Boater With Home Mooring - Court Action Started.

[Alan de Enfield]

 

.......... I also have difficulty understanding why you feel you need CRT's permission to reveal the content of letters they have sent to you. Those letters are your property, to do with as you please. ......................

 

 

This question has arisen before and is subject to Copyright Law.

 

You may own a photograph of your child, but the copyright to that photograph lies with the photographer, you cannot reproduce the photograph without the permission of the photographer.

 

You may well 'get away' with taking a copy for your personal use, but copyng it and then posting it on a forum that is read by the 'photographer' would be madness.

 

A letter is the same as a photograph - C&RT will hold the copyright not the recipient of the letter.

[Tony Dunkley]

No-one is asking for court documents, just some really basic facts, e.g.

 

1) Have CRT revoked your licence?

 

2) If so, what was the reason they give?

 

3) Is the court action a Section 8 to remove your boat from the system?

 

4) Is your boat you home?

 

5) Which court is dealing with this?

 

6) Will there be a hearing or is it being dealt with in some other way?

 

 

Many thanks.

 

MtB

Answers: -

 

Q1) They claim to have done so, but there was no formal notice of such ever issued.

 

Q2) Several different ones because they kept changing their minds about what they claimed I was doing wrong ;

a) didn't believe I had a home mooring and boat movements insufficient to comply with CC Guidance.

insufficient use of my home mooring and overstaying on nearby VM's . . . they had to give up with this one after they were obliged to admit in writing that one of the places where I am frequently seen to be moored are not VM's at all, and my other much used spot is against land owned by the

Environment Agency.

c) in breach of Licence T&C's Clause 2.1 . . . apparently I was not mooring while cruising.

d) in breach of Licence T&C's Clause 2.1 . . . not cruising while mooring.

e) now they say that they do believe I have a home mooring but that it is not a genuine one because I only have it in order to comply with Sect.17(3)©(i) of the 1995 BW Act.

 

Q3) Yes

 

Q4) Yes

 

Q5) Nottingham

 

Q6) First one was 4 July at which C&RT ( Shoosmiths) failed to get the whole thing railroaded past the Court by using an inappropriate County Court procedure and telling the Court that the

matter was not disputed. The Judge gave me the time I asked for to prepare and file a written Defence, and made an Order for a hearing in the form of a Case Management Conference on

the 1st. of September 2014 estimated to be dealt with in 30 minutes.

[nicknorman]

This question has arisen before and is subject to Copyright Law.

 

You may own a photograph of your child, but the copyright to that photograph lies with the photographer, you cannot reproduce the photograph without the permission of the photographer.

 

You may well 'get away' with taking a copy for your personal use, but copyng it and then posting it on a forum that is read by the 'photographer' would be madness.

 

A letter is the same as a photograph - C&RT will hold the copyright not the recipient of the letter.

So you are saying the letters could not, for example, be faxed to one's solicitor. That is clearly wrong.

[Hawkmoth]

So you are saying the letters could not, for example, be faxed to one's solicitor. That is clearly wrong.

We need Nigel Moore again!

Bob

[Tony Dunkley]

 

Sometimes I'm a bit slow, and not necessarily the sharpest knife in the drawer, so this whole thing about needing to be secretive about something that you have apparently made public in at least two on-line publications, and something that you are apparently seeking public support and public sympathy for your side, really escapes me.

 

Court appearances are public hearings, court dates are public knowledge. Why on earth would you, or anyone, need CRT's permission to pass along the date and time of a court hearing? Anyone who wanted to put the time and effort into searching for it could find the hearing date and time, so why not just say what it is? The same goes for court documents. They are public record. Why pretend that you can't divulge their content? I also have difficulty understanding why you feel you need CRT's permission to reveal the content of letters they have sent to you. Those letters are your property, to do with as you please. Why would you think that CRT has any say, or any authority to control, what you do with your property? It's not like the documents in question are State Secrets and I would even hazard to opine that they might very well be subject to an FOI request if anyone were interested enough to make one. Even if you felt that revealing the actual letters you have received would somehow be out of line, surely a synopsis of their content would not contravene any criminal statutes, would it?

