Case No. CR-2019-LDS-000669

162.It is common in petitions presented under s994 of the Companies Act 2006 for the evidence to range widely. Such petitions are also likened to family divorce petitions and are sometimes referred to as “company divorce petitions”. Especially where the dispute is a family one, the bitterness and history of the matter can result in allegations going back over many years. In this case I have attempted to focus on the relevant matters alleged before me and have not attempted to resolve allegations and counter allegations going back over many years which would have little relevance to the main allegations. Thus, by way of example, the causes of failure of earlier family companies and whether one or more members of the family were incompetent or not are not issues that I found helpful to resolve, not least given the limited materials before me. I am grateful to Counsel for limiting cross-examination without any prompting from me, in line with my general approach that I have just outlined.163.In assessing the accuracy and truthfulness of witnesses, I am faced with the similar problems that faced Mr Andrew Lenon KC. It was submitted to me that Lisa substantially won the case that she had brought concerning the various family properties and which Mr Lenon dealt with in his judgment. This is undeniably true but it is important to have regard to what he said about the evidence of each of the witnesses. In this context he had particular things to say about the evidence from “family members”.164.In particular, it is clear that he did not simply find those members of the family who can be viewed as being in the “camp” of the first three defendants before me (including Charles himself) as being untruthful or inaccurate and that Lisa and those who gave evidence for her (including David) were truthful and accurate witnesses. I deal with what he said about each witness when dealing with that witness. For present purposes however, I refer to what he said as a matter of generality when considering the family witnesses who gave evidence before him:“The evidence of the family witnesses mainly addressed the informal agreements and understandings which it was alleged had been made concerning the disputed properties and chattels. Taking into account the inevitable fallibility of the witnesses in recalling past events, particularly events which took place many years ago, the motives of the witnesses in giving evidence concerning matters in which they had a direct financial interest, their ingrained sense of what they and other family members are entitled to and their strong personal feelings towards the other family members, I came to the conclusion that I should treat the evidence of the family witnesses with considerable caution. As noted by Robert Goff LJ in Armagas Ltd v Mundogas SA [1985] 1 Lloyd's Rep 1, 57: “It is frequently very difficult to tell whether a witness is telling the truth or not; and where there is a conflict of evidence such as there was in the present case, reference to the objective facts and documents, references to the witness' motives and to the overall probabilities can be of very great assistance to a judge in ascertaining the truth.”165.The matters that Mr Andrew Lenon KC articulates as the reasons for his conclusion that he should treat the evidence of family members with considerable caution are matters (also apparent in these proceedings) that I too take into account in reaching the same conclusion that he did. 166.The motives, engrained sense of entitlements and strong personal feelings about other members of the family, identified by Mr Lenon, also feed fire to the undoubted truth, helpfully and pithily summarised by Knowles J in the Family Division that: “Memory becomes fainter with every day that passes and the imagination becomes correspondingly more active. Thus, contemporary documents are always of the utmost importance” (And D v B, C and E [2022] EWHC 3089 (Fam) at paragraph [49]).167.As regards the difficulty of assessing the “demeanour” of a witness as a guide to truth and accuracy and the effect on memory of a continued re-consideration of a case and of documents over time, I would also refer briefly to the convenient summary set out in the judgment of Warby J (as he then was) in R (Dutta) v General Medical Council [2020] EWHC 1974 (Admin) at paragraphs 39 to 41 where he said (with emphasis removed, and inserting sub-paragraph numbers for bullets in the extracts from the judgment in the Kimathi case, referred to below): “[39] There is now a considerable body of authority setting out the lessons of experience and of science in relation to the judicial determination of facts. Recent first instance authorities include