Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. Solicitor General v Millinder to by Mr Whitgrave in his Affidavit. The correspondence sent to Mr Justice Fancourt also refers to matters relating to the underlying litigation, including references to Middlesbrough’s solicitors, Womble Bond Dickinson (UK) LLP, its general counsel Mr Robin Bloom, and Mr Hannon, the liquidator of the two companies. 63. There is no other plausible candidate who might have sent the correspondence and, as mentioned earlier in this judgment, Mr Millinder had made it clear from the outset that he had no intention of complying with the section 42 order. Finally, when he was expressly asked by me at the hearing whether he sent the emails, (after having been reminded of his right not to incriminate himself), Mr Millinder did not deny it. Whilst he did not expressly admit it either, he did say that he had “done nothing wrong” because the section 42 order was void, and he contended that he was not obliged to comply with a void order. 64. The Court was therefore satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr Millinder sent each of the fifteen emails, and that these were deliberate, contumacious breaches of the terms of the section 42 order. 65. Mr Millinder’s sole excuse for these acts of deliberate disobedience to a court order was that the section 42 order was a nullity, as the Divisional Court acted ultra vires in making it. He submitted that the Divisional Court only had power to make such an order under section 42 when the defendant had been issuing vexatious claims and applications or otherwise abusing the process of the court. In his skeleton argument for the hearing, supported by his earlier skeleton arguments, witness statements and “reports” (all of which are in the voluminous supplementary bundle) Mr Millinder contended that the various sets of proceedings he had brought were designed to “remove proven fraudulent liabilities in insolvency proceedings” and were therefore not vexatious. 66. The short answer is that the Divisional Court had the power under statute to make the order, and it did so after a hearing in which the burden of proof was on the Attorney General to prove that Mr Millinder was a vexatious litigant, and that burden was discharged. On that occasion, as he accepted at the time (see my judgment in the section 42 proceedings) Mr Millinder was given a full and fair opportunity to explain why his prior conduct was not vexatious. He argued his case at some length, and the Court ruled against him for the reasons set out in the judgments that were handed down in the section 42 proceedings. It is not open to Mr Millinder to re-litigate that issue, which has already been conclusively determined against him. It is difficult to think of anyone who more aptly fits the description of a vexatious litigant than Mr Millinder. 67. Moreover, Mr Millinder was refused permission to appeal against the section 42 order. There appears to be a striking similarity between the arguments that Mr Millinder has put forward in answer to the contempt application and those in the grounds of appeal to which Lord Justice William Davis alluded. The Court of Appeal has held that none of those grounds is arguable with a real prospect of success. 68. As Mr Hays submitted, once the section 42 order was made and Mr Millinder had notice of it, it was enforceable against him. It is no answer to an application for contempt based on breaches of a court order to argue that the order should never have been made in the first place; the remedy is to appeal. In this case, Mr Millinder has 18

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