 

When someone has a problem such as yours and publicizes that problem in an attempt to garner public sympathy for their position, it should be incumbent upon that person to provide a clear, accurate and comprehensive account of exactly what occurred, what the other side is alleging and what your position is as to why you feel you have done no wrong. Anything else, really, is just obfuscation. What you are doing here is akin to someone going before the media claiming that the state is persecuting them for being poor and merely trying to make a living, whilst neglecting to mention that they did so by robbing a bank.

 

If you have a story to tell and you feel that you are in the right, then tell your whole story, completely and truthfully. Otherwise, you do appear to be someone who is in the wrong and is merely trying to use hysteria in a desperate attempt to pressure the authorities with unwarranted and unsubstantiated bad publicity. Maybe the complexities of this situation are more than my simple mind can comprehend, but it seems to me that, if the truth won't do then something is wrong.

Are you by any chance George W. Bush using a pseudonym?

[NigelMoore]

A word of advice that you may not need [but which I need to constantly remind myself of] – try to keep any court submissions as dispassionate as possible. The more emotionally removed you can make them, the greater respect the court will accord you, regardless of the leeway given litigants in person. It will help keep the pertinent facts and arguments clearer in your own head as well.

[Paul C]

Answers: -

 

Q1) They claim to have done so, but there was no formal notice of such ever issued.

 

Q2) Several different ones because they kept changing their minds about what they claimed I was doing wrong ;

a) didn't believe I had a home mooring and boat movements insufficient to comply with CC Guidance.

insufficient use of my home mooring and overstaying on nearby VM's . . . they had to give up with this one after they were obliged to admit in writing that one of the places where I am frequently seen to be moored are not VM's at all, and my other much used spot is against land owned by the

Environment Agency.

c) in breach of Licence T&C's Clause 2.1 . . . apparently I was not mooring while cruising.

d) in breach of Licence T&C's Clause 2.1 . . . not cruising while mooring.

e) now they say that they do believe I have a home mooring but that it is not a genuine one because I only have it in order to comply with Sect.17(3)©(i) of the 1995 BW Act.

 

Q3) Yes

 

Q4) Yes

 

Q5) Nottingham

 

Q6) First one was 4 July at which C&RT ( Shoosmiths) failed to get the whole thing railroaded past the Court by using an inappropriate County Court procedure and telling the Court that the

matter was not disputed. The Judge gave me the time I asked for to prepare and file a written Defence, and made an Order for a hearing in the form of a Case Management Conference on

the 1st. of September 2014 estimated to be dealt with in 30 minutes.

 

Looking at answers 2a and 2e, basically it comes down to:

 

1995 British Waterways Act 17 (3) © (i)

 

 

 

(i)the Board are satisfied that a mooring or other place where the vessel can reasonably be kept and may lawfully be left will be available for the vessel, whether on an inland waterway or elsewhere;

 

They're not satisfied. So the onus swings back to you, to prove they should have been satisfied by your arrangements.

[Paul G2]

 

This question has arisen before and is subject to Copyright Law.

 

You may own a photograph of your child, but the copyright to that photograph lies with the photographer, you cannot reproduce the photograph without the permission of the photographer.

 

You may well 'get away' with taking a copy for your personal use, but copyng it and then posting it on a forum that is read by the 'photographer' would be madness.

 

A letter is the same as a photograph - C&RT will hold the copyright not the recipient of the letter.

 

That is kind of like saying that film rights belong to the camera operator, or that book rights belong to a ghost writer, or that models or actorsneed the photographers permission to distribute their portfolios. I would hazard a guess that copyright law is much more involved than you suggest and that copyrights do not apply to every word that is written on paper and then disseminated to another person. In any event, a simple synopsis of what is written and what has occurred would in no way violate copyright laws, if they did apply.

