LATEST NEWS

Litigating without using a qualified solicitor to assist you is strictly for the foolhardy. The point could hardly have been more clearly made than by a case in which a man who wished to have his criminal record erased from the Internet sued the wrong defendant. In a so-called 'right to be forgotten' case, the man pointed out that his conviction was more than five years old and was thus spent for the purposes of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Acting in person, without legal assistance, he launched High...

Remarriages are a common source of disagreement and acrimony among family members and dementia is an increasingly prevalent issue, so it is unsurprising that when both were present, the result was a legal dispute in which the Court of Protection had to decide whether a man living with dementia could marry his long-term partner, with whom he cohabited. The long-divorced man has lived with his partner for more than 20 years. His will already passes to her a considerable legacy, the right to live in his house for two years...

Sometimes, what seem to be quite simple questions have to be decided in court. In a recent case, the issue was who owned the money in a joint bank account when one of the account holders died. Simple question or not, it was argued all the way to the Court of Appeal. The account in point was with the First Caribbean International Bank (Bahamas) Limited and contained some $190,000. It was in the name of the man who died and a friend. The money in the account was almost entirely put...

In a ground-breaking decision that prioritised the rights of the living over those of the dead, the Court of Appeal has opened the way for genetic testing of DNA extracted from a sample taken from a cancer victim before his death in order to clarify the paternity of a man who claims to be his son. The deceased was said to have had a brief relationship with the man's mother that ended when she was three months pregnant with him. The man claimed that his mother had only revealed his...