TAKEN FROM THE ■■■■■■■ NEWS AND STAR …
Stobart boss Andrew Tinkler and one of his senior executives face an attempt to get them jailed for contempt of court.
A judge has ruled that there is enough evidence for him to grant permission to bring contempt proceedings against Mr Tinkler and his legal director, Trevor Howarth, over allegations they made false statements during legal proceedings. They plan to appeal.
The claim was brought by Peter Elliott, an aviation consultant from Appleby, who has been locked in a bitter six-year legal battle with Mr Tinkler and Stobart centred on Carlisle Airport.
Mr Elliott received a three-month jail sentence in 2009 after a judge ruled that he had breached an order preventing him from making defamatory statements about Mr Tinkler.
Mr Elliott said that the latest ruling was “an important victory on the road to justice”.
Mr Tinkler and Mr Howarth issued a statement saying: “We are confident in the judicial process in which we both expect in the fullness of time to be exonerated.”
Sitting in the High Court in Manchester, Judge Mark Pelling QC said that Mr Elliott had “demonstrated a sufficiently strong prima facie case” that Mr Tinkler had made a statement that “was false and was made knowing it to be false or recklessly not caring whether it was true or false”.
Mr Tinkler faces five allegations of contempt while Mr Howarth faces two.
It is a civil case, not a criminal one.
The judge threw out a further 52 allegations against the pair, struck out further claims against Mr Tinkler’s business associate William Stobart and Stobart Group, and ordered Mr Elliott to pay £60,000 in costs. He also imposed a civil restraining order on Mr Elliott, restricting his ability to issue further proceedings.
In his ruling, Judge Pelling explains that the litigation arose out of claims made by Mr Elliott in 2007 that Mr Tinkler’s business, WA Developments International (WADI), had run illegal air operations from Carlisle Airport.
WADI used to own Stobart, which is now a publicly-quoted company.
Mr Elliott alleged that WADI used a private jet and helicopter for charter operations without the necessary licence.
The Civil Aviation Authority investigated but did not prosecute because it could not find enough evidence “to provide a realistic prospect of conviction”.
Mr Elliott continued to make allegations, however, which triggered a whole series of legal proceedings.
During the course of these, Mr Tinkler made a witness statement saying that he had been interviewed under caution by the Civil Aviation Authority, which had not been the case.
Judge Pelling said there was a “sufficiently strong case” to suggest Mr Tinkler had known this.
Later, Mr Tinkler claimed that allegations about unlawful flights were “harassing and wholly unfounded” when in fact, the judge said, there was a strong case that Mr Tinkler knew the claims to be true.
In another statement, Mr Tinkler denied knowledge of specific allegations against him made by Mr Elliott.
This statement may have been a deliberate falsehood and contributed to Mr Elliott being jailed in 2009.
Mr Howarth may also have made a statement in relation to this matter that was “false in the sense that he could not honestly hold the opinion claimed, and was known to him to be false”.
This misstatement “was likely to interfere with the course of justice”, the judge added. Mr Howarth had stated too that the allegations about illegal flights were “outrageous and incorrect” when, the judge said, there was a “sufficiently strong case” he knew them to be true.
Mr Tinkler is chief executive of Stobart Group, which owns the Eddie Stobart haulage business and has diverse interests including property, civil engineering, air and biomass.
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