A developer who, after a frustrating and unfortunate series of events, missed a deadline to file a planning application when a security guard refused him access to the court offices, can’t use this as an excuse for late filing, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
John Noel Croke, the developer bringing the appeal, had been seeking planning permission to improve a barn development at Ickford, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. A planning inspector recommended refusing planning permission in a letter dated 10 February 2016.
That gave Croke until 23 March 2016 to file an appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ) in central London, the Wednesday before the court closed for Easter Bank Holiday.
Croke intended to file his application in person on 23 March. However, he missed his train into London. On week days the RCJ closes its gates, but not its offices, at 4.30pm. Knowing he wouldn’t get to the court in time to gain access, Croke asked a colleague who worked near the court to file the form for him.
E-mail error
Croke e-mailed the form to his colleague, James Miller, at 3.59pm, but mistyped the address so had to resend it at 4.06pm. Miller got to the court in time, at 4.25pm. However, a security guard refused to let him into the building, saying the offices were closed.
Croke had now missed his deadline. However, he went himself to the court the next day, 24 March, which was Maundy Thursday and the day before the bank holiday closure. He arrived at 3.25pm and queued until 5pm. When he reached the counter the court staff member told him that he had used the wrong form and refused to process it.
Croke returned to the RCJ after the bank holiday and successfully filed the correct papers on Tuesday 29 March. His application was later rejected as it was filed late.
Croke, as a litigant in person, challenged this at the Court of Appeal arguing that the deadline should be extended.
However, in a ruling earlier this week, a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal, ruled against him. The judge who wrote the judgment, Lord Justice Lindblom, ruled that Croke was “at least in part” responsible, not the court.
“At most, and leaving aside for the moment his own share of responsibilities for the events of 23 March 216, Mr Croke might complain that he was denied, by an event beyond his own control, the last five minutes of the six-week period for making an application to the court,” he wrote.
“To isolate what the security officer did at or about 4.25pm as if it were the sole or critical event is wrong. It was merely the last in a chain of events for which Mr Croke himself was at least partly responsible.
“The fact that it happened at the very end of the six-week period for challenge does not change that. It cannot be singled out as the sole cause of Mr Croke’s failure to lodge his application before the statutory time limit expired.”
The ‘wrong form’
Despite losing his appeal, Croke’s frustrations do not end here.
According to the ruling, there was some ambiguity about the correct form that Croke should have used, which meant that the member of staff who refused to take his papers on Maundy Thursday might not have been acting correctly.
In fact it might be said, the judge wrote, that the member of staff should have accepted the paperwork even if it was on the wrong form, leaving it for a judge to decide whether to reject it later.
So, if Croke had missed the deadline because he had been turned away at the counter on 23 March for having the wrong paperwork, he might have had a case. But as his agent didn’t get through security to file the paperwork, the ruling said, he doesn’t.
John Noel Croke v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government; Aylesbury Vale District Council
Court of Appeal (Lindblom LJ, Irwin LJ, Baker LJ) 1 February 2018
