Mr Jim Kenyon: Once a liar always a liar – Legal Aid?

Ferret has been contacted by someone who has made very serious allegations about Mr Jim Kenyon – Chair Hemsworth Town Council.

He says he vividly remembers Mr Kenyon telling him he injured himself playing football a few years ago and no this wasn’t while he was playing with Kevin Keegan or representing England, but for a local team.

Apparently as the alleged incident goes, younger Jim sustained injuries playing in the weekend game. Jimmy was unable to “fix it”, sounds strange but apparently true, so he did the next best thing and being the brave soul that he is, he went to work on the Monday morning. Whilst at work, Jimmy had an accident whilst doing his pub deliveries.

Talk about co-incidences, our Jim sustained the same injuries, in the same places, as he did playing football the day before.

Mr Jim Kenyon then lodged a claim against the owners for negligence and sought a pay-out of over £300000, with an upper limit in excess of £1million pounds. In case you think you’ve misread that figure, here it is again, THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS TO IN EXCESS OF £1 MILLION POUNDS.

Ferret being Ferret sniffed around and as expected could not find any documentary evidence to support the football injury aspect to the alleged incident but persistent and deeper sniffing brought Ferret to unearth the actual papers from the Court case that Kenyon brought against the defendants.

It was heard at Leeds County Court; the full papers are below.

On reading these, Ferret was puzzled that although Mr Kenyon won the claim and was awarded the sum of £35 000, he was ordered to pay the defendants’ costs of £1305 pounds.
Very unusual thought Ferret, the loser in a case usually pays the costs of both sides not the winner.
Ferret continued his research and found the following explanation as to why the judge took this unusual step, here are a few reasons and will begin to explain why ferret has brought this story to your attention whether the football aspect is true or false, although Ferret has no reason to doubt the source as all the other information has checked out.

The general rule is that the unsuccessful party will be ordered to pay the costs of the successful party.  The Court may, however, make a different order: CPR 44.2(2).
CPR 44.2(4) provides that in deciding what (if any) order to make about costs, the Court will have regard to all circumstances, including:

1. The conduct of all the parties;
2. Whether a party has succeeded on part of its case, even if that party has not been wholly successful; and
3. Any admissible offer to settle made by a party which is drawn to the court’s attention and which is not an offer to which costs consequences under Part 36 apply.

CPR 44.2(5) provides that the conduct of the parties includes:

1. Conduct before, as well as during, the proceedings and in particular the extent to which the parties followed the Practice Direction: Pre-Action Conduct or any relevant pre-action protocol;
2. Whether it was reasonable for a party to raise, pursue or contest a particular allegation or issue;
3. The manner in which a party has pursued or defended its case or a particular allegation or issue; and
4. Whether a claimant who has succeeded in the claim, in whole or in part, exaggerated its claim

Now Mr Kenyon as you can see from the court papers had sought damages in excess of £300000 to in excess of £1 million pounds. He was awarded £35,000 so somewhat of an exaggeration by any standards and now decide for yourselves how many of the other criteria Mr Kenyon will have met.

Do not let me prejudice you by saying that an offer to settle could have been made prior to the hearing?

Or

Was it because of his conduct?

Or

The manner it was pursued or defended etc.

Or

Never accepting advice, that doesn’t come from Kenyon knows best la la land?

The reason that this is important now, is we all now know of Kenyon’s disasters with Court Cases, loss after loss after loss. We have the biggest case in the history for this community approaching with Saul Construction Limited v Hemsworth Town Council as defendants. It has been highlighted Hemsworth town Council have a very poor chance of even winning round 1 as stated by their own legal advisors and even if they do they will then be sued for £2.5 million pounds of restitution costs and could well still potentially face having to pay the costs of Saul Construction Limited due to the way the case has been dealt with by Mr Kenyon.

So, Heads or Tails the loss could be even bigger than we are expecting.

There is one more twist to this story and probably the most important, Kenyon was awarded £35,000 pounds by the court in 2011, less the £1305 pounds costs awarded against him (Ferret has to wonder if he actually paid them) but how was Mr Kenyon then able to claim and be awarded Legal aid to continue his vendetta to pursue his legal cases against Saul Construction Limited and Wakefield Council?

He must surely have been above the financial eligibility threshold with this pay-out?