CLAIM NO: HC/2015/001906

IN THE HIGH COURT OF

JUSTICE CHANCERY DIVISION

BETWEEN:
LEIGH RAVENSCROFT
Claimant
and
CANAL and RIVER TRUST
Defendant

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CLAIMANTS CMC SKELETON ARGUMENT

September 2016 Hearing
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.

In anticipation that there will be discussion over the issues to be decided,

at the Case Management hearing on September 1st 2016, this precis of
the relevant points is submitted.

2.

As suggested in the Claimants Draft List of Issues, there are but 3

primary issues for determination, with a number of consequential issues
relating to those.

3.

A complication now is that the Defendant has since admitted issue 3 of my

primary list, yet continues to deny any wrong doing relating to that, such
that only my consequential issues numbers 10 to 13 remain for
determination under that heading.

4.

The majority of the Defendants List of Issues were incorporated into my

own list as uncontentious, but a small number are objected to altogether,
and others needed amendment.

5.

Issue 3 of the Defendants list is objected to entirely. As is outlined in the

Amended Defence, the Defendant seeks to argue that the effect of section
4(1) of the British Waterways Act 1983 is to remove any geographic
limitation such as main navigable channel from the application of the
pleasure boat registration regime of section 4 of the British Waterways Act
1971. Hence, they argue, the Defendant can require boats to be registered
whether within a main navigable channel/river waterway or not.

6.

As I have noted and quoted in my Reply to Defence, this argument has

already been debated and resolved by Hildyard J in his judgment in Moore
v British Waterways Board [2012] EWHC 182 (Ch). The Defendants
predecessor declined to appeal against the decision in that respect, so
they are precluded from seeking to now re-litigate the point.

7.

The Defendants issue 4 on their list is likewise objected to in its entirety.

This case concerns the actions taken by the Defendant relating to my boat
on the basis that it was a pleasure boat, served with a s.8 Notice only. It is
expanding the horizons of this case beyond the facts involved, to seek any
determination of whether they wrongly so classified my boat, such that it
ought to have been dealt with as a houseboat.

8.

As I observed in my Reply to Defence, this issue also, was one

acknowledged by Hildyard J, who correctly noted that regardless of
whether Gilgie was properly so classified [as a pleasure boat], or not, the
facts in the case were that she had been treated as such with a s.8 Notice
rather than with a s.13 Notice [which relates only to houseboats], and his
determinations had to proceed on that basis. The same applies here.

9.

It should be noted that in live-aboard cases it is the invariable [though

questionable] practice of the Defendant to serve both s.8 and s.13 Notices.
It is submitted that the houseboat issue is one most appropriately left for
determination in one of those cases, where the issue is relevant.

10.

Issue 6 of the Defendants List of Issues cannot really be justified as one

for the Court to take time over determining.
2

11.

Most of the Parliamentary material I have and hope to produce is helpfully

illuminating of the general issues, and provides core pertinent material
relating to some of the arguments offered by the Defendant as to
Parliaments intentions and the background of registration requirements. I
do not need to rely on any such material for accurately construing the
meaning of main navigable channel [and none exists that directly relates
to the term anyway].

12.

Issue 10 of the Defendants List is pointless, as I have made no such

claim. The actual claim that I have made in this respect is more accurately
represented in number 7 of my own List of Issues.

13.

Issue number 13 of the Defendants List need not be determined as a

stand alone point; insofar as relevant, it also, is implicitly wrapped up in
number 7 of my own List of issues. Besides, as drafted by the Defendant
the answer is no anyway no distinction has been made by the
Defendant between s.8(2) and s.8(5) for example. Under s.8(5) a boat
causing obstruction can be moved without notice.

14.

I submit that the Defendants issue 15 is superfluous. It is agreed that the

Defendant may hold a removed boat pending payment of the expenses of
removal and storage, and it has belatedly been agreed that those do not
include sums owed for any licence fees.

15.

I would suggest that the Defendants issue number 16 is also superfluous;

it finesses the point unnecessarily the important issue is whether the boat
was required to maintain its pleasure boat certificate while remaining where
it was moored. If so, then liability for the fees goes with that obligation.
Given the scope of this case, I do not wish to take up Court time arguing
that I was not personally liable for the whole of the time the boat was
unregistered, even though I was not the owner for most of that period.
Similarly, it might seem petty, in context, to complain that I was forced to
pay ahead of time for several months during which I was not to be allowed
to keep the boat in the water. I am, however, content to leave inclusion of
this issue to the Courts discretion.
3

16.

Respecting the Defendants issue number 19, this is couched in terms for
which I have not contended. Institutional lack of probity is a regrettable
condition, not in itself a common law offence. It is when that lack of probity
gives rise to actions contrary to their own statutory imperatives that the
offence occurs.

17.

In my Reply to the Amended Defence, for example, I have noted the

Parliamentary imperative laid upon the Defendant under s.8(4) of the 1983
Act, to permit a boat owner to retake his boat upon reimbursement only, of
the expenses incurred in removing and storing that boat. Any refusal to
allow the owner to take back his boat once those sums are paid [as - in the
present instance - by demanding further sums claimed to be owed
additionally to those expenses] is a clear instance of contempt for the
provisions of Her Majestys Statute.

18.

The issue needs to be viewed within the context of the corporate code of
practice determined on acting as judge, jury and executioner respecting
crimes allegedly committed by their clientele, in breach of Statutory
conditions. Provision for redress by that clientele against the Defendants
own breach of Statutory imperatives, is, however, virtually non-existent.

19.

The sole provision within the waterways legislation for the public to enforce
the Defendants compliance with any Statutory obligation, has been
emasculated under the terms of the 2012 Transfer Order. The common law
offence has, therefore, become the sole avenue for effective redress,
where the Defendant has acted in defiance of the law.

20.

Accordingly, I rephrased this issue in my concluding issue number 14.

Leigh Ravenscroft
c/- The Croft, Moor Lane, Newark, NG23 5QD
midlandlogs@hotmail.com
26 August 2016