The former chief executive of Stobart Group has been denied permission to allege that solicitors from a London firm were involved in an unlawful conspiracy against him.

William Andrew Tinkler had been dismissed from the board of Stobart, which owns Carlisle and Southend airports, for alleged breach of contract in 2018. Stobart had won a court declaration in 2019 that Tinkler had been lawfully dismissed as an employee and removed as a director. 

He had brought a claim in unlawful means conspiracy against Stobart, now known as Esken Ltd, Iain Ferguson CBE, who was the non-executive chair of Stobart Group Limited, Warwick Brady, who was an executive director and had succeeded Tinkler as the CEO and Ian Soanes, an employee and director of Stobart Capital Ltd.

Tinkler had also brought allegations of fraud against Brady, Ferguson and SGL, all of which were dismissed by Mr Justice Leech in the High Court.

But he then applied for permission to pursue solicitors Anthony Field and Ian Rosenblatt of Rosenblatt - the firm representing all the defendants apart from Soanes - over claims they were parties to a conspiracy to delete or conceal documents.

The court heard Tinkler had served letters of claim on Field and Rosenblatt and alleged ‘they were parties to the conspiracy and that, if necessary, he would apply to join them and a company called RBG Legal Services Ltd (“RBG”) at a later date’ to his claim, the court heard.

But in Tinkler v Esken Ltd & Ors, Mr Justice Leech today struck out Tinkler’s claims, arguing they either had no prospect of success or were an abuse of process.

The court heard Tinkler’s previous legal representatives - Clyde & Co - ‘drew back from making the serious allegation that Mr Field or Mr Rosenblatt or any other fee earners at Rosenblatt was guilty of destroying documents or deliberately withholding them from Mr Tinkler’. Mr Justice Leech explained: ’If his legal team had made such an allegation without any proper basis and it had failed, then Mr Tinkler’s solicitors and counsel were themselves at risk of disciplinary proceedings.’

The judge said it would be abusive to allow Tinkler, who now represents himself, ‘to continue to advance a general and unparticularised allegation of conspiracy against the defendants and Rosenblatt’.

Tinkler’s conspiracy claim was struck out and he was ordered to pay the costs of the claim.