Sheikh v Page & Anor [2017] EWHC 1772 (QB)

[2017] EWHC 1772 (QB)Case No HQ10X01012/HQ09X00657
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Venue Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LLDate 13/07/2017
Before
MR JUSTICE TURNER
Between
HQ10X01012RespondentAnal SheikhRespondentAdded PartyRespondentHugo PageDefendantNigel MearesDefendantHQ09X00657DefendantAnal SheikhDefendantMarc BeaumontDefendantHQ10X01012Anal Sheikh Added Party/Respondent- and -(1) Hugo Page (2) Nigel Meares HQ09X00657 Anal Sheikh-and-Marc Beaumont Defendants/Applicants Claimant/Respondent Defendant/Applicant
Miss Anal Sheikh appeared in person for in personMr Anthony Speaight QC (instructed by Withers LLP) for Mr Page and Mr MearesMs Natasha Bennett (instructed by Howard Kennedy Solicitors) for Mr BeaumontHearing Hearing dates: 5 th July 2017
Approved JudgmentI direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic..............................MR JUSTICE TURNER

INTRODUCTION

[1]Anal Sheikh is no stranger to these courts. For about a decade, she has waged a lonely forensic campaign against an ever expanding cadre of judges, barristers, solicitors and others. In the years prior to and including 2009, the Courts repeatedly found her applications in the context of a highly contentious property dispute to have been totally without merit. In consequence, she was made the subject of a General Civil Restraint Order (“GCRO”). Moreover, in the light of her subsequent conduct the duration of this order has thereafter been extended at regular two year intervals. The most recent of these extensions was made by order of Patterson J and is due shortly to expire.[2]The defendants in these two claims have now applied for a further extension of the GCRO for two years being the maximum period permitted by the rules.

THE LAW

[3]CPR 3.11 provides that a practice direction may set out the circumstances in which the court has power to make a Civil Restraint Order, the procedure to be adopted and the consequences of the making of such an order. PD 3C is the relevant supplementary practice direction.[4]PD 3C4.1 General Civil Restraint Orders provides, in so far as is material: “4.1 A general civil restraint order may be made by– …(2) a judge of the High Court;… where the party against whom the order is made persists in issuing claims or making applications which are totally without merit, in circumstances where an extended civil restraint order would not be sufficient or appropriate.4.2 Unless the court otherwise orders, where the court makes a general civil restraint order, the party against whom the order is made–(1) will be restrained from issuing any claim or making any application in– …(b) the High Court or the County Court if the order has been made by a judge of the High Court… without first obtaining the permission of a judge identified in the order;(2) may apply for amendment or discharge of the order provided he has first obtained the permission of a judge identified in the order; and(3) may apply for permission to appeal the order and if permission is granted, may appeal the order.4.3 Where a party who is subject to a general civil restraint order– (1) issues a claim or makes an application in a court identified in the order without first obtaining the permission of a judge identified in the order, the claim or application will automatically be struck out or dismissed– (a) without the judge having to make any further order; and (b) without the need for the other party to respond to it; (2) repeatedly makes applications for permission pursuant to that order which are totally without merit, the court may direct that if the party makes any further application for permission which is totally without merit, the decision to dismiss that application will be final and there will be no right of appeal, unless the judge who refused permission grants permission to appeal.4.4 A party who is subject to a general civil restraint order may not make an application for permission under paragraphs 4.2(1) or 4.2(2) without first serving notice of the application on the other party in accordance with paragraph 4.5.4.5 A notice under paragraph 4.4 must– (1) set out the nature and grounds of the application; and (2) provide the other party with at least 7 days within which to respond.4.6 An application for permission under paragraphs 4.2(1) or 4.2(2)– (1) must be made in writing; (2) must include the other party's written response, if any, to the notice served under paragraph 4.4; and (3) will be determined without a hearing.4.7 An order under paragraph 4.3(2) may only be made by– (1) a Court of Appeal judge; (2) a High Court judge; or (3) a Designated Civil Judge or their appointed deputy.4.8 Where a party makes an application for permission under paragraphs 4.2(1) or 4.2(2) and permission is refused, any application for permission to appeal– (1) must be made in writing; and (2) will be determined without a hearing.4.9 A general civil restraint order– (1) will be made for a specified period not exceeding 2 years; (2) must identify the courts in which the party against whom the order is made is restrained from issuing claims or making applications; and (3) must identify the judge or judges to whom an application for permission under paragraphs 4.2(1), 4.2(2) or 4.8 should be made.4.10 The court may extend the duration of a general civil restraint order, if it considers it appropriate to do so, but it must not be extended for a period greater than 2 years on any given occasion.”

