Adrian Bressington is listed as head of the Family Law department at Awdry, Bailey & Douglas Solicitors in Devizes, Wiltshire.
Justice is coming............
The following e-mail was sent to Adrian Bressington after receiving a phone call from yet another one of his 'victims'.
Sent : Sat 25/06/2011 21:03
Subject: Still up to your usual tricks I see?
Mr Bressington.
It frankly staggers me that you continue your disgraceful modus operandi unchecked. Let me remind you of just some….
- Not replying to correspondence
- Serving papers and summons on a Friday
- Lying or misrepresenting the truth in court (You’re an expert at this)
- Facilitating (and probably encouraging) the destruction of previously happy relationships between children and their parents.
- Making proceedings as adversarial as possible, which of course directly benefits you.
Justice is coming Bressington.
You didn't have the spine to come after me, despite AB & D’s pathetic threats. Despite my expeditious reply to ABD and your threats, they didn't even have the courtesy to reply. Not that I was surprised after my experience with you. I wonder why that was? I wonder why you went after Kordowski and not me as well, despite my blog giving far more details than I had given on the Solicitors from Hell website? Easy meat? I’m not quite as easy though – am I? Problem is – you KNOW I have reams of evidence proving everything I said (and continue to say) about you. I don’t think that Mr Justice Tugendhat would have been letting you off quite so easily if he had seen everything I have on you. What happened that day in court was not proper justice. The judge simply had no choice but to act in the way he did with such a poor litigant. Don’t bank on that next time.
It was refreshing to see you at the RCJ, clearly very uncomfortable and certainly not gobbing off about how well you and the judge knew each other as you had previously done with me. I am looking forward to the day when that will happen again.
How you have the audacity to sit on the Family Panel at the Solicitors Regulation Authority is beyond me. Their 2nd rule is a relatively straight forward one for the vast majority of citizens, let alone solicitors, but is one that you completely fail to conform to in nearly everything that you do. It’s real simple. 1.02 Integrity - You must act with integrity. I think you should consult a dictionary on the meaning of this word.
More and more of your disgraceful behaviour is getting back to me, not just from fathers who have had the relationship with their children ruined, but also from clients of yours. One way or another – you are going to answer for your actions and be exposed to one and all for what you are.
Keep at it Bressington - I am :o)
Tim Line
This e-mail received no reply and none was expected...............
He was instructed by my ex-wife for the duration of our long drawn out divorce which began in May 2006 and staggeringly, continued until the middle of 2010.
Throughout that process, Bressington conducted himself in a disgraceful manner, well below the minimum standards one would expect from an experienced solicitor. The 'modus operandi' that he chooses to adopt is well known throughout Wiltshire and beyond, by judges, other firms of solicitors and any who are unfortunate to have dealings with him, whether as his clients or in opposition.
It is time that this man faces justice and is exposed for what he really is, and THAT is the main purpose of this website.
In time, it will also explain in detail, with irrefutable proof, the allegations against him.
If YOU have had any negative experience at the hands of this man, whether as a client of his, or perhaps if he represented your spouse or ex-spouse, we would be extremely pleased to hear from you. We are particularly looking for evidence, in the form of letters, court transcripts, tape recordings or anything else that you may think is useful. You will be under no obligation or pressure to do anything that you don't want to, but if you feel as if you have been let down by the system or feel in any way that the involvement of Bressington in your case caused you unnecessary financial hardship, harmed the relationship between you and your children or anything else that you just consider plain WRONG, then please get in touch. Several have already.
Contact us via any of the following means:
- Telephone: 07718 877410
- E-mail: infoabout@adrianbressington.co.uk
What have I done so far?
by StuG (RFFJ) 28 March 2011
Mr Tim Line is a well known and respected member of Real Fathers for Justice. Wikipedia lists him as a father’s activist who spent 36 hours on Lord Justice Thorpe’s house. Soon after his family split he posted, on his own blog (www.f4jtimline.blogspot.com) and on www.solicitorsfromhell.co.uk about what he perceived to be the numerous disgraceful conducts of a Mr Bressington, who had represented Tim’s ex-wife during the divorce/contact proceedings. That second protest may soon attract more interest than the first.
As one can expect, Mr Bressington’s firm issued the usual threats of legal action against Tim if he did not remove the posts, emphasizing how their legal action could ruin him etc etc etc. True to character, Tim stood firm. Armed with reams of documentary proof, he told them to ‘bring it on.’ They didn’t. And still haven’t.
That was all quite a while ago now. Today, I had the honour of joining Tim in the Royal Courts of Justice as we observed Rick Kordowski, the owner of www.solicitorsfromhell.co.uk, be sued for defamation by Awdry, Bailey and Douglas, the firm for whom Bressington works.
