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	England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> Churchhouse, R (on the application of) v Inland Revenue [2003] EWHC 681 (Admin) (04 April 2003) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2003/681.html Cite as: [2003] EWHC 681 (Admin)

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		4 April 2003

Mr Justice Munby:

1. This renewed application for permission to apply for judicial review arises in somewhat unusual circumstances.
2. The claimant is the modern equivalent of what in a more robust age would have been called a common informer. Traditionally they have had a bad name in the law. Coke, writing in the early seventeenth century of suits brought by common informers (3 Inst 194), called such men

"viperous vermin [who] under the reverend mantle of law and justice instituted for protection of the innocent, and the good of the Commonwealth, did vexe and depauperize the Subject, and commonly the poorer sort, for malice or private ends, and never for love of justice".

3. Bentham, however, as the claimant was at pains to point out when he began his very erudite and interesting argument, took a very different view towards the end of the eighteenth century (The Rationale of Reward, Book 1, Chapter 13):

"The execution of a law cannot be enforced, unless the violation of it be denounced; the assistance of the informer is therefore altogether as necessary and as meritorious as that of the judge ...

The reward paid to the informer has for its object, the service he has performed; in this respect, he is upon a level with the judge who is paid for passing sentence. The informer is a servant of the government, employed in opposing the internal enemies of the state, as the soldier is a servant employed in opposing its external foes ...

It is extremely difficult to eradicate prejudices so deeply rooted and natural. From necessity, the practice of paying public informers continues to be in use; but the character of an informer is still regarded as disgraceful, and by some strange fatality the judges make no efforts to enlighten the public mind on this subject, and to protect this useful and even necessary class of men from the rigour of public opinion. They ought not to suffer the eloquence of the bar to insult before their faces these necessary assistants in the administration of justice. The conduct of the English law towards informers furnishes a curious but deplorable instance of human frailty. It employs them, oftentimes deceives them, and always holds them up to contempt.

It is time for lawgivers at least to wean themselves from these schoolboy prejudices which can consist only with a gross inattention to the interests of the public, joined to a gross ignorance of the principles of human nature."

4. Common informer actions, as the claimant observes, effectively ceased in civil matters with the Common Informers Act 1951. But the role of the informer lives on. The police, as is notorious, make much use of informers. On occasion the Inland Revenue receives assistance from informers. That is what this case is about.
5. We can, no doubt, see the Inland Revenue's experience of informers reflected in its Investigation Handbook, IH1295, where it was said that:

"informers are seldom inspired by pure public spiritedness but are often motivated by spite, envy or the desire for reward."

6. That will strike a chord with anyone familiar with human nature as revealed, for instance, in ancillary relief proceedings in the Family Division: see S v S (Inland Revenue: Tax Evasion) [1997] 2 FLR 774 and R v R (Disclosure to Revenue) [1998] 1 FLR 922. On the other hand, although as Charles J once remarked (A v A, B v B [2000] 1 FLR 701 at p 741C), "the court is not a 'common informer'", that does not mean that there may not be occasions when a judge will think it right to report apparent tax evasion to the Inland Revenue.
7. In the present case I am content to acquit the claimant of any dishonourable motives. He may not be a mercenary in the pejorative sense of the word (OED: 'working merely for the sake of monetary or other reward; actuated by considerations of self-interest'). But that does not mean that his motives have always been as disinterested as were those of Charles J when, in the case I have mentioned, he indicated (at p 753E) that he would have reported the defaulting husbands to the Inland Revenue had they not already done so themselves. The claimant, as his active solicitation of a reward and his pursuit of the present proceedings demonstrate, has been, at least in recent years (he first contacted the Inland Revenue in 1995 but he tells me, and I quite accept, that the question of a reward was not raised until 1998), motivated in part at least by considerations which are, in the original sense of the word, mercenary (OED: 'serving for wages or hire', from the latin merces, OLD: 'a payment for services rendered, a wage, fee'). But he is none the worse for that. Parliament, as we shall see, has provided in the Inland Revenue Regulation Act 1890 for the payment of rewards to Inland Revenue informers. Parliament, accordingly, takes the view that such rewards further what Coke called "the good of the Commonwealth" or what we would call the public interest. And although I would not go so far as to suggest that Parliament when it enacted the 1890 Act was simply legislating Mr Bentham's theories, it no doubt thought that the provision it was making for the rewarding of persons such as the claimant was not merely consistent with public policy but also calculated in some utilitarian fashion to further the public interest.
8. The claimant can be reassured. I hold no schoolboy prejudice against him. I think neither the better nor the worse of him because he is an informer, just as I think neither the better nor the worse of the Inland Revenue because Parliament has today authorised it to dig its shovel rather more deeply into my judicial salary than into the salaries of my predecessors in the days of Addington, Peel, Disraeli or Gladstone, with whom the claimant began the historical survey he put before me. The claimant and the Inland Revenue are both entitled to and will receive from the courts the fair and impartial hearing mandated by the imperative demand of the judicial oath that I "do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this Realm without fear or favour affection or ill will".
9. The claimant, as I say, has acted as an informer for the Inland Revenue. In January 2000 he received a reward of £1,200 from the Inland Revenue. A letter from the Inland Revenue to the claimant dated 11 January 2000 said, "this payment is made entirely at the Board's discretion and the amount is not negotiable". In fact, however, having reconsidered the matter the Inland Revenue made a further payment of £6,265 in February 2000.
10. The present dispute has arisen because the Inland Revenue has refused to pay the claimant any reward in relation to assistance which he claims to have given with a view to enabling the Inland Revenue to recover substantial sums of unpaid tax from a corporate taxpayer which I shall refer to as X.
11. I need only quote from three letters written to the claimant by the Inland Revenue. The first is dated 15 August 2001. In relevant part it reads as follows:

"I have now heard from my colleague who has stated that he is grateful for the information supplied by yourself in respect of this company. However he considers that the information will not lead to the recovery of any additional revenue. As you will appreciate I am not able to provide a detailed explanation of the reasoning behind this decision without impinging on the confidentiality of the company's affairs.