…(2) a judge of the High Court;…

[5]The issue which arises here is as to whether it is appropriate to extend the duration of the existing GCRO against Miss Sheikh in the circumstances of these two cases.[6]The proper approach to applications to extend GCROs was considered by Warby J in The Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary v Gray [2016] EWHC 2998 (QB) in which he made the following general observations at paragraph 7 of his judgment:
“(1) First, it is not a precondition for granting a GCRO that the person against whom it is made has brought claims which are TWM. A GCRO may be made against a person who persists in issuing claims which are TWM, or someone who persists in making applications which are TWM. (2) Secondly, the threshold requirements in PD3C 4.1 need to be satisfied before a GCRO is made. But the test for the grant of an extension is different: it is whether the court “considers it appropriate”
. This plainly makes sense, as a person who has already been subject to a GCRO will in principle have had no opportunity to issue any TWM claim or application, other than an application for permission to proceed, or to vary or discharge the GCRO. (3) Thirdly, when a Judge has determined that a claim or application is TWM, the circumstances in which it will be legitimate to contest that determination in subsequent proceedings before a Court at the same level of jurisdiction are limited. The CPR provide that those against whom orders are made on the court's own initiative, or in their absence, may apply to vary or set aside the[7]To this list I would add the observation that where an application to extend a GCRO is made the court would normally expect to see some evidence relating to matters relevant to the period which has elapsed since the GCRO was made or most recently extended as the case may be. Otherwise, the important safeguard of limiting the duration of the period of the making or extension of a GCRO to two years would be liable to be circumvented.

