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- National Westminster Bank PLC -V- Story & Pallister (CA May 7 1999)-"To Noone shall we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice" (Magna Carta [1215] )
"Whatever happened to Magna Carta. Did she die in vain?" (Tony Hancock)-www.ruinedbynatwest.com is inspired by a Natwest promise that was kept, "Carry on with this, Story, and the bank will see to it that you're (expletive) ruined"(Harry Jackson, manager, Natwest, Street, Somerset - March 17 1989)-Abuse of Jurisdiction by UK Court of Appeal gives green light to creditor opacity in £300 Billions'Consumer Credit Test CaseMillions are disaffected by a single ruling of the Court-Court of Appeal runs a red light where it maintains itsConcealment and suppression of regulation that features here where that regulation otherwise directs the Court to protect consumers to deter the bank's opacity, where the regulation shows that the bank sucessfully fought to continue its unwholesome reliance on unwritten consumer credit agreements -(The Issue on Appeal - the enforceability of unwritten Consumer Credit Agreements - whether the Statute applies to the facts of the case) -Section 8 (Regulated Agreements)Consumer Credit Act (1974) ("The CCA")is oppressed by legal precedent in the everyday situationwhere regulated agreements are refinanced by so-calledDebt Consolidation (refinancing) Agreements-Mr Francis Bennion, draftsman of the 1974 CCA, speaks out terming the ruling "Wholly Mistaken" and "Incorrect" (see below)-Whilst the bank's regulators at Bank of England and OFT awaited the precedential ruling here, the Court of Appeal concealed its knowledge of the presence of existant regulated agreements in this case where regulated agreements were declared by that Court as determinative of the stated Issue on Appeal. The Court implements its own social policy where Parliament has already decided the overriding policy of transparency in Consumer Credit Agreements- Such behaviour from our Judges is all too clever by half, because, In reality, 3 regulated agreements termed by the Court as "the undoubted existing debt of about £12000" [Auld LJ] are refinanced in this topical and highly contraversial Test that has drawn the attention of legal academics, text book writers and leading members of the judiciary- -Section 8 (Regulated Agreements) CONSUMER CREDIT ACT (1974) -Compromising the Stated Issue on Appeal, (as to whether regulated agreements feature where a series of unwritten credit agreements are causative to the dispute before the Court) a nonsense is imposed in the general law by judges in this controversial and highly topical Consumer Credit Test Case which affects thousands of everyday refinancing and debt-consolidation transactions where it is applied to all similar cases. However, those cases are unaware that the ruling here is enabled by the unlawful concealment of material evidence by Judges - who know that the revelation of the regulation directs the Court to protect the Consumer from the opacity practiced by Natwest here over many years including the unauthorized redemption of an existing building society mortgage where the manager drew a cheque on our account without our knowledge to pay off the Yorkshire B.S. who released the title deeds to our home to him again, without our knowledge. The bank destroyed that cheque and the Somerset and Avon Fraud Squad were frustratedin their fraud investigations without the evidence. For the record, Natwest destroyed its internal investigation file when it was demanded by the Court. The Judges are shown by Section 8 of the 1974 CCA, to conceal the determinative evidence of regulation that Auld LJ promises will satisfy the stated Issue on the Appeal - and it satisfies the stated Issue on Appeal because, here, Regulated Agreements feature from day one of the banker/customer credit providing relationship and thereafter where Parliament recognised that the proximity was potentially problemmatic should the creditor abuse the trust placed in him by the borrower, as happened here where the bank relied on the unwritten agreements that contained the bank's promises of substantial future funding - if we acted upon its business advice. Whatever the Judges' motives for concealing the sought regulation, they are shown to rule in favour of a bank's practice of not documenting the contractual refinancing terms of those regulated agreements that feature here. Ruling that a replacement agreement is unregulated, ie unprotected, the Judges' concealment of the material regulation evades the reality promised by the stated Issue on the Appeal; that Parliament has instructed the Court to protect and preserve regulated agreements from the selective omissions of the bank where, eg, as here, unwritten consumer credit [refinancing] agreements are contemporaneously secured to the bank's advantage against the family home by way of fully documented legal charge. -The concealment of regulated agreements in the Court's Judgement spared Natwest from the invasive investigations that were contemplated by the attendant regulators at the Bank of England and OFT who awaited the ruling because serious licensing violations were indicated by the bank's continuing avoidance and/or evasion of the regulation that features in this case. - The point at Issue here being that a Court cannot override the regulation - but it has done just that by the nature of legal precedent that is binding on the lower Courts. Where our new Government promises that "We're going through a Transparency Revolution" (Jeremy Hunt 25 July 2010), our senior Appellate Court appears deaf.