Yes, I’m puzzled too. How can this legal firm avoid suing Tim, but sue Rick for reproducing the same material as is on Tim’s blog? Simple: you manipulate the legal process and, if your transparent legal manoeuvring is not properly countered, the judge has no choice but to play along.
The chances of winning under such circumstances are increased when the defendant is unrepresented and not particularly clued up about either legal process or the area of law they operate within. Rick represented himself. His legal opponents had a barrister well versed in legal process. Rick, conversely, is clearly still on a learning curve.
Libel cases apparently last for three hearings. The first decides the trajectories of the case - what can and can’t be argued. The second hearing stages those arguments and ends in judgment, so the parties need to produce all facts upon which they wish to rely on in court. The third hearing covers costs.
Two weeks before the first hearing, the claimants successfully applied for it to be dispensed with. This meant Rick needed to provide all relevant, factual evidence at round one instead of round 2. Although that evidence was easily available, he didn't’t produce it on the day. Tim, the keeper of the evidence, was difficult to get hold of as he had changed address and was still setting up in his new London accommodation. Being a lay person, Rick did not appear to fully grasp the implications of the change in procedure.
Consequently, Rick was slaughtered in court. His defence was stuck out and he was ordered to pay costs exceeding £10,000. Effectively, he went into court without training and without his guard up so, for now at least, he has paid the price of taking on a legal profession very keen to put him out of business.
The judge had a walkover. So much so, that he went too far. He humiliated Rick, and made a meal out of cross-examining him. It is questionable whether a judge should harangue a defendant and thereby manufacture his own evidence but, in this case, in the long run, I think the judge has helped justice along. What happened in court today was an utter injustice, but he provided Rick with a much needed education that’ll come in handy in the Court of Appeal. If not, it’ll certainly come in handy in the European Court of Human Rights, as the McLibel case indicates. But for now, with no money and no legal advice, Rick’s legal education comes the hard way – from judges. He’s getting to meet quite a few.
Rick’s career against lawyers stems from his own experience of them. He lost his business and home in a case where the Law Society upheld a subsequent complaint by Rick that both the lawyers, the one acting for and the one acting against him, were colluding with each other. The Law Society compensated him with £500.
Rick has received mixed reviews for his website, not least for his apparent admin charge of £299 for any solicitor who wants derogatory posts removed. Even his supporters lament this provision in his terms and conditions. It was something the judge relied on heavily today.
Rick’s main argument for publishing material about solicitors is that the postings on his website are in the public interest. The judge swept away this defence with a simple stroke; if the material is in the public interest, why remove it upon receipt of a fee? The judge considered the fee, and Rick’s impecuniousness (the fact that he is broke) indicative of extortion. “so, the people who wish to advertise on your site, having failed to obtain satisfaction via the usual route which bases complaints according to their merit choose you instead.” (Presumably the judge believes in the myth that the Solicitors Regulation Authority is a competent and unbiased monitoring system). “Solicitors then either pay the £299 fee to have posts about them removed, or face legal proceedings knowing your lack of money means they cannot receive compensation.”
Understandable argument, Your Honour, but flawed in reality. As Rick said, few consider the SRA as fair machinery for complaints. And no solicitors have yet been stupid enough to pay the £299 fee. Imagine the fun if they did. So how can Rick be an extortionist if he has not actually received any money? And, of the 1,000 or so posts on the site, only ten solicitors (1%) have challenged them in court. So either 99% of the postings cannot be reasonably challenged, or those legal professionals are happy to be slandered. Take your pick. Rick, in reality, is a genial, softly spoken, decent man battling against the odds. Today’s judicial character assassination was unwarranted. A further judicial slur was the claim that the title “solicitors from hell” – meant the website was designed as a front for defamation. Wrong again, Your Honour. It’s only defamation if it is not true and 99% of lawyers featured on the site prefer to leave their details on the site rather than sue.
Rick has lost all ten of the cases against him in court. He struggles to obtain the evidence required and struggles to fight his corner in court. He is a lone operator who is inundated with legal suits – he cannot handle it all, and the legal profession knows it. Today, Rick’s application for leave to appeal, so he could produce the evidence (absolute reams of it, which I have personally seen piled up in Tim Line’s home) was refused on the basis that the judge ‘did not believe the evidence existed.’ Here, I hope, the judge is on very dodgy ground. If it does not exist, why has Bressington not sued Tim directly and have him remove posts from his own personal blog? And why did he try to prevent a late statement submission by Rick to the court?
The judge awarded costs and directed Rick to remove the post about Bressington from the solicitorsfromhell website but Awdry, Bailey and Douglas made no application to achieve the same with Tim Line’s blog at www.f4jtimline.blogspot.com
The judge reserved his judgment. Personally, I believe judgments should be immediately available. I have seen too many Family Division Approved Judgments suffer from retrospective editing where grounds for refusal of applications or appeals have been textually altered from what was voiced in court, where additional elements have been fabricated, and important elements deleted. But then, the proceedings transcript for today’s open court hearing is already being prepared. We will be comparing the two to ensure they match up. Plus, the judge’s behaviour, more typical of judge’s acting in secret family courts than in open court, has earned Rick the kind of support he has so far lacked. Today, there was an audience to witness it all.