THE BACKGROUND BEFORE 2015

[8]The judgment of Patterson J is to be found at [2015] EWHC 1923 (QB) and contains a detailed account of the procedural history. I gratefully adopt her narrative and, for ease of reference, incorporate it within this judgment:
“Before and Including 2009 7 Miss Sheikh was a conveyancing solicitor. For many years she was the principal of a high street practice in Wembley. 8 Disciplinary proceedings were brought against her by the Law Society. On 1 May 2009 the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found charges against Miss Sheikh to be proved. The main charges were that she had made improper transfers out of her client account and that she delivered a bill without any honest belief that it represented a proper fee. The tribunal found that, in those respects, she had acted dishonestly. She was struck off the Solicitors List on 5 May 2009. 9 Prior to then one of Miss Sheikh's clients, a Mr Dogan, set up a company known as Red River (UK) Limited to buy a former petrol station which had development potential. Miss Sheikh and her mother loaned money to Mr Dogan and his company to assist in the completion of property development in the Stoke Newington Road, London N16. Mrs Sheikh provided money to her daughter with which to make the loan. By way of security, restrictions in favour of both mother and daughter were placed on the title of the land at HM Land Registry. 10 Disputes arose between the Sheikhs and Mr Dogan and litigation ensued. The disputes were resolved and a settlement agreement was entered into. However, that broke down and, in 2007, proceedings were commenced in the Chancery Division by Red River (UK) Limited and Mr Dogan against Miss Sheikh and Mrs Sheikh. There were numerous contested interlocutory applications in the litigation; on twelve occasions Henderson J ruled that applications brought by the Sheikhs were totally without merit. The case ultimately came to trial before Henderson J who in April 2010 gave judgment at [2010] EWHC 961 (Ch). Almost all points on liability were decided against the Sheikhs. 11 The settlement agreement had provided for a payment to the Sheikhs of some £1.2 million. It was envisaged that that payment would be financed by a fresh loan raised on the security of the property. That could not be done without the release of the existing restrictions in favour of the Sheikhs. Many of the interlocutory hearings in the Chancery Division were concerned with working out how that mortgage could be accomplished. 12 On 2 October 2007 a hearing took place before Briggs J (as he then was). Miss Sheikh contends that the order that was made on that occasion was part of a conspiracy to defraud her. At the ultimate trial Henderson J found that there was no credible evidence to support any allegation of fraud. He found also that Miss Sheikh had intentionally and with her eyes open undermined the refinancing in such a way as to make it impossible to perform. The unfortunate outcome was that the Sheikhs received nothing from the settlement at all. 13 Miss Sheikh then began proceedings against Marc Beaumont, a barrister who had acted for her at one stage in the Red River saga, and alleged professional negligence on his part. She obtained judgment in default of defence but that was set aside. She then applied for summary judgment and for an interim payment. Mr Beaumont applied for the claim to be dismissed in its entirety on the grounds that it had no prospect of success. Those claims were heard by Simon J who gave judgment at [2009] EWHC 1619 (QB) in which he found against Miss Sheikh. He considered the twelve bases of claim advanced against Mr Beaumont and decided that none had any real prospect of success. He ruled that four applications brought by Miss Sheikh were totally without merit. 14 Miss Sheikh then issued proceedings in Willesden County Court against five more lawyers who had acted against her in the Beaumont case. Those claims were stayed on grounds that the case was an abuse of process, or alternatively, that it disclosed no reasonable grounds to bring the claim. 15 On 6 July 2009 two actions were commenced in the Chancery Division by Miss Sheikh and her mother as claimants against a total of 16 defendants. The defendants included three individual solicitors, two barristers who acted for the Dogans and Red River and Marc Beaumont and Mr Beaumont's wife. On 17 and 18 February 2010 Norris J struck out both actions against all professionals as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. 16 On 18 June 2009 Withers, solicitors acting on behalf of Marc Beaumont, had issued an application for a civil restraint order against Miss Sheikh. Having been adjourned for want of time on 25 June 2009 it came on as an effective hearing on 16 July. On that occasion Burnett J (as he then was) in a judgment at [2009] EWHC 2332 (QB) made a general restraint order to last for two years. In the course of his judgment Burnett J said: “20. The way in which Miss Sheikh has behaved in respect of her litigation with Mr. Beaumont demonstrates in my view that she has been vexatious. It is clear that Miss Sheikh is using her legal knowledge acquired over years as a solicitor to harass not only Mr. Beaumont but also his wife and now his legal advisers. Whilst I understand the depth of her feelings about the way in which she says she has been treated her actions demonstrate an all too common feature of vexatious litigation. There is an underlying dispute that mushrooms out of control; disappointments in the courts are visited with further applications, appeals and fresh actions. The involvement of lawyers on the other side as defendants in due course is also a very common feature, so too is increasingly intemperate language to describe the conduct and actions of judges who have disappointed the litigant in the course of his/her travels through these courts. But it is clear from the conclusions reached by Henderson J last year in the Red River litigation, that this behaviour is not an altogether isolated incident. Miss Sheikh has taken a lot of time today to impress upon me that her underlying complaint about the Red River property transaction amounts to fraud, in respect of which she alleges many people were involved. She considers that in due course she will be vindicated in those proceedings. Nonetheless, it troubles me that she should have started fresh proceedings in the Chancery Division on 7th July. At the heart of it is a complaint against one of the claimants in the Red River litigation, and the hallmarks of vexation are, I am afraid, present in the very long list of defendants that one sees there.”