 

Are you by any chance George W. Bush using a pseudonym?

 

Resorting to personal insults is commonly considered to be de facto recognition of the fact that you are in the wrong. Thank you for substantiating my point!

[MtB]

Answers: -

 

Q1) They claim to have done so, but there was no formal notice of such ever issued.

 

Q2) Several different ones because they kept changing their minds about what they claimed I was doing wrong ;

a) didn't believe I had a home mooring and boat movements insufficient to comply with CC Guidance.

insufficient use of my home mooring and overstaying on nearby VM's . . . they had to give up with this one after they were obliged to admit in writing that one of the places where I am frequently seen to be moored are not VM's at all, and my other much used spot is against land owned by the

Environment Agency.

c) in breach of Licence T&C's Clause 2.1 . . . apparently I was not mooring while cruising.

d) in breach of Licence T&C's Clause 2.1 . . . not cruising while mooring.

e) now they say that they do believe I have a home mooring but that it is not a genuine one because I only have it in order to comply with Sect.17(3)©(i) of the 1995 BW Act.

 

Q3) Yes

 

Q4) Yes

 

Q5) Nottingham

 

Q6) First one was 4 July at which C&RT ( Shoosmiths) failed to get the whole thing railroaded past the Court by using an inappropriate County Court procedure and telling the Court that the

matter was not disputed. The Judge gave me the time I asked for to prepare and file a written Defence, and made an Order for a hearing in the form of a Case Management Conference on

the 1st. of September 2014 estimated to be dealt with in 30 minutes.

 

Thank you Tony for these answers. Much appreciated.

 

MtB

[Alan de Enfield]

Answers: -

 

........... e) now they say that they do believe I have a home mooring but that it is not a genuine one because I only have it in order to comply with Sect.17(3)©(i) of the 1995 BW Act.

 

 

Thats a good one - how many people would voluntarily pay to have a mooring if we were not obliged to have one under the act ?

 

Apart from those prepared to pay for 'services' provided (electric, water, sewage, marina, pontoons etc) who would voluntarily pay to moor on-line against the pilings with nothing else provided ?

[NigelMoore]

I would hazard a guess that copyright law is much more involved than you suggest and that copyrights do not apply to every word that is written on paper and then disseminated to another person.

 

True. This is not my field [most fields aren’t], but people can get too worked up about this.

 

In any dispute with an authority such as CaRT, the relevant correspondence is an integral part of the dispute, disclosure of which will become compulsory anyway, in the open-to-public proceedings.

 

Emails MAY be subject to copyright [e.g. http://www.out-law.com/page-7768], but there is nothing to concern oneself with in the present context.

 

‘Legal privilege’ sometime quoted has reference only to the disclosures between solicitor and client – and the privilege is that of the client, not the solicitor. Correspondence from the opposition lawyers will only be something on which you could not rely in the event of it being declared “Without Prejudice” – yet even in that instance there is no ban on production, simply that it cannot be relied upon.

 

BW’s favourite [when it suited them, but remember how far in the opposite direction they went in the Nick Brown affair ] was always to lean on the ‘sub judice’ argument – but that only really arises with publications that could give rise to substantial prejudice of the proceedings.

 

The standard footnote to Shoosmiths emails reads:

 

About this email

This email is CONFIDENTIAL and LEGALLY PRIVILEGED. If you are not the intended recipient of this email and its attachments, you must take no action based upon them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone. Please contact the sender if you believe you have received this email in error. Telephone calls may be recorded to comply with our regulatory requirements as well as for monitoring and training purposes. If you contact us by e-mail you agree to us replying to the e-mail address that you give us. You need to be aware that our reply may not be completely confidential if you share an e-mail address at home or at work. Please be advised that we cannot guarantee the security of the information transmitted by e mail and therefore, if you do not wish to correspond by email, please write or telephone us instead.

