Alison Elizabeth Corbel & Anor v Nigel Henry Golding

Facts

The claimants, Mrs Alison Corbel and Mrs Veronica Elsden, brought a claim under CPR Part 8 in September 2024 for the removal of their brother, Mr Nigel Golding, as executor of the will of their late mother, Yvonne Golding. The defendant acknowledged service in October 2024 and filed a written response in December 2024, in which he emphasised an agreement he said he had made with his parents to buy a one quarter share in their home for £75,000, money said to have been needed to repay their interest-only mortgage. When the matter came before Deputy Master Bowles in January 2025, the evidence being complete, he treated the hearing as a disposal hearing, removed the defendant as executor, substituted his siblings, and ordered him to deliver up the original will within seven days and all other estate documents within 28 days. The defendant did not comply; his appeal was struck out after he failed to lodge a bundle in breach of an unless order made by Michael Green J. A further order in similar terms, with a penal notice, was made by Master Brightwell on the papers in September 2025, and again by Marcus Smith J on 9 June 2026. Two contempt applications followed, issued on 13 March and 13 July 2026.

Decision

Issues

• Whether the defendant knew of the terms of the orders requiring delivery up of the will and estate documents.
• Whether he acted or failed to act in a manner amounting to a breach of those orders.
• Whether he knew of the facts making his conduct a breach.
• What sentence, if any, should follow.
• Whether costs should be awarded and on what basis.

Reasoning

His Honour Judge Paul Matthews, sitting as a Judge of the High Court, directed himself that on an application to commit, the criminal standard applies to each of three elements: knowledge of the terms of the order, an act or omission breaching it, and knowledge of the facts making the conduct a breach. He took those elements from the discussion by Miles J in Business Mortgage Finance 4 Plc v Hussain, affirmed by the Court of Appeal, noting that while each element must be proved to the criminal standard, every individual fact or piece of evidence need not be. He bore in mind the defendant's right to silence and the need for a high standard of procedural fairness towards a litigant in person, though, as the Supreme Court held in Barton v Wright Hassall LLP, the law gives litigants in person no special dispensation from procedural or substantive rules. On knowledge, the defendant had been present in court when Deputy Master Bowles made his order; Master Brightwell's order bearing a penal notice had been posted to him; and the second affidavit of Emily Day established service of Marcus Smith J's order by the alternative means that order permitted. Breach was plain: nothing had been delivered up and no attempt at compliance made. The judge could not go behind the striking out of the appeal, so the Bowles order remained effective, and the defendant's claim to a one quarter share purchased for £75,000 was a standalone matter for other proceedings. On sentence, the judge noted the powers under rule 81.9 of the Civil Procedure Rules and the guidance on culpability and harm in Attorney General v Crosland, observing that Lightfoot v Lightfoot concerned freezing order disclosure and was not necessarily in point. Culpability was at the worst end of the spectrum; harm, though not the gravest, struck at the rule of law. Neither litigant-in-person status, age, hearing loss, nor his suspicion of his sisters mitigated. A provisional term of at least six months became seven, made conditional rather than suspended so as to secure compliance. Costs followed the event on the indemnity basis, the refusal to comply on three occasions being out of the norm.

Case history