-The draftsman of the 1974 CCA, Mr Francis Bennion has opined thatLord Justice Robin Auld "reveals" "an uncertain judicial grasp of the intended working of [Section 18 CCA]". Section 18 [Multiple Agreements] is an anti-avoidance provision which serves to protect the consumer where, eg here, the bank lumped together what are in reality separate regulated agreements in its attempt to avoid and or evade the regulation.The Court refuses to hear Mr Bennion, whose opinion is to be found at
http://www.francisbennion.com/pdfs/fb/1999/1999-029-addendum-re-multiple-agreements.pdf
-The confounding ruling here, favouring opacity, served only to encourage the current consumer debt crisis when International Credit Ratings Agencies allocated "Triple A" ratings to the resulting (unprotected but secured) consumer credit agreementswhen we were all suddenly bombarded by the Vorderman syndrome to consolidate unsecured debts by way of new secured agreement(that usually carries an additional line of credit), "Fed Up Juggling all those credit card bills? ................Why not treat yourself to that [conservatory],[car],[once in a lifetime holiday], [new kitchen][nip and tuck job] you've been promising yourself but can't afford ................."-In reality the Court of Appeal has acted politically where it has taken unsecured but protected CCA agreements to put them onto a secured but unprotected basis by the very practices deemed "unsatisfactory" by Parliament, namelyopacity, concealment, secrecy and oppression-The general requirement for transparency in Consumer Credit Agreements when they are in any way changed by the creditor is compromised by the Court's decision to conceal the evidence of the existing regulation-In reality Section 8 CCA [regulated agreements], exposes the bank as unworthy of its consumer credit licence - it is caught red-handed breaching the terms of its consumer credit licence where it fought to conserve its policy of opacity throughout the legal proceedings here, where it both denied and, confoundingly, also accepted applicability via an admission of its senior counsel (Andrew Smith QC) to the Bristol High Court, is today actively suppressed by the Court of Appeal in this £300 Billions' law-making ruling. - The Bank of England file on the matter, opened in 1990, is currently held by the FSA who refuseits release on grounds of the national interest- (The case is frequently cited as authoratitive, simply as Story - most recently in Southern Pacific mortgages - V- Heath, itself controversial because whilst quoting Story it fails to say that Story is hotly contested on the grounds of illegality by way of procedural impropriety- where the ruling is only possible via the deliberate concealment of material evidence [the existing regulation] that is highlighted here)- We are indebted to our colonial cousins at Yahoo! for allowing this protest site to objectify the unsettling reality that senior members of the UK Judiciary deliberately conceal and suppress/oppress determinative statutory evidence to favour a bank that is seen to operate a policy of not documenting contractual terms where its Consumer Credit licence demands transparency -Section 127(3) of the 1974 CCA prohibits the Court from enforcing undocumented Consumer Credit Agreements.-Counsel for the bank, Andrew Smith QC (now a High Court judge - His Honour Sir Andrew Smith) admitted before the High Court that one of the 3 existing agreements was regulated (a joint Home Improvement Loan); however, his admission is suppressed by the Court, and he is so far reluctant to confirm his admission. -We repeat that we are indebted to Yahoo! for upholding the right to protest peacefully to seek redress of grievances
where both Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights Act (1689), (building blocks in the US constitution),
remind us all that laws made by an elected Parliament are constitutionally superior to law made
by unelected Judges,
where The Bill of Rights Act provides, but which provision the UK Court of Appeal refuses,
"The Common Law must not defeat the Statute"
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The first defendant (Story) was warned, forthrightly and unambiguously, by leading counsel, Peter Smith QC, before trial at first instance, (Bristol High Court) on 1 May 1997, that "the Judge will Fudge" and that "Truth and Justice will be early casualties in this case", because the outcome would otherwise be "potentially disastrous for Natwest".
