Threats to Own Solicitors Not Privileged

C v C (Custody: Affidavit) (CA TLR 16 March)

In matrimonial proceedings the husband’s solicitors applied to be removed from the record on the grounds that their client had made grossly indecent, obscene and menacing statements to a female solicitor whose quote for the costs of selling the former matrimonial home ‘sent him into a state of great anger’. All of this was set out in the affidavit in support of the application to be removed from the record, a copy of which was unfortunately wrongly sent to the wife’s solicitors. The wife’s solicitors wished to rely on the contents of the affidavit in connection with a dispute about the father’s contact with the child. The court was not convinced that a telephone call requesting a quote for conveyancing work fell within the scope of legal professional privilege. The words were clearly criminal in themselves. In ordinary language, the cat so generally out in the open could not be possibly be re-bagged. The court revoked an injunction restraining the wife from relying on the affidavit.