28]It appears to me that the claimant is unwilling to accept anything that is said by any of the defendants, even through their current solicitors. At one point during the hearing, she appeared to be suggesting that the second defendant’s current solicitor was not being honest. The claims that the third defendant signed an affidavit with the word, “Mum” whilst fraudulently pretending to be her daughter is frankly absurd. The assertion that there were two different applications to the district registries, it seems to me, are also absurd where the application number in both of the letters was the same. It is the court that issues the application number, not the applicant.

[29]Counsel for the second defendant in his skeleton argument quoted Mrs Justice Cockerill’s dicta in King v Stiefel

[2021] EWHC 1045 (Comm)

. He said that, “The claimant’s desire to allege fraud, dishonesty, conspiracy becomes a kind of philosopher’s stone that transforms work, and any alleged errors in work, into dishonest conspiracies from which, in turn, the main conspiracy can itself be inferred.” It seems to me that the claimant has fallen into that particular error. It is an apt description in this case.

[30]In my judgment, this claim has, as pleaded, no real prospect of success and, it seems to me, the failure of the claimant to seek to amend the claim, or deal with the matters that have been raised properly of the claim, is such that I should grasp the nettle and strike out pursuant to CPR 3.4. In addition, since the oral argument and because of the reasons I have given for strike out, it seemed to me I should apply my mind to the position of the first defendant who has not made an application, but I note in their defence, which they have filed, at paragraph 22 it is pleaded on behalf of the first defendant that:

“The first defendant’s position is this claim is essentially a dispute between members of a family where relationships have broken down. It is entirely inappropriate and misguided the claimant to join the first defendant into these proceedings, which predominantly relate to the actions of the third and fourth defendants in relation to the estate of Mr Nestola, not the services which the first defendant provided. The first defendant would invite the court to exercise its discretion and strike out the claim against the first defendant.”

[31]It seems to me, having determined that the claim for unlawful means conspiracy does not set out the agreement, intention to harm, or any fraud in respect of any of the defendants, of my own motion it is appropriate for me to strike out for the same reasons the claim against the first defendant who is, on any view, one step removed from the matters in relation to the will that form the core of this claim.

[32]It seems to me that this really is a dispute over the validity of the Italian will. That will be resolved in due course, I am sure, by the Italian courts. On that basis, the applications for strike out are granted. Of the court’s own motion, I strike out the claim against the first defendant and, on that basis, the claim is dismissed.”

[28]An application for a permission to appeal was refused on form 460. By a subsequent order (in fact there may have been two orders), the claim was certified as totally without merit (“TWM”).

Grounds of Appeal

[29]The Claimant relies on three grounds of appeal referred to as legal errors 1, 2 and 3. Legal error 1 is that the Master was incorrect to state that the claim against the First Defendant had no merit and that the judge could have directed that the pleadings be amended to include allegations under the tort of deceit. In a document entitled statement of case, served with the renewal application, it is said that the Master should have at least kept the negligence claim against the First Defendant intact, and complains that there is no reference to the negligence claim in the judgment and that the Claimant was not given the opportunity to make any submissions on that issue.

[30]Legal error 2 is that the Claimant had pleaded a negligence claim against the Second Defendant in the alternative, the Second Defendant having breached its fiduciary duty to her, which was not considered by the Master and should not have been struck out.

[31]Legal error 3 is that the judge failed to consider the issues and evidence under the main head of claim, unlawful means conspiracy. It is said that the judge ought not to have proceeded to strike out without detailed consideration of the circumstantial evidence. She complains that the judgment does not identify the main allegations in any detail, does not provide coherent reasons as to why they should fail and fails to consider the fact that no defences have been provided and the matter was being considered before disclosure had been provided.

[32]The grounds go on under two headings, the first of which is “evidence of errors”. This does not appear to add any further grounds of appeal. The second heading is “general errors”. It is difficult to discern any specific grounds of appeal under this heading, but the points made appear to be in support of ground 3, and there is a general assertion that the strike out was draconian and disproportionate, having regard to the value and nature of the claim.

[33]As well as those grounds, the Claimant contends in her statement of case that there are compelling reasons for allowing the appeal, and that is the fact that the Fourth Defendant is currently attempting to obtain a foreign judgment against the Claimant in Italy. She also said that there were procedural irregularities in that the judge did not read the pleadings ahead of the hearing. I note that both in this document and in submissions before me, the Claimant sought to maintain that the judge had not read the particulars of claim at all, which is blatantly incorrect.