 

So at least arguably, if you ARE the intended recipient, you can with it as you like.

 

Word of caution: No-one should place reliance on what is simply my uninformed opinion in such matters; I can only say that I have always published emails to and from myself without concern or repercussions, and have done so with third party emails with the consent of the recipient [i never considered it necessary to obtain permission to publish an authority’s correspondence.]

[MtB]

This brings us to that good old 'intention' thing again.

 

I have a 'home mooring' for REGINALD, but only because I need it to comply with the law, as I don't wish to CC my boat compliantly. I rarely use it.

 

Does this mean my expensive Calcutt Marina mooring also is not a genuine home mooring, even though it counts as a genuine home mooring for all the boats actually moored there?

 

Do CRT spotters come into the marina and record the fact that REGINALD hasn't been there since March, and probably won't be back until November?

 

 

MtB

[NigelMoore]

 

Thats a good one - how many people would voluntarily pay to have a mooring if we were not obliged to have one under the act ?

 

Quite a few if they wanted security for their boats when unattended I imagine – but this is why I referenced the winning argument in the Paul Davies case: that of whether a requirement is “bona fide” complied with.

 

The distance travelled in that case was irrelevant according to the judge [agreeing with the BW argument]; what was relevant was the fact that the boater only moved as he did in order to comply with the legislation, That in itself made the boater’s navigation pattern non-compliant according to the judge - it was not bona fide; the navigation was non-genuine.

 

It appears that they are going to try their luck in hoping for an equally credulous county court judge to find that having an otherwise valid home mooring is non-compliant with the law because it was only taken in order to comply with the law. Therefore, following Davies, it is not a genuine mooring.

 

The argument is equally risible in either scenario, but it cannot be overlooked that the argument succeeded once, so it must be possible that it could do so again.

 

Edit to add: MtB has beaten me to it.

Edited July 12, 2014 by NigelMoore

[MtB]

 

It appears that they are going to try their luck in hoping for an equally credulous county court judge to find that having an otherwise valid home mooring is non-compliant with the law because it was only taken in order to comply with the law. Therefore, following Davies, it is not a genuine mooring.

 

 

A sublimely circular and ludicrous line of reasoning.

 

If one does something only in order to comply with the law, then they are claiming this means one's intentions are not sound and one is therefore still failing to comply.

 

Reductio ad absurdum, If I only drive at the speed limit in order to avoid getting nicked, would this mean they can still nick me?

 

 

MtB

[Captain Zim]

Of course. Especially since old bill will know that you are secretly thinking of doing 60 the whole time. Shame on you.

[junior]

I don't think Alan deserves the flack (or flak) he seems to be getting. Fair enough we all have different opinions, and long may it continue, but some of this seems a little personal to me.

My thoughts entirely. The positives are that 99.9% of people reading this thread will come to the same conclusion and see some peoples true colours.

[Tuscan]

My thoughts entirely. The positives are that 99.9% of people reading this thread will come to the same conclusion and see some peoples true colours.

99.9% Seems a bit strong

 

Once these things become personal whether it was Alan's original post (which was) or others comments , it just becomes a diversion. To Alan's credit he withdrew it subsequently once some of us thought it was inappropriate.

 

We are all full of our own self importance sometimes, me included.

 

Back on topic I am still left wondering why CRT consider this an important case that needs legal jurisdiction as whatever happens it will not create a legal president as I understand it.

[Captain Zim]

Back off topic, I hadn't read the last few pages so didn't realise someone had been having a pop at Alan. Now, I've never met Alan but I have read a lot of his posts, including the one in question where he posted about knowing something top secret. I usually wouldn't go to the trouble of posting something like this but I feel that to pick on something that was was so obviously trivial and innocent really is a bit much.