Bressington should not count his winnings yet. The odds will swing against him very soon.
Evidence:
This section will display just a small fraction of the evidence we have against this man. It should make interesting reading for those scrupulous members of the legal profession and perhaps may even give some new ideas to the less than scrupulous ones.
Explanatory note to letter of 18th September 2006 Awdry, Bailey & Douglas to Pooley Dale
Mr Line is thankful for the unusually speedy response to the letter of 12th September 2006.
The children were aged 13, 12 and 10 and therefore quite of age to discuss matters involving them, particularly matters of contact with a father with whom they had always cohabited and had a fine relationship. The presence of lawyers in contact matters indicates the new reality of the parents not managing to communicate, so Mr Line was unable to discuss matters with Mrs Line ‘in an appropriate way’.
The children at this age and stage in proceedings have expectations and Article 8 rights entitling them to provide input in all legal matters concerning them, especially contact. These rights of self determination are further enshrined in the ECHR and UNCHR. Every effort should be made by both responsible parents and lawyers (on both sides) alike, to steer these matters away from the delays and pitfalls of the family legal system, when there are no child welfare issues. For a fit father to hold imperative conversations during periods of upheaval, and to make circumstances easier, with his own children, is justifiable. It is acceptable for both parents to hold discussions and to repeat until the children’s wishes and feelings are ascertained so they can be built into reality as soon as possible.
That the children came to and expressed their preference for a contact arrangement by the route indicated in para 2 of the letter of 12th September 2006 indicates their articulacy and understanding, and Mr Line’s flexibility in ensuring the children’s wishes and feelings were paramount.
Para 3 of the letter of 18th September indicates that, as with earlier correspondence on matters of contact, Mr Bressington has not taken instructions from his client, yet (again) predicts a negative outcome to Mr Line’s proposals, which were agreed directly with the children. Mr Bressington places his presumption of his client’s response above the stated wishes of the children. This, perhaps, does not sit well with his client’s stated preference for contact matters to be sorted in a non-confrontational manner and by agreement. Is Mr Bressington presuming that the children’s voices would not play part in the agreement?
Mr Bressington writes in abstruse form; by using the word “we”; predicting his client’s responses and advocating for her without consulting her, he appears to afford himself an unusual propensity to her.
By replying before obtaining instructions, the letter fees are again doubled for both sides.
Midweek visiting and staying contact is the norm in this country in the absence of good reason to the contrary. It accepted practice by the courts to order midweek contact. Mr Line questions the use of the word “extensive” (midweek contact). Children also do homework at the separated parent’s home. Midweek contact works for children who empirical research shows to be those with the best outcomes after family split.
Acknowledgement of Service had already been sent on the 6th September 2006.
Explanatory note to letter of 10th August 2009 from Withy King Solicitors to Awdry, Bailey & Douglas Solicitors
This letter was written by Withy King to Mr Bressington because we had not received replies to our letters dated 15th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd and 30th July 2009.
The replies to the questionnaire were subject to a Court timetable and should have been back no later than 21st July. He eventually faxed completely inadequate replies, less than 1 working day before the hearing and the day after he knew Mr Line’s solicitor had gone on annual leave. (More to follow on this later.....)
The Actuarial report was subject to a court timetable and should have been filed by 17th July. Without Mr Bressington’s agreement to the draft letter of instruction, it could not be sent to Albert Goodman Pension Consultants and they could not begin preparing the pension report, something that was crucial for a successful FDR Hearing which was due to take place on 24 August 2009.
The Severance of Tenancy was an incredibly simple thing to administer and should not have required multiple letters.This 5th letter reminding Bressington of his failings showed his flagrant disregard for Court set timetables and fell way short of a basic level of competence, integrity and decency you would expect from a solicitor. These extra letters only needed to be written because of Mr Bressington’s failure to respond and completely ignored the wishes of the court, which directly resulted in more unnecessary extra costs for Mr Line.
This is just a taster - there is much much more to come............................
Keep checking back as we populate the website with more uncomfortable truths about Adrian Bressington and highlight the failings of one of the most complained about industries in the land and it's complete inability to adequately protect the members of the public who use their services.
I have a feeling that Adrian Bressington and Awdry, Bailey & Douglas Solicitors are going to become quite well known, but for all the wrong reasons..........
In the meantime, if you have any information of your own on this man,
please don't hesitate to contact us
e-mail: infoabout@adrianbressington.co.uk Phone: 07718 877410