[34]There are further complaints about the TWM certification, which is said to be non-Wasif compliant, that being a reference to leading authority on TWM complaints. Mr Justice Moody, as I have said, refused permission on the papers. In brief reasons he said as follows:

[35]The application for a permission to appeal is now renewed orally before me. For the purposes of this hearing the Claimant has produced no fewer than five further documents: The first is a 25-page skeleton dated 4 April 2026. I should note that this document is presented in the same small font format that was criticised by the Master below. The descriptions “prolix” and “difficult to follow” apply to that document.

[36]In it, the Claimant seeks to pursue a general ground of jurisdictional nullity in that the strike out decisions and TWM certification cannot stand because the mandatory preconditions for their exercise have not been followed. These included: failure to read the pleadings, failure to give notice before acting of its own motion; and striking out the case against the First Defendant. Other complaints of procedural defects are also made.

[37]The Claimant also relies on three responses to documents submitted by the Respondents. Whilst on a renewal application the court would not normally hear from the Respondents or consider any documents submitted by them, it has been useful to have their input, given the Claimant’s litigant in person status and the length of some of the Claimant’s documents.

[38]Finally, this morning, the Claimant provided the court with a document entitled “aide memoire KA2025000201 Claudia Nestola”, which contains various arguments, said to be an expansion of the grounds already raised, but including some matters, including Human Rights arguments, which can be said to be new.

[39]In oral submissions this morning, the Claimant focussed not on the grounds of appeal, legal errors 1 to 2, as such, but the jurisdictional nullity points and the other matters raised in her aide memoire. These do, to some extent, go beyond the grounds that Mr Justice Moody considered and given that this is a renewal application, this court’s focus should be on the grounds that he considered.

Discussion

[40]As to Ground 1 and the strike out of the claims against the First Defendant, the first point to note is that nowhere in the particulars of claim, which I make clear I have read in their entirety, is there any specific reference to a negligence claim against the First Defendant. Aside from being included as part of the unlawful means conspiracy claim, there is no separate allegation of negligence on the part of the First Defendant. The Claimant submitted today that she thought it was sufficient to say, as she did at paragraph 160 of the particulars of claim, that she had reserved the right to plead the alternative, notwithstanding the absence of any clarity as to what that alternative was.

[41]She goes on to say that the alternative claim is that Helen Preston, employee of the First Defendant and Ms Austin-Clark, an employee of the Second Defendant, breached their fiduciary duties. The only claim made in the alternative is one of breach of fiduciary duty. The factual premise for Ground 1 is therefore misconceived. As for the fiduciary duty claim itself there are no particulars pleaded as to how the fiduciary duty is said to arise. The Claimant refers to statutory and common law duties but the essential factual basis for establishing a fiduciary duty is simply not present. On that basis the judge was correct to conclude, as she did, at paragraph 25 that, “There are no facts pleaded to show how the First Defendant is involved at all.” That must be taken to mean involved in the legal claims brought because clearly there is reference to the First Defendant’s involvement by way of the context in which these claims arise.

[42]Furthermore there is no pleaded basis establishing what those duties were, how they were breached or what losses flowed from them. In these circumstances there is no real prospect or indeed any prospect of success in the argument that the judge erred in coming to the conclusion that the claim against the First Defendant should also be struck out.

[43]I can deal briefly with the Claimant’s procedural concern about this decision which she says renders it a nullity. Reliance is placed on CPR 3.3(3) which provides that: a). to make an order of its own initiative; and b). to hold a hearing to decide whether to make the order,

[44]The Claimant contends that she was not given notice in accordance with that provision. However, that provision does not apply in respect of a matter that is already being heard at a hearing, and where the court decides, in the course of the hearing, to determine the matter of its own volition. To the extent that the Claimant was not given an express opportunity to object, it is difficult to see what she could have said. The fact remains that no facts were pleaded in support of the claim of negligence. The court would not be obliged, in these circumstances, to give the Claimant the opportunity to go off and dig up some more facts.

[45]As to Ground 2, similar points apply in respect of the alleged negligence claim against the Second Defendant. In fact not only is there no such claim but, as Mr Steer points out, the Claimant was at pains to emphasise that she was not bringing such a claim. The Claimant has submitted that she was concerned as a litigant in person that to plead negligence would undermine her unlawful means conspiracy claim. However, having studiously avoided pleading negligence, for whatever reason, the Claimant cannot then complain that the judge erred in striking the claim out.

[46]What the judge did expressly strike out was the fiduciary duty claim. She was right to do so for the same reasons in respect of the First Defendant. The necessary facts to support such a claim in respect of duty, its scope, the breach and loss were simply not pleaded. As such it disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

[47]Ground 3, this is perhaps the principal ground. It is necessary to make a few general observations given the nature of the Claimant’s grounds. First, there is no error on a strike out application to base the decision on an analysis of the pleaded case, and in the absence of defence statements, disclosure and evidence. Indeed, it is the purpose of the procedure that the court has the power to strike out at an early-stage claims which are defective before other parties are put to the expense of having to defend them substantively.