He concluded that a general civil restraint order was proportionate. An extended restraint order would not be sufficient or appropriate in the case having regard to the history of unmeritorious applications made in other proceedings and the additional claims and applications that Miss Sheikh had flagged up in front of him on that day. 17 Miss Sheikh sought permission to appeal. Richards LJ, in orders dated 21 December 2009, found that her proposed appeals against the judgments of Burnett J and Simon J were totally without merit. 2010 to 2013 18 On 16 March 2010 proceedings were issued in the Queen's Bench Division in the name of Mrs Sheikh against Hugo Page QC and Nigel Meares claiming damages in the amount of £1.5 million. Both Mr Page and Mr Meares had acted for Miss Sheikh at different stages of the Red River litigation. Allegations were made in the particulars of claim that both had been negligent, acted in breach of their duties to Mrs Sheikh, acted in breach of contract and had conspired to defraud. In addition, the particulars of claim asked the court to make a number of declarations, amongst which was a claim that Simon J erred in his decision in the Marc Beaumont proceedings (to which Mrs Sheikh was not a party), that Marc Beaumont was negligent, that Norris J erred when he struck out the Sheikhs' claim against Mr Tom Smith, that Burnett J erred when he granted the civil restraint order and that Richards LJ erred in the Court of Appeal in his finding that Miss Sheikh's appeals in the proceedings against Marc Beaumont were totally without merit. 19 A hearing was held on 30 June 2010 before Deputy Master Hoffman which Miss Sheikh attended with her mother. The Deputy Master refused to allow Miss Sheikh to represent her mother and recorded his findings in relation to Mrs Sheikh's capacity and Miss Sheikh's involvement. In the transcript he said:
“Mother does not understand what is going on is being used by the daughter who has got a general restraint order against her, for her own ends and it is not something that the court is going to contemplate, so I am staying it.”
He stayed the proceedings and ordered that no further application could be made without permission of a Queen's Bench Master. 20 In February 2011 Miss Sheikh applied to a High Court Judge for permission to issue a claim form against two other lawyers who had acted for her, namely, Gregory Treverton-Jones QC and Nigel West of RadcliffesLeBrasseur. Her proposed particulars of claim also alleged that the Law Society had committed banking fraud, used its powers illegally and relied on false and perjured evidence. She alleged that the Court of Appeal was part of a conspiracy against her. CRO1 required her to give notice to proposed defendants but she sought to issue the proceedings without giving such notice. 21 On 12 July 2011 Tugendhat J made an order extending for a further two years the general civil restraint order which had been made by Burnett J. In late 2012 Miss Sheikh began sending communications to senior members of government and the judiciary. She made a further complaint against Anesta Weekes QC who had acted for her at one stage in the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal proceedings. 22 Miss Sheikh then sought a default judgment on behalf of her mother in the action against Mr Page and Mr Meares. The application came on before Deputy Master Bard. He refused the application. Miss Sheikh contends that is evidence of the Deputy Master being part of a conspiracy against her. 23 Mr Page and Mr Meares were concerned that Miss Sheikh would commence fresh proceedings of some kind against them, if she was able to do so, but also that if the civil restraint order was not extended to include her mother she would use her mother's name to bring proceedings. As a result they sought a civil restraint order in respect of Mrs Sheikh at the same time as seeking an extension of Burnett J's order. 24 The most convenient vehicle in which to bring those applications was in the actions stayed by Deputy Master Hoffman. Permission was sought and granted by Master Eastman on 25 June 2013 to make an application to join Miss Sheikh in those proceedings. 2013 up to 2015 25 The substantive applications for civil restraint orders came before Spencer J on 12 July 2013. He extended the general civil restraint order in respect of Miss Sheikh for a further two years and made a similar civil restraint order in respect of Mrs Sheikh. 26 There was then a period of quietude but, on 2 January 2014, Miss Sheikh sent an email entitled ‘Urgent Application to the Right Honourable Lord Justice Neuberger for Interim Relief in the UK Claim or in the Case of Anal Sheikh v The Law Society [2005] EWHC 1409’. She contended that the intervention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority was a hate crime. 27 The following month, on 26 February 2014, Miss Sheikh emailed Patricia Robertson QC saying that she was applying to the Supreme Court to join her as a respondent in her application. 28 In an email dated 4 March 2015 she sent an email to significant numbers of barristers involved in the Global Law Summit 2015 entitled “The Law Society's bank scam, fraud on the compensation fund, theft of solicitors' billed costs, theft of residual balances, theft of bona vacantia, theft of client deposits, theft of client data and its unlawful interventions into solicitors firms.” 29 On 23 April 2015 Miss Sheikh emailed Ouseley J and Baroness Deech and copied in members of the board of the Council of the Inns of Court (COIC) giving notice of her intention to intervene in the case of Marc Beaumont v Bar Standards Board. She said that her description and history was set out in a document entitled UK37. She said:
“Mr Beaumont has also let me down very badly in what I call the SRA's bank scam, compensation fund fraud etc in which he acted. He has also behaved unconscionably in the Red River conveyancing and mortgage (also as defined) in which he purported to act. Finally, Mr Beaumont and Bar Mutual have embarked upon what I refer to as the Bar Mutual fraud.” 30 On 30 April 2015 Miss Sheikh sought to intervene in a judicial review brought by Marc Beaumont against the Bar Standards Board which was listed for hearing before Ouseley J. During the course of those proceedings she was asked if she was wanting to be joined as an interested party. She replied: “My Lord, firstly I seek to respond to Mr Hendy's comments. Put in a nutshell there is no civil restraint order but that obviously can't be in dispute.”
