The Leighton Judgement: On Sept 20 2023 The Leighton judgement was handed down to protect the public from having their property seized by debt collectors.

Campaign group PeaceKeepers has since promoted this judgement, as not only does it stop enforcement agents (formerly bailiffs) in their attempts to confiscate your possessions, it also opens a path towards suing them for harassment.

It is also a means to stop councils up and down the country from pursuing what PeaceKeepers assert to be an unlawful demand for money through council tax.

To obtain this tax, local authorities will use the threat of court action, bankruptcy, an attachment of earnings order (allowing for money to be taken directly from your wages), a charging order against your property (after which the council may look to sell your home out from under you) or, ultimately, imprisonment.

In summary, Leighton successfully sued the enforcement agency, Bristow & Sutor.

That success hinged on paragraph 26(1) (b) of Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, which states that an enforcement agent must show evidence to the debtor and any person who appears to be in charge of the premises upon request.

Ordinarily, when asked to evidence their authority to act, an enforcement agent will airily wave a bit of paper or show a screenshot produced by the council.

In this particular instance, Mr Leighton challenged the presumption that the bit of paper had any authority whatsoever; after all, most people own a printer these days.

Instead of cowing before the letter, Mr Leighton requested the court order itself.

The judge ruled that, although the enforcement officer was acting in good faith on a letter provided by the council, once Mr Leighton requested to see the actual authority itself (the court order) and not hearsay evidence provided to the enforcement agent by the council, then the grounds for the enforcement agent to act were removed.

In short, when asked, the enforcement officer must provide the actual order from the court. This is, to fair-minded people, not unreasonable, and the fact that they did not provide this ultimately paved the way to Mr Leighton’s successful claim for damages.

How different then is it to require the same of a judge, sitting at the request of a council, to make an order for any one of the following enforcement actions: an attachment of earnings order; a charging order; bankruptcy; and committal?

 For PeaceKeepers, it is no different and, as such, a number of challenges in this respect have been brought before the courts; specifically with respect to charging orders, where we have not yet had an opportunity to test this simple precedent to those other means employed by councils to extract payment.

All anyone is asking for is the original court order that proclaimed the debt.

A month or so back, in a charging order hearing where this simple request was made, the judge sitting at that time determined, despite its absence, to make a final charging order.

When challenged specifically on this point, the judge declared that he might be wrong (to require the order to be produced when challenged, as opposed to a reliance upon what is simply council paperwork) and that the person to whom the charging order would be applied would need to take it up with the circuit judge. An appeal has been lodged.

Then, a few weeks later in a similar hearing, and with the same request made, the judge adjourned the hearing so that the council or the respondent could produce the original court order.

As the judge noted, should the original court not be able to produce the order, then that would raise serious concerns in his mind !!

Lastly, hot on the heels of the adjournment above, a further charging order hearing took place where the defendant, having faithfully followed the PeaceKeeper protocols, turned up equipped to defend his property from a charge being applied in the absence of any demonstrable court order.

Startlingly, the council failed to attend (to our knowledge this has never happened before) and the judge, as is proper, gave a default judgement against the council, dismissing their application for a final charging order.

Something is happening within both the councils and the judiciary.

Perhaps the absurdity of having to force the judiciary to produce the alleged court order that creates the debt (we’ve never seen one despite numerous requests) is starting to dawn in the minds of our judges.

Let’s hope so, as these court orders are the root of so much harm through the taking of possessions, wages, homes, and liberty. Once this nonsense is dealt with, we can then get down to having the judiciary begin to answer much more important questions, like how can it be lawful that the Human Rights Act (1988) places the right of government to take what they want, when they want, howsoever they want, ahead of your basic human right to shelter? The NoCNoC challenge from PeaceKeepers – which questions the authority of councils to demand tax – is shortly to enter its fourth year.

People have taken up the challenge and, despite all the threats, have stood their ground to the point of risking their homes.

Despite the best efforts of the courts to ignore us, they are now having to pay attention to what it is that we are saying. The courts are finding that in all that we do, there is one simple request – to uphold the only inheritance of ours that matters: –

The rule of law. Leighton v Bristow Sutor Cardiff HCJ Judgment 20230920 V Final.pdf: https://tinyurl.com/3ht7p4xw Council-Tax Nov 2022 update: https://tinyurl.com/me455vnh https://peacekeepers.org.uk/