This is a raw and gripping story of one man’s battle against the odds – and the system. Part memoir, part legal thriller and part whistle-blower diary, this is a book that confronts a world rife with denial in the English local council, civil court and police systems. Revealing how things really work, it starkly describes a collective group corruption of the entire system.
It is a story where “they” rely on the law of the jungle, where might is right. It’s a place where brute force and self-interest reign supreme. It’s a harsh unyielding place, devoid of ethics or justice. Ultimately it is a contemporary David and Goliath story.
The narrative follows the Litigant’s progress from unwitting council whistle blower, into a Kafkaesque world of internal council kangaroo courts, run by a small seaside council. This is followed by a self-proclaimed independent appeal process, were the systems are already corrupted and everything is structured for them to always win and the lone individual, to always lose. Facts are what they decide before a hearing. Fairness is forgotten.
Having exhausted this dishonest process of eye opening, mind bending hearings and got nowhere, the Litigant realised that although he had been overpowered, he was now in a unique position. Having retained all his claim paperwork from the council debacle, he incidentally possessed the makings of an evidence file for a civil claim and coincidently a manuscript for a book to expose the whole sordid story. It occurred to him that if he pressed on by himself he could end up in the unique first time position of being the only, (known) litigant in person to pursue his claims through the entire civil system until the absolute end of the process, appeals and all, and record his journey.
The Litigant entered a world of smoke and mirrors, an upside down world where justice is an illusion and the rule of law is just an aspiration. It’s a legal La La Land where truth is distorted, consent assumed but never given and the goalposts are moved in their favour, at will. His lone journey over thirteen years demonstrates first-hand, all the procedural underhand tricks, ploys, institutional frauds and breath-taking impunity that they deploy to defeat him at any price.
Here a Litigant is treated like a criminal and justice is a game played out by those who hold the power. These are players who have no intention of being fair and who use every effort to bring the process to a premature end at every stage. To them the Nolan Principles are for wimps: The Localism Act 2011? Bring it on. They do not play by the rules, the law or the rule of law.
He exposes an unsettling reality stranger and more disturbing than fiction. It makes for shocking reading. The Litigants record of event’s lifts the veil of respectability from the system, on his journey through the many warped layers of the local authority and English civil legal system, including several futile approaches to the police.
Every chapter delves deeper into a bureaucratic underworld that subverts the righteous and protects the corrupt. Finally stopped in the High Court of Justice Appeal Court by a legal brick wall; his court case came to an abrupt end. Beaten but not broken, he wrote this book.
His is a searing indictment of systematic denial. It’s the local council and English civil law system on trial. It’s more than personal testimony; it’s a social reckoning that will resonate with many.