She was asked then what she was seeking. She replied:
“What I seek my Lord, in broad terms is this I seek a remedy from the state for loss I have suffered because of … I will put it in these terms … an act of corruption by a public official. In narrative, I seek to be joined in these proceedings to ventilate issues concerning the role of barrister in these times of [several inaudible words] but that does need some explanation my Lord so I wonder if I can take a few minutes of your time.” 31 On 6 May 2015 Miss Sheikh sought to intervene in the case of Rehman v Bar Standards Board before Lang J. Lang J recused herself but allowed Miss Sheikh ten minutes to address the court. During the course of that address she alleged that Hugo Page QC was a thief and that the civil restraint orders against her were fraudulent. 32 On 20 May 2015 Miss Sheikh contacted the Bar Tribunals and Adjudication Service seeking to intervene in the interim suspension of Tariq Rehman. Her email was copied to Howard Kennedy, solicitors acting for Mr Beaumont. In turn they wrote to the Bar Tribunals and Adjudication Service saying that although they appreciated that the general civil restraint order concerned litigation only their client was concerned that Miss Sheikh should not be allowed to intervene in or influence disciplinary proceedings. 33 On 1 June Miss Sheikh responded with a further email to which were attached applications to: • i) Commit Mr Leigh (partner at Howard Kennedy) and Mr Beaumont to prison for contempt of court; • ii) An application made under section 50 of the Solicitors Act 1974 to strike off Mr Leigh from the roll of solicitors. 34 On 20 May 2015 an application notice was issued in CO/4920/2014 between Tariq Rehman and the Bar Standards Board which referred to Miss Sheikh as the third appellant and the tenth intervener. 35 On 3 June 2015 Miss Sheikh emailed the president and members of the COIC about their consideration of the case of Marc Beaumont, the SRA's bank scam, the compensation fund fraud etc, the Red River conveyancing and mortgage fraud, the Bar Mutual fraud, the theft of Margaret Gomm's house and 3.5 acres of land and other frauds. 36 On 4 June 2015 Miss Sheikh emailed Mr Coffin, the partner at Withers, with conduct of the current application before the court. In that she said: “If you proceed with this fraudulent application I will apply under section 50 of the Solicitors Act 1974 to have you removed from the roll. Please let me know the name of any barrister whom you propose to instruct in advance of any hearing as I am applying for interim suspensions for everyone connected with the Red River fraud.” 37 On 5 June 2015 the Bar Mutual Indemnity Fund received an email from Tariq Rehman entitled ‘Rabia Sheikh v Hugo Page and Nigel Meares’ referring to his client's issued breach of duty claim.” “20. The way in which Miss Sheikh has behaved in respect of her litigation with Mr. Beaumont demonstrates in my view that she has been vexatious. It is clear that Miss Sheikh is using her legal knowledge acquired over years as a solicitor to harass not only Mr. Beaumont but also his wife and now his legal advisers. Whilst I understand the depth of her feelings about the way in which she says she has been treated her actions demonstrate an all too common feature of vexatious litigation. There is an underlying dispute that mushrooms out of control; disappointments in the courts are visited with further applications, appeals and fresh actions. The involvement of lawyers on the other side as defendants in due course is also a very common feature, so too is increasingly intemperate language to describe the conduct and actions of judges who have disappointed the litigant in the course of his/her travels through these courts. But it is clear from the conclusions reached by Henderson J last year in the Red River litigation, that this behaviour is not an altogether isolated incident. Miss Sheikh has taken a lot of time today to impress upon me that her underlying complaint about the Red River property transaction amounts to fraud, in respect of which she alleges many people were involved. She considers that in due course she will be vindicated in those proceedings. Nonetheless, it troubles me that she should have started fresh proceedings in the Chancery Division on 7th July. At the heart of it is a complaint against one of the claimants in the Red River litigation, and the hallmarks of vexation are, I am afraid, present in the very long list of defendants that one sees there.” “Mother does not understand what is going on is being used by the daughter who has got a general restraint order against her, for her own ends and it is not something that the court is going to contemplate, so I am staying it.” “Mr Beaumont has also let me down very badly in what I call the SRA's bank scam, compensation fund fraud etc in which he acted. He has also behaved unconscionably in the Red River conveyancing and mortgage (also as defined) in which he purported to act. Finally, Mr Beaumont and Bar Mutual have embarked upon what I refer to as the Bar Mutual fraud.” “My Lord, firstly I seek to respond to Mr Hendy's comments. Put in a nutshell there is no civil restraint order but that obviously can't be in dispute.” “What I seek my Lord, in broad terms is this I seek a remedy from the state for loss I have suffered because of … I will put it in these terms … an act of corruption by a public official. In narrative, I seek to be joined in these proceedings to ventilate issues concerning the role of barrister in these times of [several inaudible words] but that does need some explanation my Lord so I wonder if I can take a few minutes of your time.” “If you proceed with this fraudulent application I will apply under section 50 of the Solicitors Act 1974 to have you removed from the roll. Please let me know the name of any barrister whom you propose to instruct in advance of any hearing as I am applying for interim suspensions for everyone connected with the Red River fraud.”
[9]In the light of this history, Patterson J extended the CRO for the maximum period permitted by the Practice Direction. That period is about to expire.

