Dear Ministry of Justice,

Maidstone South-East Circuit Judge HHJ Wendy Backhouse

Please provide a list of dates of application hearings dates, both for possession hearings and for possession and sale hearings between May - August 2018, HHJ Backhouse has approved, in particular those applied for by solicitors on behalf of trustees in bankruptcy.

Please confirm for each application that was accepted by the court and then given approval by the judge for a future hearing to be held , if the approvals for these hearings is made whilst sitting in the county court hearing centre or in the District Registry.

Please list for each application made, the type of application applied for, the date the application was received by the court, the date the application was approved for a hearing.

Plus the date, time and place of the possession or possession and sale hearings endorsed by the court and if these hearings are to be/ or have been held in public or in private.

Please also confirm the full address of the county court hearing centre and district registry where these hearing took place or are due to take place.

How many possession or possession and sale hearings orders have been granted to a trustee in bankruptcy.

Yours faithfully,

Deb Williams

Dear LondonAndSouthEastKILO,

Thank you for your acknowledgement.

Also if your system holds the information, the date fees were paid, the amount, and to who they were paid (either the name of the county court hearing centre or the District Registry of the High Court etc), that would be great.

And for each of the application, please also list the basis for these applications, show which type of petition or application was lodged/filed and in which county court hearing centre or District Registry of the High Court that made the bankruptcy order:

(a) either a debtor's petition or debtor's application for adjudication

(b) either a uncontested creditor's petition or a contested creditor's petition

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear LondonAndSouthEastKILO,

I am sorry to hear that HMCTS have taken from 2 August until 20 August to confirm that you can not release the information you hold due to cost constraints.

This information should be readily available and held on your computerised systems.

Please reduce down this request as follows and provide the information within the time period left to comply with the FOIA.

Applications put before HHJ Backhouse within the first week that the new Insolvency Practice Directions came into force on the 4 July 2018, that amended April 2018 due to the South East being severely criticised for their discrepancies and bad practices when dealing with insolvency work compared to the rest of the country, hopefully this will no longer be tolerated and discontinued.

All hearing dates from today until the end of the month.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear LondonAndSouthEastKILO,

You are mistaken this is not to be treated as a new request, it is to be treated as the orginial request and within the original timeframe of 3 September 2018 to comply with the FOIA law.

It is MOJ/HMCTS who chose not to declare until 18 days later that the time-period needed to be reduced down as it would be too costly to answer.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear LondonAndSouthEastKILO,

Apologises, please be so kind as to include all hearing dates for the first week in September and orders made in that week.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Ministry of Justice,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Justice's handling of my FOI request 'Maidstone South-East Circuit Judge HHJ Wendy Backhouse'.

The court is not being asked to identify any individual or provide personal data just to provide the figures that relate to orders made by a judge in a court who is paid from the public purse.

The court must not be allowed to hide behind data protection when the public interest test must be applied to judges operating in the public interest "not private interests" of local authorities being treated as private creditors and using out sourced contractors all paid for from the public purse.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...

Yours faithfully,

Deb Williams

Dear LondonAndSouthEastKILO,

How many orders are being approved for possession or possession and sale behind closed doors and without notice, that relate to contested bankruptcy hearings and bankruptcy orders being obtained by local authorities acting as private creditors through their out sourced contractors, unlawfully in the first place.

So they can benefit from huge fees and obtain a family home and sell it off at a much reduced price to "a chosen bonafide purchaser for value" who can pretend they did not know of the true interests and of the real owners of the property.

Of course the same contracted out solicitors firm who put in the applications will have control of the sale for their clients for (both their chosen trustee and the local authority who instructed them).

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear LondonAndSouthEastKILO,

Apologises, please ignore the last message, it was supposed to be an annotation for the world to see what is happening within the UK courts and not meant to be sent to the courts because they already know.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Roberts, Richard,

Yes, I am asking for insolvency matters connected to contested creditor's bankruptcy petition cases.

