Sorry about yet more questions !! Can a defendant simply refuse to go on the stand at a Magistrates court ? (a psychiatric report states that it will be beneficial for said person to go on the stand and be accountable for their actions) Can they issue a statement instead through their solicitor ? If so what happens about being cross examined ? Can they refuse to answer questions asked ?

As this group knows, I was recently the victim of a road traffic crash. I've just today issued proceedings against the driver. I haven't heard much from the other innocent victim (who is also of course a witness) - we exchanged names and addresses at the time, and have since sent each other copies of our letters of claim, but nothing substantial beyond that. Based on the behaviour of the...

A hypothetical question at the moment, but it will come round soon enough. Child Tax Credits are paid in respect to children over 16 "in full time education". But what about a child leaving school for university and taking a gap year? Does the parent lose 12 months of Tax Credits (or worse, 14 months - July to the next year's September). (And does "aged between 16-20" take us to the child's...

I have a problem with noise and I need to find out what can be done about it? Alan

Hi all, hope someone can advise on this problem. A friend of mine has recently booked a skiing holiday in January through a booking agent on the telephone. He has just had a confirmation letter from the actual holiday company with a note stating that he had acknowledged that there would be large groups of school children resident at the hotel for the duration. He is not completely averse to...

Mrs TOF and I are planning to change our wills shortly. Not having any children (and we are in our late 50s) our plan is to leave about 50% to the local Church of England Parish. Is there a good form of words to say we leave appointing executors to the PCC. It's not that we don't trust our relations (siblings' descendants), but their lives are complicated enough, and we are not leaving them...

archytas wrote: On 21 Oct, 19:30, Dave wrote: wrote: On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:15:13 +0100, Dave Dave@Acmenet wrote: Without going into detail I think my son is in danger of being ripped of by a new partner. Is there anyway that I as a private individual can obtain some background information on the person in question? Any...

I was running a small sales business and my manager was arrested for downloading indecent images onto 1 of my "leased" laptop computers. The police seized all 4 laptops,2 towers, 4 mobile phones and all my company back up records on 14 floppy discs. The manager was convicted and the Police returned one tower, 2 laptops and 3 mobiles. I asked what had happened to the rest and was told that there...

Hi, I sent back a faulty item to an online retailer. They agreed a refund but have refused to refund both the original delivery costs and the cost to return it. This would be straightforward if I had bought this from a shop but the item was bought via Amazon Marketplace. Furthermore I am not even sure where the retailer is based, despite them having a UK web site and phone number. The...

My mother died 8 months ago. Previously, my mother and father entered a scheme to provide capital on the value of the house which at that time was 100% owned by them. On my mother's death, the finance company announced they had the freehold of the house and put it on the market where it has festered in this bad selling time. We seem to be at the mercy of the finance company which is...

Background. I live in Scotland and have had to get an English solicitor to do some work for me. Thanks to all the money laundering laws, they asked for a certified copy of and my original passport. Two part question. 1. When one is asked to provide a certified copy of and original of a passport to a solicitor - who is entitled to certify it? The same persons who can certify a passport photo?

Was due to see a show in London on Thursday and tickets were booked online with debit card weeks ago. Due to an "incident" (Suicide) on the railway travelling to the show we were unable to get there at all. Ticket people say no refund due to show not being cancelled Railway say refund for rail tickets but NOT show tickets as "beyond their control" Anyway of getting the £75 for the 2 tickets...

The moderation team has now lost Cerebus, who has resigned, and Benedict, who is assumed to have stopped posting to usenet for the time being. Several other moderators have stopped moderating for the time being, possibly due to the pressure of work. In fact, for the last few weeks just about all the moderating has been done by 3 moderators. If anyone here would like to join the moderation...

I moved out of a flat. The landlord's managment company said some stuff had been damaged, and they'd need to keep some of the deposit. I agreed with this - it clearly was damage and not fair wear and tear. The landlord kept just over £400 of a £1600 deposit to replace some carpet (95 cm * 120 cm). Three months later the new tennant (who'd moved in shortly after I left) rang me about some...

i realise that when children reach a certain age they can make their own minds up about contact, and that the courts take their wishes into account when making decisions. But is there an actual age that a child reaches before they would not be included in a contact order. i know that for paying maintenance it continues up to the child being 19 whilst in further education, does the same principle...

The company that manages the block I live in circulated a new service charge for 08/09 at the start of the financial year in which the service charge for electricity was increased from approx £1000/year to £5000/year for the communal supply. I queried this as being somewhat on the high side and have finally found out (after months of procrastination and stalling on their part) that the reason...

Hi, I've been a self-employed private-hire driver for the last 14 years. I simply receive "jobs" from a business (consisting of two people, same people for 14 years) who have a single contract with a very large plc. They send me an invoice each week showing what they charge the plc. and they deduct 25% from this to keep for themselves. They "employ" many drivers in this way and we are all...

I have been involved with RoW issues all my life and now I am trying to do it lawfully. This is very involved for a non-solicitor and it is the first time I have attempted this avenue without help from a Solicitor or a very skilled expert. I am posting it here to allow others to see what is involved and hopefully to make it easier for others to maintain RoW. The blog reads from the oldest post...

Anyone who gets their energy from the above company will have had a letter from them recently informing them of a hefty price increase of 29.2% for gas and 19.2% for electricity for units used after 25th August. Following a tip from a poster on uk.finance I had a web-chat with Atlantic customer services. I first of all asked if the price increase took effect from the first meter reading...

My employer gives 25 or 29 (dependant on length of service) holidays per year. This excludes bank holidays. My employer also has a quarterly bonus scheme based on utilisation - we are IT consultants. Utilisation target is 80% utilised per quarter. this 80% target is to include holidays. As an example the last qtr - July-Sept - there are 65 available working days, so our target for...