THE LAST TWO YEARS

[10]Subsequent recent developments reveal that Miss Sheikh has lost none of her appetite for forensic adventurism.[11]On 2nd May 2017, she emailed the UK Supreme Court seeking to issue an application in that Court. The Registry of the Supreme Court declined to accept these proposed proceedings on the ground that she had not identified any orders against which she could validly launch such an appeal. Her email indicated that her concerns remained focussed on the Red River litigation which she alleged involved “a sophisticated identity fraud in a conveyancing transaction, Briggs impersonated a solicitor (me) as well as a High Court judge, and removed a registrable disposition which was protected under the Law of Property Act 2002 (Priority Protection).”[12]On 18th May, Miss Sheikh sent an email to about 500 lawyers asserting:
“The Red River Conveyancing Fraud is a fraud of such sheer legal genius that it has already evaded the 40-50 members of the judiciary before whom it has already come.”
[13]Attached to this email were three lengthy documents. The first comprised an application to impeach Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Justice Briggs, Lord Justice Henderson and Sir Terence Etherton MR. The substance of these allegations centred once more upon the Red River litigation.[14]The second attachment was a document entitled “Release to Media Outlets”. It asserted that on 2nd and 5th October 2007 Lord Phillips, Briggs LJ and Henderson LJ had “entered into a conspiracy with others, to commit an identity theft in the context of a conveyancing transaction in order to steal the title to a valuable development site ... which they have now developed into 100 residential units and 6 commercial units, yielding a net development profit of about £64m to share between themselves.”[15]The third attachment was a draft application in the UK Supreme Court also referring to the Red River litigation and entitled “Application for a Declaration of Nullity; in the alternative, a Notice of Appeal made ex debito justiciae”.[16]On 22nd May, under the heading “Urgent Interim Application” Miss Sheikh emailed the High Court’s Chancery Division, Queen’s Bench Division and Administrative Court. She stated that Sir Colin Rimer had asked her to refer the matter to the High Court. It transpires that what had happened was that Miss Sheikh had emailed Sir Colin’s former chambers and had received a short reply from a clerk to the effect that all enquiries should be directed to the High Court.[17]On 25th May, Miss Sheikh sent another email to the Chancery Division, the Queen’s Bench Division and the Administrative Court and dozens of other recipients. It attached the Impeachment Document and her draft Supreme Court application. There was also a new document attached which was headed:
“To the Interim Applications judges of the Chancery Division, QBD and Administrative Court”
. It made further reference to the Red River litigation.[18]On 26th May, Miss Sheikh forwarded her email and attachments of the previous day to a number of high profile Queen’s Counsel.[19]On 28th May, she sent an email covering similar ground to numerous well known recipients including: Boris Johnson PC MP, Andrew Marr, Janet Street-Porter and His Honour Judge Anthony Cross, to name but a few.[20]On 30th May, she sent another email to the CPS Private Office entitled:
“Report to Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, Criminal Bar Association to advise on the Red River Conveyancing and Mortgage Fraud”
. It was addressed to Sue Hemmings and Alison Saunders QC.[21]On 1st June, she issued a document addressed to the Secretary of State for Justice, the Lord Chief Justice and a number of other persons in senior positions with a heading referring to an application to Her Majesty the Queen and Parliament to impeach Briggs LJ, Henderson LJ and Sir Terence Etherton MR for conspiracies to defraud and steal.[22]On 7th June, Miss Sheikh circulated the documents containing her allegations to another large cohort of recipients who would appear on the face of it to comprise the greater proportion of all silks practising from chambers in London.[23]On 19th June, Miss Sheikh sent an email to the Secretary of State for Justice and senior judges requesting a listing before the Lord Chief Justice, the Chancellor of the High Court and the President of the Queen’s Bench Division sitting en banc.[24]On 29th June 2017 Miss Sheikh sent an email to the Court suggesting that the time estimate for this application should be either 56 days or 15 minutes.

