Re Hunt

Summary: Finally, and by way of coda to the decision in Haworth v Cartmel & Commissioners for HM Revenue & Customs [2011] EWHC 36 (Ch) reported in last month's edition, District Judge Ashton has kindly brought to our attention a decision of his from 2008 (reported in the Insolvency Law Reports), in which he annulled a bankruptcy order made upon the petition of a Borough Council in respect of a reclusive individual suffering from Huntington's disease who had failed to pay Council tax. He found, inter alia, that the individual was incapable of engaging in the insolvency proceedings by virtue of his mental disorder (and also by virtue of his physical affliction or disability arising out of his Huntington's disease which essentially prevented him from attending Court). In ordering a further hearing of the petition to be conducted on the basis that Mr Hunt was an incapacitated adult, DJ Ashton was highly critical of the approach taken by the local authority both in pursuing the petition and in questioning whether the Court was (in essence) being over-zealous in investigating his capacity to participate in the proceedings.