QB-2018-004997 - [2025] EWHC 2301 (KB)

Responsibility for the horses

It was put the Claimant that the horses she was moving were hers. She was adamant that that was not the case, they had never been her horses. It was put to her that she had looked after them since 2020. She denied that. Ms Timmis gave supportive evidence on this point.

The Claimant was asked about looking after horses. It was put to her that she tended to horses in the morning before coming to work. She said that was not correct. The photograph of her hands and the transcript of her investigatory meeting with her then employer, Jonathan Whiting, were shown to her. She said that she did not recall the matter of her dirty hands being raised. The part of the transcript where she explained why she came to work in dirty clothes was put and she said that she did not recall saying that. She said it was the first time she had seen the document. (As I noted above, the documents were in fact obtained pursuant to an order granted by Master Davison in November 2023 which required disclosure by the end of February 2024. They had been included in the trial bundle.)

The Claimant was taken back to the subject of horses on the second day of her evidence. She again said that she did not think she said what was on the transcript (although she later appeared to accept that she had said it) but she added that she did look after the horses she had moved for a week at the end of March 2022 at the request of Shireen. She invited a construction of her answers that they simply related to the week she was looking after the horses for Shireen. When therefore she said,

“…usually I arrive in civilian clothes because I have horses, so, normally I would go to the horses, and then arrive in those clothes so as not to get my work clothes dirty.”

‘normally’ in this context therefore meant normally that week she was looking after the horses but not normally at other times. Ms Timmis’ evidence was that the Claimant looked after her horses when she had broken her leg and that was for quite a long time.

The Claimant was asked about her message to her mother in July 2022 in which she said she was just feeding the horses. The Claimant’s evidence is that this must have been a ‘one-off’ at the request of Shireen Timmis.