THE HEARING

[25]The matter came before me on 5th July 2017. From the point of view of the applicants, the only issue to be resolved was as to whether or not the GCRO should be extended. Miss Sheikh, however, had other ideas. She asked that I should set aside the Red River claim and commit eight named barristers and solicitors for contempt of court. She succinctly summarised her applications to me in oral submissions thus:
“Stop the case now, put everyone in prison and give me everything.”
[26]There are a number of hurdles standing in the way of Miss Sheikh’s broader ambitions. Not the least of these is that no formal application has been made in support of them and they have not been made in compliance with the terms of the GCRO which was extended by Patterson J. In any event, applications to commit persons to prison must necessarily be formulated with the utmost care, supported by sufficiently compelling evidence and must allow the alleged contemnors a proper opportunity to respond. In these respects, Miss Sheikh’s applications fail even to get off the ground. In any event, I can discern no substantive merit lurking behind the procedural clutter of these initiatives.[27]The same must be said of her attempts to persuade me to revisit the orders and judgments of the court in the Red River litigation. Her avenues of appeal against the decisions in respect of which she continues to fight so passionately have long since been completely exhausted. I am in no doubt that the stress of this litigation combined with its financially catastrophic outcome has had the profoundest impact upon Miss Sheikh. It is to her credit that, notwithstanding the depth of her feelings, she was able to articulate her case to me with all due courtesy and presentational restraint. Unhappily, however, the substance of her allegations in this case are characterised by a complete failure of objectivity. She continues to assert that Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Sir Terence Etherton MR, Henderson LJ and Briggs LJ conspired together to steal her title to the development site and then shared between them the profit of £64,000,000. She further accuses them of torturing and unlawfully killing her mother. There is something almost poignant in the absurdity of these allegations based, as they are, upon no discernible evidence. At one point, Miss Sheikh submitted to me that the fraud was “too clever to be seen”. She does not, however, entertain the rather more mundane possibility that the reason it cannot be seen is because it does not exist.[28]There are some unlucky people for whom litigation becomes akin to an addiction; harmful, destructive and all-consuming. As with all other compulsions, the adverse impact is not only upon the sufferer but also upon those around them. In order to rationalise her conclusion that virtually every judge who has made a finding adverse to her and virtually every counsel who has represented the interests of those whom she opposes is part of a vast conspiracy of fraud, she has convinced herself that the United Kingdom is governed by a malevolent juristocracy the corrupting influence of which permeates through and contaminates other institutions including, but by no means limited to, the Land Registry and the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority.[29]In this regard, Miss Sheikh’s presentation fits precisely the all too familiar template of the obsessive litigant. The observations made by Swift J in respect of the respondent in Gray are generically apt to characterise the behaviour of so many persons against whom GCROs are properly deployed:
“The claimant is a man who has an obsessive and paranoid belief that every public body and public servant (including any judge who has had anything to do with one of his claims) is dishonest, corrupt and intent on persecuting him and preventing him from obtaining justice… One outlet for his preoccupation is litigation. It is clear – and has been confirmed by his behaviour today in court and by his submissions – that he will continue persistently to litigate in the Administrative Court in the future if he is not restrained from doing so. It is a gross waste of public resources for the courts – and indeed defendants – to have to deal with repeated claims made by the claimant which are totally without merit.”
[30]In her self-appointed role as champion of the common man and woman against the forces of institutionalised evil, Miss Sheikh has made no secret of her future intentions. She seeks permission “to intervene into every case in the UKSC, past and pending, where the law applied in that case conflicts with the precedents established by Briggs’ Fraudulent Instrument (which is probably every single case in history) where the case has already been determined, it should be set aside.”[31]It may be seen that her enthusiasm for litigation is matched only by her loathing and disdain for the judges, advocates and other litigants who play their respective parts in the process. Repeated adverse rulings provide her with no disincentive for her continuing persistent interventions and, on the contrary, serve only to strengthen further her all-pervading confirmation bias.[32]In these circumstances, I am in no doubt whatsoever that it is appropriate to extend the GCRO in these cases. I am entirely satisfied that if I were not to do so there would follow a blizzard of uncontrolled and unmeritorious claims seeking not only to resurrect the Red River litigation and to attack and harass all those whom she considers to be complicit in the “fraud” but also to seek to challenge a broad swathe of decisions of these courts the relevance of which to Miss Sheikh’s own grievances can be fathomed only by herself.

