AS A LITIGANT IN PERSON

Is it worth it?

I have had the pleasure over the last two years of dealing with a legal case alone because in my crazy, misguided world I decided that the police should be held accountable under the law for their wrongs. I must have been in an idealistic state of mind when I started my claim against them. Little me , standing up for myself, the under-dog (coz let’s face it no one else is going to). Just to clarify before I start, the police have no duty towards victims whatsoever. The law does nothing for victims in that regard. So you cannot sue the police just for not investigating a crime or for not charging an offender. But they do have a duty not to discriminate on grounds of disability and they have a duty not to act in bad faith.

After having been assaulted by a couple of thugs on a train back in December 2020 because I had no muzzle on, and after the transport police decided to twist matters so that they could basically let the guys off whilst reporting me to mental health services and lying about the incident and attempting to make it look as if I had done something ‘bizarre’, I started a complaints process. First off I tried to get the CCTV under my subject access rights. No joy. They refused. They forced me to court to get it. The judge then got me to apply for it as ‘pre-action disclosure’ although at that point I had not yet made any claim. The police barrister lied on their behalf in court claiming they ‘did not know if they had the CCTV any more’, when their communications with me up to that point showed clearly that they knew very well they had possession of it. They gave up in the end and before the second hearing they sent me the CCTV. I agreed with them ‘no order to costs’ up to that point. All well and good. The CCTV confirmed my suspicions that there was plenty of evidence for the police to have charged at least one of the guys with assault (it was actually assault and battery and also criminal damage).

I would just like to make it clear that I did not want my assailant to go to prison. The reason however that I wanted him at least to be charged with the assault was because I have had violent crimes committed against me many times by men and the police have never done their job and always managed to treat me like shit. Any mental health diagnosis and the police have a green light to blame the victim (must be the nutter’s fault). I however myself have been charged and convicted of many minor offences (which nowadays people would not even be arrested for) but the police have never let me off. This left me with a criminal record so that after they brought the criminal records checks in around 2003 (after the Soham murders) , it meant I could no longer get a job nor pursue the work I was qualified to do. The music I involved in my work helping people with learning disabilities I could no longer do yet I have never posed any risk to children or vulnerable adults.

I suppose therefore I felt a need for revenge against the police if I am honest. It wasn’t the particular Officer Plod and Officer Piddle concerned that were the problem. It was all officers who represent the British state. The tools that allow the regime to keep oppressing us.

There were many lies in the police paperwork . The MG5 (where they write down what is on the video footage and also a summary of the incident was a dishonest report, deliberately biased against me to make it look like somehow I deserved to be assaulted. In the incident log which logs all the work done on the incident by various officers, the sergeant concerned misrepresented my witness statement, as did the Witness at Case Officer. They tried to make it look as if the guy had just grabbed my ipod and thrown if off the train (which he did) but he also assaulted me physically, hurting my back in the process. The crime I reported was one of assault and battery as well as criminal damage. However when the police (5 months down the line) bothered to interview the offender they did not ask him if he committed the assault at all. Instead they asked him if I (the victim) had assaulted him! Yet he had not reported any crime against him at the time, because there wasn’t one, certainly not committed by me. At the scene he just gave a false name and no doubt having his big black mask on helped him in that.

My claim in the end was for breach of duties with regard to the the Data Protection Act, also breach of the Equalities Act 2010, misfeasance in public office, and breach of Human Rights, Article 8 and 14. Article 8 (which is right to privacy and family life) ties up with the Data issues. Article 14 is not being discriminated against with regard to your rights (I am still not clear on that one). The law is always unfinished business and reading the Civil Procedure Rules is like reading the phone book whilst cross referencing it with Finnegans Wake in HTML code. Our traitorous parliament are making the legislation with only themselves in mind, and their lawyers. They forget that the law was not made for lawyers. It was made for you and me. Judges who find litigants in person irritating could do well to remember that.

The police put in an application to strike out my claim. They lied in their witness statement . The Judge clearly found me to be a bee in his bonnet and implied that I should know my place and only silly women would have the cheek to expect the police to do an honest job. I did however manage to show that the police were wrong in claiming that the disputed data was not my personal data. However the judge still would not accept that the police had their facts wrong because to the judge all police data is mere ‘opinion’. Even when the facts are there in black and white on CCTV.

‘Hey Officer look tape counter ref 03.40 …. there’s a guy trying to strangle a woman’

‘Allo Allo Allo, tape counter ref 03.40 ……. ahh I see pinky elephants..’

No matter, just his ‘opinion’.

The judge appeared to be privy to information (in his summing up) that had not been made known to me. This is not permitted in a civil case for obvious reasons there should be transparency on both sides. Disclosure cannot just be for one party. Eventually after a couple of hours of nonsense, I walked out of the court.

The result …. Claim struck out …. £5000 costs awarded against myself. To be paid in three weeks from date of order.

I am appealing that Order obviously. £5000 costs is punitive and ridiculous and frankly, as this case arose from me being a victim of crime for which I got no redress, an affront to justice.

Is it worth it? The enormous amount of stress this has caused me over the last two years and the work involved has been immense. So my answer to that is a definite ‘no’. We can never win by playing them at their own game. Instead we must bin their game, bin them, and play by our own rules.