Perjury in county court ?

[TOMMIEBOY]

Forgive me if this is in the wrong place

 

I have issued a small claim against a builder who wrecked my car with a concrete from a cement mixer, now in their defence they claimed they sent me a letter in reply to my letter before action offering to settle the matter outside of court but have withdrawn that offer now as I have taken court action and told the court I was being unreasonable not giving them time or replying to their letter.

 

However they have back dated the letter to look like that but they just popped a 2nd class stamp on it and it was posted the same day as they filed their defence. So they have clearly lied on their defence statement by saying they offered to resolve the matter but I ignored their reply. Clearly they did not think about post marks.

 

What is my best course of action thanks

 

 

 

HERES A LITTLE TIMELINE

 

20/07/21I SENT A LETTER BEFORE ACTION ( NO REPLY )

 

03/08/21 I ISSUE SUMMONS

 

07/08/21 SUMMONS DEEDED SERVED

 

07/08/21 DEFENCE LOGGED

 

10/08/21 I get their letter offering to settle before court action, letter is dated 25/07/21 but postmarked 07/08/20

[honeybee13]

Hi.

 

I've moved you to the General Legal forum for further advice.

 

Do you already have a thread about this?

 

HB

[TOMMIEBOY]

No this is the only one I posted and thanks

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by dx100uk
unnecessary previous post quote removed

[BankFodder]

There is nothing to worry about and in fact if you can prove what you are saying then it will help you later.

Please monitor this thread for a fuller reply later

 

In the meantime, please will you tell us the whole story and post up your claim form and also the defence in pdf format

[TOMMIEBOY]

Thank you I will do tonight once I am home

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by dx100uk
unnecessary previous post quote removed

[BankFodder]

Okay.

First of all the situation you described is not "perjury". If they referred to some offer to settle in their defence and falsely given an impression as to the date the offer was made then this would be a breach of the statement of truth which they will have signed at the bottom of the defence and this could amount to a contempt of court.

In other words it would be for the judge to take the initiative and to take the necessary action against the defendant. It would not be a perjury which would be a separate prosecutable offence.

I think those I think there's not much else we can say until we know the story, we have seen your claim, their defence, your letter of claim – and there apparent letter offering some kind of settlement.

Presumably you have kept the postmarked envelope?

What is the value of the claim?

Who is the builder?

One would normally expect builder to have some kind of insurance.

On the facts as you state them to us, your chances of success are better than 95% – but we need to understand the whole situation fixed.

If there really has been an attempt to mislead the court in the way you describe then this could be a basis for asking the court to exercise discretion to award litigant in person costs – assuming that the claim is for less than £10,000 anyway.

If the claim is for more than £10,000 then you would be looking at recovering your costs anyway.

 

[TOMMIEBOY]

Ok some more detail

 

I do have the  postmarked envelope which is 07/08/21 and I got 10/08/21 as 2nd class stamp

The actual letter inside is dated 25/07/21

 

 

 

The builder lives at the end of my street which is only 6 houses and we do not see eye to eye to say the least, I have a private drive that I park on land that is on my deeds. he started some work on his drive which has a footpath between mine and his of about 4 foot. He place a cement mixer on the footpath facing my car and used it all day covering the full length of my car with concrete and it wasn,t until late evening I came out to see it.

 

Comforted him and he offered a fiver to wash it down !! I took the car to a body shop who quoted £1350 to repair the damage and gave me a quote, in his defence he claims it was just dirt and would wash off with soap and water.

 

In his defence he admits he took pictures before he started as he knew there would be trouble.

 

In my mind he binned the letter before action as an empty threat and when the summons landed he has backed tracked

 

I think i have uploaded the defence right

 

Doc_20210812_212626.pdf

[BankFodder]

What about the claim form, the letter of claim and also his response

[BankFodder]

Still not really possible to form a view on this without seeing the rest of the documents which I asked for over 14 hours ago.