A POSTSCRIPT

[33]At the conclusion of the hearing of these applications, I reserved judgment. In the interim, Miss Sheikh’s applications and interventions have continued unabated.[34]In particular, on 10 July, she applied for an order that I should recuse myself from further involvement in the case. Her description of the background circumstances was no less vivid than its predecessors:
“This is a case in which a former Lord Chief Justice and two Lord Justices of Appeal have committed land fraud against two members of the public, stripping them of everything they owned and reducing them to abject poverty. It is claimed that there is a causal link between the fraud and the death of one of their victims, so it could be said that the judges are not only thieves, but are killers.”
[35]She goes on to assert:
“The vehicle of the fraud was Briggs’ Fraudulent Instrument which, if it is a court order, has established legal precedents which present the greatest threat ever known in the recorded history of civilisation.”
[36]The grounds upon which I am invited to recuse myself are these:
“My position at the hearing was that not only was it unrealistic to expect you to discharge your proper judicial function, it was unfair to you and in fact impossible for you to do so. The four principle (sic.) reasons are 1) Firstly, it would require an unprecedented demonstration of independence, integrity and courage for a High Court Judge to make a finding, even implicitly, that the Lord Chief Justice and two Lord Justices of the Court of Appeal are thieves. A judge who does that will quickly find himself marginalised and vilified. 2) Secondly, there is a culture of fear in the UK. The courts are gang controlled. The risk to your Lordship is far greater than being marginalised. I told you that a veteran MP who learned about the Red River Conveyancing and Mortgage Fraud has said “We all know about what is going on, but the problem is that MPs are terrified of the judges. The only way to deal with the problem is to shoot a judge and then shoot yourself!” 3) Thirdly, there are no proceedings before you … so your Lordship could be said to be masquerading as a judge. 4) Fourthly, by making any finding supporting the existence of a ‘composite transaction’ your Lordship may be also be guilty of land (sic.). It is unfair for the Red River Conspirators to put your Lordship in that position. If I am wrong, your Lordship has to explain why the entire case, as it has been put for the past 10 years by the Red River Conspirators, is based on the enforcement of one clause in a contract to the exclusion of the clause(s) which follows, in other words his Lordship has to discover why 100 or so High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court Judge (sic.), who embody the most brilliant legal minds in the country, insist on reading one page of a contract, but refuse to turn over the page and read the next clause or the next page which gives the preceding clause an entirely different meaning.” “We all know about what is going on, but the problem is that MPs are terrified of the judges. The only way to deal with the problem is to shoot a judge and then shoot yourself!”
[37]There is no evidence of actual bias in this case. I am entirely disinterested in the result with no discernible improper incentive, whether pecuniary or otherwise, to decide this application in one way or the other.[38]The test for apparent bias is whether the fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude there was a “real possibility” that the judge was biased (Porter v Magill [2002] 2 AC 357).[39]I am completely satisfied that no such observer could reach that conclusion on the facts of the present case and Miss Sheikh’s representations provide no credible basis upon which any contrary view could be entertained.[40]Finally, Miss Sheikh also applied in writing for an adjournment shortly before the judgment was to be handed down. Her submissions included the following: “At the last hearing, I submitted to Turner J that the case before him is not only the most significant case which has ever come before an English court in its 1000 year history, it is a case which asks the most important question ever asked in the history of civilisation since the birth of time… I had proposed to invite parties such as the editors of Tolley and academics, to name a few of the trillions of people whose rights and interests would be effected by his decision, to intervene in the case. (For a start, all books on contract law will have to be withdrawn and rewritten and changes would have to immediately be implemented to school and university syllabuses. There should probably some sort of Government notice published in the UK and throughout the world!)[41]Comment would be superfluous.

CONCLUSION

[42]It is not without irony that it is Miss Sheikh’s manoeuvrings in response to, and in anticipation of, the applications to extend the GCRO which have provided all, or almost all, of the material upon which the applications are now granted. I am in little doubt that she genuinely believes that the legal system of England and Wales is almost irredeemably corrupt and that only through her own persistence and resilience can there be any hope of a remedy. Indeed, it is the very strength of her convictions that fuels her inexhaustible, but as I have found misdirected, momentum. Be that as it may, her hyperbolic reaction to these applications leaves me with no option but to grant them and thus the GCRO will remain in place for the next two years over which time I would hope, but not expect, that Miss Sheikh’s undoubted energies may be redirected towards a goal more satisfying and life affirming than the chimera she has so relentlessly pursued over the last decade.

order

see, eg, CPR rr 3.3(5) and (6) ; 23.8 — 23.11 & PD23 11.2. Otherwise, if the proceedings are between the same parties, there will be issue estoppel; and in any case, the correct means of challenge will normally be by way of appeal. (4) Fourthly, as Mr Gray has emphasised, a CRO interferes with the right of access to a court. That is a fundamental civil right. The court must be alive to that, and wary of too readily imposing restrictions upon the right of access. Restrictions should be imposed only if and to the extent that they are necessary in the pursuit of a legitimate aim. In the case of a CRO the legitimate aims in view include the protection of the rights of others, to be free from the waste of time and precious resources that flow from the bringing of unfounded claims and applications. The scarce publicly funded resources of the court also require protection against such waste. These are considerations which justify the existence of the CRO regime. (5) In that context, the fifth point is important. A GCRO is not, as some of Mr Gray's submissions would suggest, a bar on the bringing of any proceedings. It imposes a permission filter. Permission filters are a well-established feature of civil and criminal procedure. They are most common as a way of controlling the use of appeal mechanisms. But permission is required to initiate a claim for judicial review. The court would not refuse permission to bring a claim of substance with arguable merit. What it might do, if presented with such a case, is to give directions to ensure that any untenable aspects of the claim were removed and to ensure that all remaining claims were conducted fairly and efficiently, did not consume disproportionate resources, and were otherwise dealt with in accordance with the overriding objective.”

Cited in 4 later judgments