to assume that bullying is not permitted by the Court, even if in a 'without prejudice' email direct to stbx wife?

[Shakti]

My friend is going through a Shit and prolonged divorce. Legal costs are approaching in excess of 80K, the whole pot was only worth about 500K inc Pension.

So with a Final Hearing in mind we sent a without prejudice email suggesting a settlement.

The response is very bullying, even threatening that the husband will self rep (to avoid fees) but also so he will be able to cross examine my friend himself.

My friend is very frail (with a long documented psychiatric history) and cannot cope with this; or the extra fees.

Can his email be shown to the Court to demonstrate his hectoring nature?

Not sure of youir question but I thought that it would be his right to represent himself. No one has to use a solicitor but it would be stupid not too.

Also your freind can tell the court that she has tried to be resonable and come to a settlement but i always understood that if you have a letter headed "without prejudice" then you cannot use it in court. (I AM NOT A LAWYER)

I don't know anythning about the law, so this is just me thinking - if MrSpoc is right and letters with "without prejudice" written on cannot be used in court, then doesn't that mean you could send all sorts of blackmail/bullying/whatever and as long as you wrote that it would be fine. It can't be as simple as that, surely?

Oakmaiden - Blackmailing is illegal and she could report it. The idea of "without prejudice" is so that two sides can have a dialog without worrying about tripping them selves up. (this is my understanding).

You can advice the court that you have made the offer and it will be upto the court to decide if they wanted to see the correspondents. (I could be way off the mark here).

You clearly know more than me about it, then (which isn't difficult). I was just thinking that it can't be a blanket "cannot be shown under any circumstances" so it might be worth getting proper legal advice as to whether the husband's response is admissible to show bullying behaviour.

Op if your freind cannot afford to go on (and sounds like her ex to) then you need to try and push for mediation. Tell your freind to even settle for a little less if it means her fees are paid or she gets rid of the Ex.

Good luck.

Thanks.

It is so hard. I find it really difficult to believe that his bullying can continue to this extent. She can not do (manage) face to face mediation but there have been numerous attempts to achieve a settlement since separation over two years ago. Unfortunately, he is completely unwilling to agree to anything approaching fair. His suggestions are simply no where near what she needs.

Whether something is genuinely without prejudice depends on the information in the letter. Marking something without prejudice doesn't make it so, although it will be evidence that it was something which they party (ies) did not intend to be seen by the courts. If there really is balckmail that will usually defeat any claim not to disclose. BUT this is a very technical area of law, and it will depend on all the facts and the fact it suggests settlement implies it probably is off the record and shouldn't be disclosed. Please get your friend to talk to her lawywer about this she need sto get the advice on the actual facts

The problem is that the courts set great store by mediation so if she refuses it, for whatever reason, she may lose sympathy. And there is nothing to force him to settle so it will finish up in court which will be considerably more taxing for her than mediation.

What is her solicitor saying about this?

this is the problem Shaki. Two sides not willing to budge. There has already been £160k of the pot gone on solicitors. If your friend will not got to mediation then she needs to conceed and give in a little in order to put an end to the matter. otherwise all the money will be swallowed up.

What has the Other party done to bully?

The point of 'without prejudice' correspondence is to allow parties to attempt to reach settlement without being able to later produce offers of settlement in court in order to argue that they indicate admission of liability. In other words, if I offered you £5k to settle a claim you had brought against me you could not then say to the judge, 'emsyj offered me £5k so she must be in the wrong'. Not very articulate, sorry, but hope that helps. Marking something 'without prejudice' doesn't make it so - it either is a genuine attempt to settle (and thereby protected from disclosure) or it isn't.

My understanding is that you can redact correspondence to blank out the relevant 'without prejudice' parts and then use the rest in court, but I haven't done litigation since I was at law school so you should take proper RL advice from a solicitor before you do anything.

X-posts hildathebuilder.

It will be forwarded to her Solicitor for advice.

I would really like to give more detail and see we we can get any help but am very concerned that my friend (and I!!!) would be identifiable.

I am not sure what to do frankly.

Shakti would it matter if you were I.D? your only asking for advice.

If she has a solicitor then he shouldn't be contacting her directly anyway. Please do urge her to go and see her solicitor and get proper face to face advice.

There is substantial case law on Without prejudice correspondence (her solicitor should know). If I remember correctly there has to be an geninue attempt to reach a settlement for WP to apply so just writing WP on the top of a letter/email does not automatically make something non-disclosable. It is for a court to determine if there has been a genuine attempt to settle, it would appear possible from what you say about his response that his letter may fail to meet the genuine attempt to settle requirement. This is definately one for her solicitor.

x-post hildathebuilder and emsyj

When you say "we" sent an email, do you mean her solicitor sent it or that you and she sent it?

was HIS email marked "without prejudice"? if not you can use it.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that something is either 'without prejudice' or it isn't - regardless of whether it is labelled as such. You would label it in order to draw the other side's attention to the fact that they should not disclose it, but if the email constitutes a genuine attempt to settle then it should not be disclosed. Am prepared to be corrected on that tho.

OP, there really is no substitute for proper advice here - and by that I mean face to face real life advice. If you and your friend sent the ex an email yourselves when your friend has legal representation, then that was the wrong thing to do and you must tell your friend to give a copy to her solicitor.

Chaz - thank you. It helps to know what we are asking

MrSpoc (I so wanted to write Dr Spock there!) her stbx is a bully. He knows me well as we were all friends for some 20 years. His new partner knows me even better. There are children involved and I am very wary of giving him anything else to have a go at my friend about. He has already threatened to sue her for slander as a result of things she said to another mutual friend. It is all very mucky.

I suppose one issue is that she is running up huge legal bills with no way of paying them. She is on her second set of solicitors and barristers and we do not know enough to judge how helpful/useful her representation is. She has already returned to Court twice, both on the advice of her team, and on both occasions she has lost. As you can imagine she feels very vulnerable.

She is aware that she was very close to being appointed a guardian ad lituem (sp?) after her last hospitalization but wants to retain some control if possible, not to mentions being worried about costs.

I suppose she needs to seek an objective view but given the long convoluted history I am not sure any other sol would comment. certainly this was a difficulty faced last time until she was recommended to go to this solicitor.

We sent the email - but ran it past her solicitor first, it was then sent on with alterations suggested by the sol. We all were hopeful that a direct approach would yield a result. The sol has received little joy from her queries to him. He clearly thinks he is right and everyone else - including a Judge who required certain items to be disclosed and they have not been.

All correspondence from both sides clearly labelled WP.

Speaking to sol in morning (with friend and another supporter).

Anything else to consider/ask about?

Thanks - will check thread in the morning.