Committal for contempt of court: Barleycroft Limited -v- Paul Stephen Kennedy

Committal for contempt of courtCounty CourtCommittal for Contempt of Court

Case number: JOOTR270

In the County Court at Truro

23 September 2025

Before:

His Honour Judge Carr

Between:

Barleycroft Limited

-v-

Paul Stephen Kennedy

Judgment date: 23 September 2025
Transcribed from 09:36:27 until 09:40:30

His Honour Judge Carr:

  1. This is an application by the Claimant for a warrant for committal on a suspended committal order made on 12 June 2025. On that day I gave a more detailed judgment dealing with the chronology of the case and I do not propose to repeat everything that was said in that judgment, it being transcribed and part of the court record and placed on the appropriate website.
  2. The trial of this matter concluded with my judgnent on 16 April 2024, some 18 months ago. It dealt with a boundary dispute and a access road dispute between two neighbours. Mr Kennedy represented himself throughout the proceedings and throughout subsequent appeals. He appealed my order. That was dismissed eventually by the High Court judge as being entirely without merit, which would normally have brought all appeal routes to an end. There is a very small exception which allows the high court judge who heard the appeal to reopen it if there are exceptional circumstances. Nothing that Mr Kennedy has c advanced would begin to meet that criteria, but he continues to pursue it. Whilst the original appeal was pending quite rightly the order was suspended. That suspension has now been lifted.
  3. When the matter came before me on 12 June, Mr Kennedy chose not to attend, but sent a long letter indicating he wished to, to put his side of the story that the case should continue to be suspended while he pursued exceptional causes. I made the point then, as I make the point now, that the part of the order that I’m dealing with on this committal was a part that Mr Kennedy accepted he was in breach of and had to remedy, namely the clearance of land near the Claimant’s property. So, in other words, whatever happened in his his appeal, on on the substantive matter, and that, as I say, seems to have reached the end of the road, this order was always going to stay part of the order as the lease confirmed that he had to comply with the clearance of the land near the Claimant’s property and that was independent of any appeal on other matters.
  4. On 16 April I gave the defendant a month until 15 May to move the items. He chose not to do so. On 12 June I gave him another month given his was a litigant in person and given the consequences of non compliance. He has communicated with the Court again, making it clear that he has been served with proceedings and is perfectly well aware of the potential consequences of prison and continues to repeat issues that have long since been litigated by myself or the High Court judge and are no longer matters before the Court.
  5. I have no hesitation in this case in granting a warrant for committal for the 14 days that I imposed. Mr Kennedy’s letter indicates he is well aware that that is a likely even probable outcome but continues to ask for a stay as he pursues an appeal that has, as I say, reached the end and so the orders is made.
  6. I have been asked to summarily assess costs. This is very difficult. The Claimant has been put in an impossible position of having to expend extra monies in pursuing the warrant as the only way of enforcing this element of the case. Having said that and having accepted this is a detailed affidavit, there has to be some limit on these costs and I am perfectly clear, albeit in a slightly ad hoc way, that E6,000 summarily assessed costs more than adequately covers the application for a warrant in circumstances where in truth it was inevitable, and I summarily assess costs in that way.