Edward W. Ellis loses appeal

Was it really more than six months ago that we reported on the commencement of Application to Commit proceedings against Edward W. Ellis, Neelu’s former live-in struck-off solicitor?

By gum, it has been that long! Thanks to the kind reader who forwarded us an update on the case.

According to the case report, which we cannot link here due to copyright restrictions, Ellis attempted to forestall the inevitable: he made an application demanding that the judge recuse herself (on the basis that the entire judicial process is fraudulent); he failed to attend the proceedings…you know, the usual.

At the February 2018 proceedings, following a lot of shenanigans involving people being  bodily removed from court and Neelu doing her customary stand-up comedian thing, Ellis was found to have breached the order which had been put in place in 2016 to prevent him from issuing claims on behalf of others, or from assisting others to bring claims.

The three-day hearing ended with Ellis receiving a three-month sentence, suspended for 12 months, as well as a general civil restraint order (GCRO). The GCRO prohibited Ellis from issuing claims or making applications, not only in the High Court but in any county court. Nor was he permitted to procure others to do so on his behalf, for a period of two years.

Ellis appealed the suspended sentence. Because of course he did. And in for a penny, in for a pound, he applied for permission to appeal the GCRO while he was at it.

As one might expect, he claimed that the Court of Appeal only had the jurisdiction to allow the appeal; if they did otherwise, he said, they would be engaging in “corruption fraud”.

However, ’twas all for naught: the Court of Appeal determined that the original judge had been correct in imposing the sentence, and well within her rights to make the GCRO, on the basis that Mr Ellis is a vexatious litigant with a nasty habit of using others as claimants on his behalf, in claims which were an abuse of process and totally without merit.

The Court of Appeal also determined that the sentence was appropriately severe, given that Ellis had displayed complete disregard for the court’s authority—which, if we are not mistaken, is generally what is meant by “contempt of court”.

We wonder, then, what the court might make of the London Office of Equity Lawyer Edward William Ellis, which has its own Facebook page and everything? Of course, as we know, the offices have been shuttered and the premises are up for auction in a couple of weeks, but when have Neelu and her merry band of FOTLers ever let a little thing like that stop them?