Judgment
MR JUSTICE NUGEE: This is an appeal from an order of Mr Registrar Jones dated 17 December 2013 in which he dismissed a bankruptcy petition and ordered the petitioner to pay the respondent’s costs. The petitioner is Mrs Carol Hayes (who I will call Mrs Hayes); the respondent is her ex-husband, Mr Timothy Hayes (who I will call Mr Hayes. Mr Registrar Jones refused permission to appeal, but permission was granted by Birss J on 24 February 2014.
Mr and Mrs Hayes were divorced a long time ago. I do not think I have the exact date, but a consent order dealing with ancillary relief was apparently made in 1991. Unfortunately, they have been embroiled in numerous disputes since then. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this appeal, to set out the detail of these disputes or give more than a very selective summary of the history of the litigation between them.
The petition debt is based on an order made in the Principal Registry of the Family Division by District Judge Waller on 2 August 2000 ordering Mr Hayes to pay Mrs Hayes a sum of £35,721.19, as being the amount of taxed costs payable under a previous order, itself apparently dating back to March 1995 and arising out of an unsuccessful appeal in family proceedings by Mr Hayes. The petition debt is based on that costs order together with six years’ interest at the rate prescribed by the Judgment Act amounting together to £52,867.36. The petition debt itself is unsurprisingly not disputed.
Mr Hayes opposed the making of the bankruptcy order on the basis, among other things, that he has a crossclaim against Mrs Hayes which exceeded the petition debt. That crossclaim is a claim for damages under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 which by section 1 provides that “a person must not pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another and which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other,” and by section 3 creates civil remedies for breach of that prohibition including, by section 3(2), a claim for damages for, among other things, any anxiety caused by the harassment and any financial loss resulting from that harassment. Such a claim has been brought by Mr Hayes against Mrs Hayes and her partner, Mr Graham Butters, in the Watford County Court. That claim alleges that since February 2003, both defendants have maintained “an unrelenting campaign against the claimant and also against Margaret Hayes, his current wife.” It says the common theme throughout has been the de
