Mr J complained that HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) was responsible for losing six case files that he had prepared as part of his application to appeal a court decision. He was unhappy with the level of compensation that HMCTS offered.
What happened
Mr J wanted permission to appeal a decision of a judicial review hearing. He sent HMCTS an application for permission to appeal, including six bundles of case files. When he contacted HMCTS to check if it had received them, it told him they were lost and likely to have been destroyed.
Three months later, HMCTS recovered four of the bundles and returned them to Mr J. However, the two other bundles remained missing. Mr J resent all six bundles to HMCTS which cost him nearly £50 in postage fees.
Mr J complained to HMCTS and said that it should pay him over £49,000 plus VAT in recognition of the time he had spent putting this matter right. HMCTS acknowledged that it had made mistakes and apologised. It paid him £100. Mr J was not happy with this amount and also wanted a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding the loss of his case files.
What we found
We found that HMCTS gave Mr J conflicting information, which caused him worry and frustration. Then when they returned four of his bundles he still had to get together a copy of the remaining two before reposting all bundles back to the court.
Although the £100 was a long way short of the level of compensation that Mr J was seeking, we were satisfied that this covered his additional postage costs and was reasonable in the circumstances. We therefore did not uphold this complaint.
HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS)
UK
Did not apologise properly or do enough to put things right