Eady: Remarkable admission
A High Court judge has described as “extraordinary” the evidence of a solicitor who admitted he was only giving it because he was being paid to do so – and had no direct knowledge of the issues at stake.
Mrs Justice Eady made the comments about Christopher Gadd in her decision, which we reported yesterday, to dismiss the data breach claim brought by three clients of North London firm Ersan & Co against national practice DWF.
This concerned DWF’s naming the clients in a spreadsheet attached to a witness statement (known as ‘JS1’) by a then DWF lawyer. It was deploying this on behalf of insurer clients as similar fact evidence in challenging personal injury claims brought by Ersan clients by arguing they were fundamentally dishonest.
Eady J recounted that each claimant gave evidence, as did Mr Gadd, a consultant solicitor at Ersan & Co.
She said: “[He] explained that his consultancy at Ersan had started in November/December 2024, and was for a discrete purpose, namely to provide a witness statement in these proceedings.
“As he had no prior involvement in the matters to which these claims related, Mr Gadd acknowledged that he was giving evidence about something of which he had no knowledge other than that he had been told or shown by others.
“Asked why he was giving evidence at all, Mr Gadd responded: ‘I don’t know, I was asked to do so; I was paid to do so.’”
Later in the judgment, Eady J said it was “hard to do other than accept the defendant’s description of his evidence (in closing submissions) as extraordinary”.
She explained: “Mr Gadd was unable to explain why he was giving evidence in these proceedings other than the fact that he was being paid to do so.
“That was a remarkable admission, in particular given the earlier dispute relating to his statement and the questions that had been raised regarding his status as a witness (issues addressed in my judgment of 1 April 2025).
“Moreover, given that the defendant has at all times made clear its view that these claims are an abuse, motivated by Ersan’s wish to undermine reliance on JS1 in the remaining claims before the county court, the only sensible inference would seem to be that Mr Gadd was advanced as a witness to avoid having to call someone from Ersan with direct involvement in the conduct of these proceedings.”
In the 1 April ruling, Eady J granted DWF’s application to exclude multiple parts of Mr Gadd’s 39-page witness statement for various reasons, finding that some were legal submissions and others were not relevant.
The statement made a number of serious allegations against DWF, including the suggestion that its use of JS1 “appears to be part of a calculated strategy by insurers and DWF to undermine the fairness of court proceedings” and that the data was “partial” and cherry picked.
Excluding these, Eady J said these were not allegations raised by the claimants’ pleaded case.
The question about his status concerned whether he worked at Ersan as it was not recorded by the Law Society. Asked at the trial, Mr Gadd said he had consultancies at a number of firms and may have failed to keep the Law Society record up-to-date.
Mr Gadd had no comment on the ruling. Ersan provided a statement on the outcome of the case, which we published yesterday, but, despite being asked to, did not specifically address these particular observations by the judge.
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