[48]Second, it cannot realistically be said that the judge had failed to gain a proper understanding of the case. I can fully understand and sympathise with the Claimant’s concerns given the judge’s remarks about finding it difficult to read the pleadings, and I note that the Claimant has referred me to a number of authorities emphasising the importance of a decision on strike out being based on a full reading of the case in question. However, the Master did not say that she had not read the pleadings, but merely that, because of the unreasonably small font size she “could not in fact physically read all of the particulars of claim.”

[49]One can glean both from that statement and the extensive references to the pleaded case in the remainder of the judgment that the Master had been able to read enough of the claim to gain a proper understanding of the issues she needed to consider. Furthermore she had also considered the amended particulars of claim which were handed to her after delivering her oral judgment, albeit briefly.

[50]The Claimant has also lodged a forensic analysis of the judgment pointing out a range of errors from typographical errors through to various alleged failures to deal with specific allegations. This kind of analysis belies a misunderstanding of this interlocutory procedure. This is not a trial, nor a mini trial, to consider every factual allegation made and the evidence in support. The judge clearly analysed the key elements of the unlawful means conspiracy claim, as pleaded, and found it to be wanting. The fact that not every passage that the Claimant considers relevant was expressly mentioned does not undermine that conclusion.

[51]The Claimant makes specific complaint, for example, that the judge failed to make express references to the false representations made by Ms Austin-Clark that her father died leaving no Will, that there had been formal administrative revocation of Letters of Administration by HMCTS, that the utilities had been turned off at the flat in Via Isonzo, that the Fourth Defendant had made false representations spanning three years, and that the Third and Fourth Defendants continued to retain unauthorised possession of the original title deeds.

[52]However, to the extent that any of these points are directly relevant, they were dealt with compendiously, for example at paragraph 24 of the judgment, where the judge considers that neither the fact that the Second Defendant to the Fourth Defendants knew of the Claimant’s address in 2018, nor of the fact of their failure to inform her about Mr Nestola’s death can give rise to any inference that they intended to cause the Claimant’s loss.

[53]The failure to refer specifically to each and every item relied upon by the Claimant in her pleadings does not negate the conclusions reached by the judge. The issue for the court to consider was whether the pleadings disclosed a reasonable cause of action in respect of unlawful means conspiracy. That required it to consider whether the Claimant had pleaded the facts necessary to establish: a) a combination or agreement between two or more legal persons; b) concerted action pursuant to the agreement; c) the specific unlawful means relied upon; d) the conspirators’ intent to injure her; and e) the damages suffered as a consequence of those matters.

[54]Further, it was required to consider whether, in respect of the unlawful means alleged of fraud, the Claimant had pleaded facts from which the inference of fraud was more likely than one of innocence or negligence. For reasons already discussed when going through the alleged breaches set out in the particulars of claim, the Master’s conclusion that these threshold requirements were not met was plainly correct. In short, the First Defendant did nothing out of the ordinary in contacting the Third and Fourth Defendants. Plainly the home had their contact details, as well as those of the Claimant, and the failure to contact her does not even begin to give rise to a suggestion of fraud.

[55]Similarly, the fact that the Second Defendant acted at all, or with alacrity in pursuing the instructions regarding probate does not begin to give rise to a credible suggestion of involvement in a fraudulent conspiracy. There is some conduct that is questionable but even taking it at its highest and inferring that there was a deliberate attempt not to contact the Claimant straightaway or reveal the Will (which is thought by the Second Defendant to be invalid) still requires a substantial leap before the inference of intentional conduct to defraud can be drawn. The claims against the Third and Fourth Defendant are principally based on alleged acts of forgery, which are, as I have said, totally unfounded. Taking the Claimant’s case at its highest does not mean proceeding on a basis that is wholly unviable. As I have said already, no credible facts are pleaded that would support the assertion of forgery.

[56]That deals with the specific grounds of appeal.

[57]The Claimant also complains about TWM certification. I can understand that the Claimant was put out by this assessment of her claim, but this ground of appeal would not assist if the other grounds fail, which they do. The claim would remain struck out. That said, reasons should have been given for the totally without merit certification in accordance with the authorities, even if just to say that the claim is certified as such for the same reasons as for the strike out. In this case I cannot see any specific reasons set out by the Master for the certification. However, given the nature of the Master’s reasons, it can be inferred that the same reasons would be relied upon for the certification, and on that basis the certification cannot be said to be unjustified.

Conclusion

[58]For these reasons, which I have set out in a little more fully than would be the case in a normal PTA renewal hearing, this application is dismissed. There is no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason to allow this unmeritorious appeal to proceed. ---------------