Problems with childminder

[looloo]

We are currentley preparing our defence as our former childminder is taking us to court. We found out that she was in breech of several regulations and so withdrew our children immediately. She is claiming £1,000 for the months notice we should have given plus interest and costs. We reported her to ofsted but are unable to find out what happened due to 'reasons of confidentiality'. What we do know is that her registration has been increased from 2 children to 4! My concern over the issues she was in breech of caused me great anxiety and that coupled with not then having a child minder meant that I had to give up work. We can't afford to pay solicitors fees and so are representing ourselves in court, something which we are not particularly looking forward to. Any advice?

We had a document sent which said it was better NOT to have legal representation. The small claims court was basically for people to represent themselves (instead of lining pockets of lawyers) and they would be unlikely to allow expense claims for costly legal bills.

Hello to anyone who is still bothering to check out this strand! And for those of you who are, here's the good news. Everything went a bit strange for a while. We continued to put our case and fill in all the relevant paper work, but for 'some strange reason' she did not complete the final lot of paperwork for the court, and therefore after a warning it was thrown out of court. Would you class this as an admission of guilt? I don't know. But effectively we won! :0 (And of course we have now spent the money we had put by - just in case!) Thanks to all of you who contributed and made me feel a lot better at a difficult time. The only down side is of course that she is still practising and there is nothing more we can do about that.