A solicitor whose professional reputation was ‘dragged through the mud’ by a judge last year will not face contempt of court proceedings over an unintentionally inaccurate witness statement.

The Business and Property Courts decision follows an application hearing for permission to start committal proceedings against Louise Reeves and solicitor Daniel Curnock, in relation to a false statement made by each of them during ‘bitterly contested’ probate proceedings in respect of Louise’s late father Kevin Reeves’ £100m estate.

Mrs Justice Joanna Smith acknowledged there was a risk that the contempt had been made 'out of a vindictive desire to punish Louise Reeves for her pursuit of the proceedings’ and was ‘purely as a means of harassing’ Curnock by the claimants Simon, also known as Bill, Reeves and Ryan McKinnon.

Louise Reeves received 80% of her father’s estate, with her half-sister Lisa Murray receiving the other 20% in accordance with a 2014 will. Other family members opposed probate being granted. A will prepared in 2012 had split the estate more equally across the deceased’s relatives, including Bill Reeves.

A High Court judge last year ruled in favour of Bill Reeves and the 2012 will. In that judgment, Mr Justice Michael Green lambasted Curnock as 'a most unsatisfactory witness'.

Curnock admitted that the final paragraph of a witness statement made in December 2019 for those proceedings was inaccurate. He had claimed to have met Louise Reeves for the first time only after the 2014 will was signed. Emails disclosed later suggested that was not the case. Curnock denied that his statement was knowingly false or made intentionally or recklessly or intended to interfere with the administration of justice.

The latest judgment acknowledges that Curnock’s statement was made years after the meeting ‘without access to key documents and in circumstances where his professional relationship with Louise had continued after the 2014 will, thereby increasing the risk of confusion over precise dates.’

Many ‘far more likely’ inferences could be drawn on the available evidence about Curnock’s false statment, the judge said, including that ‘Mr Curnock, as a busy practitioner, was most unlikely to remember such a meeting absent a documentary prompt (particularly where his note of the meeting on that day obviously did not refer to his having met Louise); that…he confused the timing of the meeting etc.’

She added: ‘The fact that he was an experienced solicitor in the field of wills and probate does not appear to me to change matters.’

Suggestions that the court should approach false statements from solicitors differently, or that there is ‘some form of enhanced duty of honesty in probate proceedings’ were rejected by the judge.

She added: ‘In my judgment, this case does not begin to get off the ground. Just as the claimants’ case against Louise seems to be heavily premised upon an assumption of nefarious activity, so the same applies here.

‘The bottom line here is that Mr Curnock made a single false statement of truth in his statement to the court six years after the events with which his statement was concerned in circumstances where there is no evidence that he had any clear understanding of the nature of the issues in the proceedings or the scope of the existing disclosure.

‘Upon discovering that it was false, he corrected it and no longer maintained his original position. The court was not in any way misled by the Curnock statement and he was cross examined about it at the trial, continuing to maintain that he could not remember the 11 December 2013 meeting with Louise.

‘His cross examination led to the judge making highly uncomfortable and professionally embarrassing findings against Mr Curnock. In all the circumstances (and even assuming a strong prima facie case) I cannot see that it is in the public interest for a substantive hearing to take place, with all of the expense and use of resources that would involve. Mr Curnock’s professional reputation has already been dragged through the mud and there is no real public interest in putting Mr Curnock through the further ordeal and disruption of a substantive hearing.

‘It is difficult to see how it could possibly be proportionate for this application to proceed to a further hearing.' 

Permission was refused and the applications were dismissed.

Speaking after the judgment, Curnock said: ‘I am delighted to learn that Mrs Justice Joanna Smith has concluded, on the evidence, that there is no prima facie case against me for contempt of court. Since the original judgment of Mr Justice Michael Green was handed down on 31 January 2022, I have been the subject of countless negative stories in the press, which has obviously caused me and my family a lot of pain and anguish. Throughout that time, I have kept my head down and continued to work hard to meet the needs of my clients.

‘It is important to note I was not a party to those original proceedings, so had no access to documents and statements, was unrepresented, and had no right of appeal against Mr Justice Green’s findings against me. I have always firmly denied any allegations of contempt of court, but I have now been allowed an opportunity to put some of the facts that I could not present to Mr Justice Green to a court, and I am pleased to have been vindicated by the judgment.

‘I am grateful to my current firm Bright & Sons for their continued support throughout this ordeal and hugely appreciative to my legal team, Marc Livingston and Catriona Virden at Janes Solicitors, and my counsel Tim Grey from 23ES.’

 

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