Have you secretly recorded your neighbour stating that your cat might suddenly vanish into the great mousehole in the sky, but they deny it?

The Appeal Court accepted a covert recording made in the course of a neighbour dispute into evidence for a case, and has relied on those recordings as evidence when making a costs ruling.

It’s important to note that this was in a dispute between neighbours; the recording was accepted by a County Court, and that decision affirmed at Appeal Court level.

The recording proved that one party was likely to try an avoid paying legal costs:

… one party’s private feelings of animosity were on display. Unusually, one neighbour had surreptitiously recorded the other talking about the dispute.

The County Court allowed those recordings to be admitted as evidence. Subsequently, the Court of Appeal also relied on the recordings when resolving a costs dispute. The recordings showed that the recorded neighbour was likely to try and avoid paying any costs order made against him. That was one of the reasons why the Court required him to pay £50,000 into courts as security for his neighbour’s costs.

And the Court allowed the recording into evidence:

..the Court of Appeal took into account the secret recordings referred to above. These suggested that the losing neighbour may try to evade any order for costs made against him. One of the recordings was described as follows by the Court of Appeal judge:

“I’m going to mortgage the house up as much as I can so there’s hardly anything in it”.  He said that he would “speak to the accountants and find out whether they can do anything towards the firm”.  He said “I’m gonna cover all angles”.  He[said] he would tell the respondent “you can have what I’ve got in my pocket — that’s my tube fare” and that, when asked whether he had a business, he proposed to reply, “No, I don’t own no business no more.  I sold it, mate”. And then he suggested…that “the f***ing colour [would drain] out of [the respondent’s] face”.

I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not going to comment in detail, but this needs some commentary from the legal bods.

Personally, I’ve only ever made covert recordings once, and that was also in a neighbour dispute when a physical threat had been made, and so it would have been for the purposes of persuading the police to take any possible complaint of harassment seriously.

Interesting. Maybe.

There is a detailed report at Housing and Property Law Daily.

Matt Wardman blogs at The Wardman Wire, on media, politics and technology, in addition to writing at the Raccoon’s burrow.

Livewire June 20, 2011 at 19:46

Me neighbour was rude to me cat
So I taped him with bug in me hat
I
dubbed on the sound
Of axe being ground
And the bastard got Broadmoor
for that

I crept up with me bug like a ghost
The neighbour was going to be
toast
I produced it in court
But it all came to nought
The judge was
as deaf as a post

2Mac June 20, 2011 at 17:14

I have recorded my neighbour. He was unaware of this at the time as he was
blindfolded and tied to a chair. After several prods with the blow torch he
admitted that it was his kids that kicked the football onto my roses.

Only joking. I do not have roses, it was just footprints in the garden but
I did not want you to think I was over reacting.

Matt Wardman
June 20, 2011 at 16:42

Was reading about a case this morning where a tenant resisting eviction had
a 3 month delay on the Court hearing to find a translater because they claimed
not to speak English, despite being perfectly good at it a couple of days
previously.

A case for covert recording of initial interviews, perhaps.

Ian R Thorpe June
20, 2011 at 16:05

It will be fun to watch families being wrecked if covert recordings are
ever accepted as evidence in disputed will cases.

Matt Wardman
June 20, 2011 at 16:39

Ha!

Smoking
Hot June 20, 2011 at 13:47

We use and strongly advocate the use of covert recordings when dealing with
UKBA stop and searches at the borders. This is because the UKBA refuse to use
recording facilities when interviewing travellers returning from the EU with
duty paid excise goods (tobacco and cigarettes). lf your goods are confiscated
the only account of the interview is the UKBA officers paraphrased notebook
account. They then try and make you sign it as a true and factual account of
said interview. You do not get a copy of this. Furthermore, you have 1 month
to appeal but if you want a copy of the notebook it will cost 10 pound and you
have to send in a SAR request. This takes 40 days!

We’ve used the content of covert recordings involing the UKBA when in
dispute with them. The police were also involved. Neither the police or the
UKBA challenged the use of these recordings. lt is legal to covertly record
oneself and others but not if you leave the device running whilst you are not
in the room. You have to have the device in your possession at all times.