[2025] EWHC 1955 (KB)

By way of his Additional Grounds of Appeal, Mr Askan alleged actual bias (as stated in the amended Application Notice) and/or apparent bias (asserted in the witness evidence). His central ground for doing so was ‘the unusual and inexplicable outcome’ rather than anything specifically said or done by the Judge demonstrating actual or perceived bias. The case is one, it seems, of having lost what Mr Askan regarded as an unlosable case on the merits, set against a history of what Mr Askan regards as similar treatments by judges in various Courts, both in and out of Wales. He attributes this ultimately to a targeted attack by certain employees of HMCTS. This latter point proceeds on the wholly misguided assumption that the allocation of cases to judges is a matter for HMCTS. It is not; it is a function of listing which is a judicial function.

The outcome of both the application to set aside the default judgment (insofar as relevant) and the trial before the Judge were far from inexplicable. I have absolutely no hesitation in confirming, having read those parts of the transcript provided to me, the Judgment, and much of the documentation before the Court, that the Judge dealt with a difficult case with professionalism and courtesy, and provided a well-reasoned judgment on the merits which not only is not arguably in error, but in my view, the correct answer in substance. It may be that Mr Askan has had personally unpleasant run-ins with members of the Club and feels aggrieved at the way he considers he has been treated by them: the rights and wrongs of such feelings are plainly nothing I can take a view upon. It is plain from the transcript that there is considerable bad blood, and no doubt the Club felt aggrieved at the Applicant’s conduct on land which, as Judge found and this Judgment confirms, the Club was entitled to consider it owned. Where any such antipathy extended to aggressive behaviour in Court, it was dealt with robustly and properly.

Notwithstanding the origin of Mr Askan’s present perception that he has been illegitimately deprived of land by a confluence of corruption on the part of the Club, its lawyers, HMCTS and/or the Land Registry, a dispassionate analysis of the evidence shows otherwise. Mr Askan would plainly have been aware on purchase of his property that the title did not include the Contested Land. It lay on the other side of a wall to the old Bank, and it was not obvious on what ground he could ever claim adverse possession on the part of the Bank; his own ‘possession’ since 2019 could never satisfy any legal test. The analysis of the historic records dating back to 1919 demonstrate that the registration of the land to the Club reflects the 216 square yards legitimately conveyed to the Club’s predecessors-in-title, in the same narrative terms through to 1997, the pre-registration conveyance. The suggestion that the 2004 registration was procured illegitimately is wholly without evidential foundation. The pronounced tendency to see shadows where none exist is no better exemplified than his allegations around the possession of land registry documents marked, ‘Internal Use Only’, where he is similarly in possession of such documents relating to his own property, sent to him legitimately by the Land Registry in 2024.

Although it is unlikely that his judgment will alter Mr Askan’s perception, I considered it important to deal in much more detail than might ordinarily be the case upon a renewed oral application for permission to appeal, in circumstances where I essentially agreed with the much more succinct reasons of Sir Peter Lane, when refusing permission on the papers. The outcome of this case is squarely a result of an objective analysis of the evidence. The allegation of actual or apparent bias is wholly without foundation and is, as Sir Peter Lane stated, abusive. The history of other cases about which Mr Askan complained is simply not relevant to a proper analysis of the appeal before me.