Vexatious Potto 3 (Pt.1)
- – an “In My View” article by NIGEL WARD, investigating yet another serious collapse of sound Leadership, Governance and Accountability at Potto Parish Council. In an earlier article (“Vexatious Potto 2”), I revealed how Potto Parish Council was informed, in a First-Tier Tribunal Judge’s Decision, that its malicious and antagonistic view that some residents are vexatious or make vexatious requests was ‘not in accordance with the law‘.
The full range of Potto Parish Council articles may be viewed here.
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Potto Parish Council’s unelected ‘chair’, Councillor Andrew WILDE, has made an absurd and puerile attempt to overturn this First-Tier Tribunal Ruling, but it has just ended in complete and utter ignominy. Moreover, this latest failure has been entirely omitted (i.e. censored) from the Council’s public records. Although Councillor WILDE appeared to be desperate to pursue an Application for Permission to Appeal to the Upper Tribunal, his inadequate knowledge of due process and of the relevant law proved disasterous at every step.
The correct first step should have been to complete a UT13 form, details below:
Alas, Councillor WILDE submitted only a partially completed UT13 ‘Application for Permission to Appeal’ form to the Upper Tribunal Appeals Chamber; see title excerpt (above).
Councillor WILDE seems to have been particularly eager to make this Appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT) because, in June 2023, the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) UPHELD a Potto resident’s Appeal against the Council’s (entirely unsubstantiated, baseless, false and apparently malicious) opinion/view that it was the resident who was “vexatious”.
In the event, however, Judge GOODMAN at the First-Tier Tribunal, having meticulously assessed all the evidence, ruled quite accurately that WILDE’s perverse view was “not in accordance with the law”.
I reported on this in November 2023, here:
However, Potto Parish Council’s public record has published for many years that some Potto residents are “vexatious”, exhibit “vexatious” behaviour and act with “vexatious” abuse. This is poppycock. Consequently, this First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) Ruling must surely have constituted a shattering blow to the Council’s established practice and, in particular, to WILDE’s inflated ego.
Moreover, the FTT’s Ruling meant that WILDE could no longer publish in meeting Minutes, with any justification or credibility, that the resident in question was “vexatious” – Judge GOODMAN had ruled otherwise in very clear and authoritative terms.
Indeed, I recall that Potto Parish Council wrote, at the top of page 2 of its 7-page initial evidentiary submission to this Tribunal, dated 12 July 2023, “The parish council consider both the appellant and his requests to be vexatious”. [link]
Thus, WILDE now had an intractable problem to overcome. He had, if he were to continue publishing his prolific assertions of vexatious behaviour with any shred of credibility, somehow to overturn Judge GOODMAN’s Ruling. Having failed to obtain the support and backing of his paid-for advisory body – the Yorkshire Local Councils Associations (YLCA) -he was left with no other option but to act alone. Somehow, he seems to have convinced himself that he could make an Application to Appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT). Unfortunately for WILDE, he could not adduce a single scrap of evidence with which to do so; Judge GOODMAN’s Ruling was legally robust and entirely accurate.
Apparently undaunted by the lack of any supportive evidence, WILDE partially completed form UT13 [link], which is the form used to request an Application for Permission to Appeal (to be clear, this is not the Appeal itself) to the Upper Tribunal (UT).
This UT13 form has Parts marked A to G; see excerpts below (this may initially seem tedious to relate; however, it is so comprehensively illustrative of a desperate and illogical ‘directing mind’ as to be well worth the tedium):
In Part ‘A’, whilst WILDE initially recorded ‘Potto Parish Council’ as the Appellant, he then proceeded to enter his own personal details, rather than those of the Council’s Clerk. Perhaps he may have been acutely aware that the Clerk (his daughter) may lack the professional capacity to execute her duties?
In Part ‘B’, WILDE again entered his own name, address and phone number. Bizarrely, as he seemingly believes himself to be both the Appellant and the Respondent, WILDE seems to be attempting to secure permission to appeal against himself and permission to appeal against Potto Parish Council. Bizarre! This scenario would be hilarious – were it not so serious.
