A claimant has been ordered by the High Court to pay indemnity costs for a witness statement filed in ‘serious’ breach of the rules which required amendments to almost every single paragraph.

Richard Farnhill, sitting as a High Court judge, ordered construction training firm McKinney Plant & Safety to pay costs of nearly £10,000 on the indemnity basis over its ‘significant non-compliance’ with Practice Direction 57AC.

The company sought to rely on a second witness statement from one of its directors, Michael McKinney, in its claim for alleged breach of contract against the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), which was told its objections to the statement ‘fall into the category of nit-picking’.

However, after Farnhill raised ‘significant concerns’ that the statement did not comply with PD57AC, the claimant accepted that it was not compliant with the practice direction and said it would apply for relief from sanctions and file a revised statement.

In a ruling published yesterday, Farnhill said the original statement contained ‘extensive commentary giving Mr McKinney’s views on other evidence that was not available to Mr McKinney at the time of the events giving rise to this dispute’ and ‘extensive submissions’.

McKinney also ‘criticised the defendant’s witnesses’ and failed to provide a list of documents referred to or reviewed by him, while the confirmations of compliance with PD57AC from him and his lawyer were only given two weeks after the statement was signed.

The claimant filed written submissions, at the request of the judge, with ‘a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis … indicating which paragraphs it accepted were noncompliant, which needed amendment and which it considered to be compliant’, Farnhill said, adding: ‘Only seven out of 102 paragraphs survived unscathed.’

The judge noted that CITB objected that the new witness statement filed by the claimant, which featured ‘very significant’ revisions, still contained ‘commentary on aspects of or other evidence in the case’. However, he said that the issue of any non-compliance with PD57AC could be dealt by the trial judge.

McKinney Plant & Safety was ordered to pay CITB’s costs on the indemnity basis in the sum of £9,588 plus VAT. Farnhill said indemnity costs were appropriate given the ‘serious’ breach of PD57AC, the claimant’s ‘dismissive approach’ to the defendant’s concerns and its failure to engage with the issue of non-compliance until shortly before the PTR.