 

This being an Internet forum, for those of us who haven't met out and about, we only have these posts to go on to judge a character. Alan has never come across to me as anything other than genuine and helpful, and almost always fair and even handed. Just saying. These are my impressions of Alan from reading his posts.

[NigelMoore]

Back on topic I am still left wondering why CRT consider this an important case that needs legal jurisdiction as whatever happens it will not create a legal president as I understand it.

 

They will claim that it does however [supposing it's what they wanted of course], as they did with the Davies case.

 

They would probably, and with some plausibility, claim to use the term in the common parlance sense, rather than the strict legal sense of creating a binding principle of law. A win would still be useful to them, in other words. It would make it so much more awkward for another such County Court case to reach a differing decision on the point, even though they could.

 

Hopefully, if such a result was achieved, the Defendant would appeal - but while we know the stance taken by CaRT, we don't know the detailed stance taken by the Defendant, and that is what will make all the difference in outcomes.

 

Sensibly approached with an understanding Case Management, the choice could be made to ask, as a preliminary issue, whether the relevant consent was necessary in the first place - no point arguing for why the boater has no licence, if the s.8 procedure can't apply anyway.

 

On the other hand, all sides may wish to see the narrower issue determined anyway.

[Joe & his Jack Russell]

Seems to me that instead of actually discussing things properly Mr Nick Norman has to resort to trying to knock people down everytime they input something into the discussion which i find quite unbelievable! This post was put up for information so everyone has an idea whats going on not to get one over on someone because their opinion doesnt co-inside with yours! Stop with the "witty" remarks and listen for a thread or two you may learn something and maybe make some friends!

[nicknorman]

Seems to me that instead of actually discussing things properly Mr Nick Norman has to resort to trying to knock people down everytime they input something into the discussion which i find quite unbelievable! This post was put up for information so everyone has an idea whats going on not to get one over on someone because their opinion doesnt co-inside with yours! Stop with the "witty" remarks and listen for a thread or two you may learn something and maybe make some friends!

Wow who rattled your cage! With potential friends like you, who needs friends!

 

And no, this post was not "put up for information so that everyone has an idea whats(sic) going on", it was put up to provide a misleading picture in an attempt to garner support where, in all probability (bearing in mind no actual facts have been provided) none is deserved.

[cotswoldsman]

Wow who rattled your cage! With potential friends like you, who needs friends!

And no, this post was not "put up for information so that everyone has an idea whats(sic) going on", it was put up to provide a misleading picture in an attempt to garner support where, in all probability (bearing in mind no actual facts have been provided) none is deserved.

Nick as Alan de Enfield was the original poster are you saying he is part of some PR team garnering support for the people who are named in the NBW article? I thought he was simply drawing attention to something he had read on NBW

 

Tony Dunkley - the boater with a fully paid up "home mooring", BSS, insurance and licence, who had his licence revoked for not complying with the 'rules' (despite C&RT admitting they have recorded him on his mooring 88 times in the last 5 years) is summoned to court.

 

Article from Narrowboatworld.

 

http://www.narrowboatworld.com/index.php/news-flash/7085-guilty-until-proved-innocent

[b0atman]

So where do people fit into the scheme of things if they have a 4 month winter mooring and meander about for 8 months with no home mooring but the intention of finding another 4 month winter mooring at some point ?

[Naughty Cal]

So where do people fit into the scheme of things if they have a 4 month winter mooring and meander about for 8 months with no home mooring but the intention of finding another 4 month winter mooring at some point ?

Surely you would be classed as a boater with no home mooring?

[Ronniesonic]

RANT- 19 pages in.............. I for one am sick to the back teeth of the minority of absolute blatant arrogant know it all pisstakers.

 

You can ponce it up all you want with legal speak trying to hide behind 'clause 2abcz/i' or whatever, but it does not change a thing.

 

anyhow, it keeps the muppets on NBW happy with their digraceful trigger happy 'anti C&RT' propoganda BS!

 

 

RANT over.............