Errors and poor service at county court

What happened

Mr B made a small claim in early 2013 which was dealt with by his local county court. In late 2013 the court found in Mr B's favour. That decision was later set-aside because the defendant had not received notice of the hearing. In early 2014 the case was re-heard and the court again found in Mr B's favour.

What we found

There was a series of errors and poor service by the court early in Mr B's case. The court arranged a hearing on a date Mr B had asked them to avoid; it did not recognise this error and told Mr B he had to make an application to change the hearing date; it failed to log Mr B's payment which led to a hearing being struck out; and court staff members spoke to Mr B in an unacceptable manner and were uncooperative.

The court also did not alert Mr B to the fact that the defendant had changed address in September 2013 as it should have done. The court failed to recognise this error because it did not look at the court file. It only looked at its computer records when it considered Mr B's complaints

Putting it right

HMCTS apologised to Mr B for its errors, and for not identifying its failure to send out the notice of the hearing in autumn 2013. The court reimbursed him £150 for the cost of the hearing, paid him £250 for the inconvenience and frustration caused by its poor service, complaint handling, errors and delays, and to compensate him for the cost of copying papers. It also paid him £100 for lost earnings.

It made staff aware that responses should be evidence-based when dealing with complaints, and that this would usually entail checking the file to ensure that mistakes are not overlooked.