The recent decision of the Court of Appeal in The Trustee in Bankruptcy of Richard Canty v Canty [2007] serves as a useful reminder that a successful application for committal can be an effective weapon of last resort for a creditor.
The relevant part of Canty concerned an application for possession brought by Canty’s Trustee in Bankruptcy. Canty had been made bankrupt in 2000 in respect of an unpaid costs order. He refused to come to terms with and accept the orders against him, with the result that he launched a number of appeals attempting to reopen the earlier litigation. Those applications caused substantial delay in enforcement, incurred significant costs and took up a good deal of court time. By 2005, there had been several unsuccessful appeals with further adverse costs orders against Canty. Eventually, the trustee obtained an order for possession of Canty’s home, but once again Canty refused to acknowledge the order or to comply with it. On one occasion he took to the roof of his home in protest at attempts to try and secure possessions from him under the possession order, thereby frustrating the intended eviction.