Markedly, WILDE omitted to record any of the details of the genuine Respondents; the ICO and the allegedly “vexatious” Potto resident.
Readers my draw their own conclusions as to whether such an extreme exhibition of ineptitude amounts to rank buffoonery. I have my own opinion.
Part ‘C’ provided an opportunity for the Appellant (Potto Parish Council) to explain to the Upper Tribunal the reasons why it wished to suspend the Decision of the First-Tier Tribunal. However, as there are no genuine reasons to suspend the FTT’s Decision, the profoundly confused Councillor WILDE (supposedly acting for himself against Potto Parish Council, but demonstrably having lost track of the process) decided to invent further unsubstanitated (and unsubstantiable) fictitious allegations.
WILDE, insultingly proceeded to describe the FTT’s Decision as “completely farcical” and, for good measure, also stated that the FTT was “supporting the ongoing harassment”.
(I promise I am not making this up! Who could?).
His attempt at completing Part ‘C’ is a tangle of mangled syntax, atrocious spelling and incomprehensible grammar. It reads like the rantings of a quarter-wit. I copy it in full and unaltered form below, for the delectation of the Enquirer’s readers:
How best to win friends and influence people! Why not accuse the Judges of a cover-up?
The Upper Tribunal Judge tasked with scrutinising this ‘Application’ must surely have been less than impressed.
Readers who scrutinise this text will certainly observe that it is not simply a wildly unprofessional fiction; it is, in my view, indicative of illiteracy, insolence, malice, sloth and indolence.
Readers who are perhaps a little more familiar with the ways of officialdom may conclude that the core message in this diatribe is simply irrelevant, argumentative drivel – an arrant waste of the Tribunal’s time and the public’s money.
But WILDE went even further.
Part ‘D’ was to record reasons for a late Application. Despite this form being submitted out-of-time/late, WILDE quite deceitfully ticked both boxes as ‘No’.
Part ‘E’ requires the applicant to state why the Decision of the First-Tier Tribunal “was wrong in law”. If there is no material ‘error in law’, the whole Application is immediately null and void. Unfortunately, for WILDE, there was no ‘error in law’, so he decided instead to roll out another rant.
I have copied his assertion as to ‘why the FTT was wrong in law’ in full and unaltered form; see below:
WILDE’s response to Part ‘E’ accurately reflects that in Part ‘C’ – and is equally misguided (to use an extremely charitable characterisation).
WILDE states that “the tribunal did not consider the facts”; he found the FTT’s “approach to be neither fair nor equatable”[sic]; the FTT’s stance to be “completely farcical” and “completely at odds with the whole consept”[sic].
Oh, dear. Oh dear . . .
WILDE made no attempt to identify where the FTT was “wrong in law”. He could not, because it was in perfect accord with the law.
In Part ‘F’, WILDE ticked the box asserting that he had received permission from the FTT to appeal to the UT. This is a naked deceit; he had not. Judge GOODMAN refused Permission to Appeal to the UT on 2nd November 2023. [link]
Part ‘G’ of this UT13 legal document was signed off by ‘Andy Wilde’ on 7th December 2023; see excerpt below:
In Part Two of my “Vexatious Potto 3” investigation, I shall reveal the results and implications of this mangled UT13 form.
I find it utterly astonishing (and readers may agree or disagree, as they see fit) that any person (purportedly of sound mind and directing a public body) could have the audacity to write such antagonistic claptrap and, in particular, to do so in an (albeit forlorn) attempt to gain favour and persuade the recipient Tribunal Judge to support his groundless and invalid Application.
I could have predicted – even without the benefit of hindsight – that WILDE’s diatribe would certainly achieve exactly the opposite effect.
It did . . .
In “Vexatious Potto 3 (Pt.2)”, I intend pursue this debacle to its side-splittingly uproarious conclusion.
Laugh? I almost flashed my fags!
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