How many application and how many orders were made, orders made from 4 July to 7 September 2018

Please can you clarify if the County Court is a limited court of jurisdiction that has only ever been given the powers to hear general insolvency matters and not contested and opposed creditor's bankruptcy petition hearings against natural individuals ?

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Roberts, Richard,

This is not a new request. I have merely confirmed the dates you asked for and asked for clarification as to the limited general insolvency jurisdiction.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Roberts, Richard,

Where does it say in the FOIA that the MOJ had the right to close my FOI request ?

This request was put in on the 2 August 2018 then delayed by MOJ until 20 August who tried to log it as a new FOIA request, who then refused to release the information on the 14 September resulting in a request for a internal review.

MOJ then stated they were unclear as to the nature of the request but were satisfied that the response received from them was not compliant with the requirements of the FOIA.

My original request has not changed and there should be no need for any further delay after taking nearly 3 months and receiving clarification as to the reduced time-frame.

FOIA permits 20 working days but does not say you are supposed to take this long or abuse the process as a delaying tactic to avoid providing the information your department holds.

If you do not hold this information due to court or judge not having the insolvency jurisdiction please say so.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Roberts, Richard,

Please confirm when this FOI request will be answered that is long over-due?

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Roberts, Richard,

Thank you for confirming that the London Regional Support Unit should have replied, unfortunately they have not.

The MOJ is already aware that The County Court hearing centre at Maidstone, is on the South- East Circuit that Circuit Judge HHJ Wendy Backhouse has been appointed to.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Ministry of Justice,

The last message received is dated 3 January 2019 stating that Richard Roberts would be out of the office until 6 November 2018?

Yours faithfully,

Deb Williams

Dear Disclosure Team,

The original request was put in on the 2 August 2018 and is long over-due and a internal review on 14 September 2018.

If you type the following heading below into the whatdotheyknow website it will show all the dates both messages sent and received.

Maidstone South-East Circuit Judge HHJ Wendy Backhouse

Please provide a list of dates of application hearings dates, both for possession hearings and for possession and sale hearings between May - August 2018, HHJ Backhouse has approved, in particular those applied for by solicitors on behalf of trustees in bankruptcy.
Please confirm for each application that was accepted by the court and then given approval by the judge for a future hearing to be held , if the approvals for these hearings is made whilst sitting in the county court hearing centre or in the District Registry.

Please list for each application made, the type of application applied for, the date the application was received by the court, the date the application was approved for a hearing.

Plus the date, time and place of the possession or possession and sale hearings endorsed by the court and if these hearings are to be/ or have been held in public or in private.

Please also confirm the full address of the county court hearing centre and district registry where these hearing took place or are due to take place.

How many possession or possession and sale hearings orders have been granted to a trustee in bankruptcy.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Disclosure Team,

When will the disclosure team be disclosing the information requested including the application made to transfer a county court possession order made by HHJ Backhouse up to the High Court for enforcement.

Can you also confirm why her possession order did not state which division of the High Court it could appealed to?

If HHJ Backhouse is immune from stating on her possession order (granted to a trustee of the council's choosing ) to which division of the High Court it must be appealed (with or without an application to seek permission to transfer the county court order up to the High Court) please say so.

Yours sincerely,

Deb Williams

Dear Ministry of Justice,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Ministry of Justice's handling of my FOI request 'Maidstone South-East Circuit Judge HHJ Wendy Backhouse.

I do believe that HMCTS /MOJ is hoping to conceal fraud being committed or allowed to be committed within the Chancery Division RCJ ICC by refusing to ensure that the Authorised High Court Enforcement Officer is named on any Writ of Execution for possession of a family home. And is well aware that execeesive force can not and must not be used against domestic homes

And that all Certifcated Enforcement ( Bailiff) Agents must idenfiy themselves and the name of the company they are authorised to work for otherwise it is their intention to illegally obtain entry dishonestly and to cause a loss and make a gain for the trustees/ others by false representation and by failing to disclose information and abusing their position.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/m...

Yours faithfully,

Deb Williams