In view of my colleague's comments I regret that the Board of Inland Revenue are not able to exercise their discretion and recommend the payment of a reward to you."

12. The next letter is dated 10 October 2001:

"My colleague is certainly grateful to you for the information you have forwarded. Much of it provided confirmation of information obtained from other sources. Whilst a great deal of the balance represented historic information relating to the company. (The Taxes Management Act 1970 limits the circumstances under which the Revenue can review earlier periods of trading and therefore the majority of the historic information could only be used for background purposes to the company).

It is the view of the Inspector dealing with the company's affairs that the information you have supplied, insofar as it might relate to additional tax liabilities, either confirms information he already holds, or relates to periods which he is unable to review. In his view therefore no additional tax would be recoverable solely on the basis of this information."

13. The third letter (which embodies the decision challenged in these proceedings) is dated 20 August 2002:

"You clearly believe very strongly that the information which you provided to the Revenue about [X]'s corporate affairs helped us to recover tax from the company. For reasons which you appreciate, I cannot give you any information about [X]'s tax affairs. However, I have looked through the Inland Revenue's papers for the company for the relevant period, from both our Bristol office and our International Division. I have to say that I must endorse the view that others have taken, that your information does not qualify for a reward, whether you take the wording of the policy on rewards as set out in 1997 or in more recent Parliamentary answers."

14. Those Parliamentary answers were all responses to a series of written questions put by the claimant's Member of Parliament, Mr James Gray, the Member for North Wiltshire. They initially formulated the Inland Revenue's policy as being (see the answer given by the Minister, Dawn Primarolo, on 29 November 2001) that rewards could be paid "where tax is recovered as a result of the information provided"; more recently (see the answer given by the same Minister on 5 February 2002) "where information provided leads to a recovery of duty". The same Parliamentary answers indicate the Inland Revenue's position as being that the payment of rewards is discretionary, and that although the Commissioners of Inland Revenue have regard to the amount of tax recovered, "Calculation details are not disclosed since this would enable an informer to estimate the amount of tax recovered, which would breach the Revenue's duty of confidentiality to the taxpayer".
15. Another Parliamentary answer given by the Minister on 22 January 2002 in answer to a further question from Mr Gray reveals that the total amounts paid in rewarding individuals (all in fact members of the public) for each of the three years ended 31 March 1999, 2000 and 2001 respectively were £15,000, £17,965 and £5,075.
16. The Inland Revenue's position was elaborated in a letter dated 14 August 2002 which the Minister wrote to Mr Gray:

"As regards the policy for paying rewards to informers, I quite accept that the policy should be as set out in the Parliamentary Answers which you received from me in last October and February. That is to say, that a reward may be paid where tax is recovered as a result of information provided to the Inland Revenue. The Inland Revenue's view, however, is that Mr Churchhouse does not qualify for a reward on this criterion. You said in your letter to Gordon Brown that the information which Mr Churchhouse provided was vital and resulted in the Revenue recovering very substantial amounts of corporation tax. The Revenue does not accept that.

I am very sorry that this difference of view exists between Mr Churchhouse and the Revenue. They have considered his case at a very senior level in the Department and cannot see any way of accepting his contentions. The rules of tax confidentiality mean that the Revenue are unable to tell Mr Churchhouse anything about how they have handled [X]'s tax affairs. This makes it impossible for them to explain the detailed circumstances in which, and the reasons why, they have reached their decision. This no doubt makes the decision more difficult for Mr Churchhouse to accept."

17. So much for the facts.
18. Time was, as Mr Churchhouse points out, when the informer was entitled as of right to a moiety of any penalty recovered in a revenue matter. That was all swept away by section 1 of the Inland Revenue Act 1868 (31&32 Vict c 124), which provided that after 1 October 1868 "All Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures incurred under any Act relating to the Inland Revenue … shall go and be applied to the Use of Her Majesty … and … be paid to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue". Section 2 of the same Act provided that "all Sums of Money allowed as Rewards … shall be paid by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue out of such Aids or Supplies as may be from Time to Time provided and appropriated by Parliament for the Purpose". That Act, as Mr Churchhouse points out, had to be read in conjunction with section 10 of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 (29&30 Vict c 39), which provided that "the Commissioners of Inland Revenue … shall, after Deduction of the Payments for Drawbacks, Bounties of the Nature of Drawbacks, Repayments, and Discounts, cause the gross Revenues of their … Department … to be paid … to Accounts to be intituled "The Account of Her Majesty's Exchequer", at the Bank of England".
19. The claimant's assiduous researches in the Public Records Office have unearthed a minute dated 29 July 1872 addressed by the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury. It reads as follows:

"We beg leave to bring under the consideration of Your Lordships the present arrangements for granting rewards to persons by whom frauds upon the Revenue have been detected with a view to such alterations being affected therein as the changed circumstances under which payments under this head are now made and to which we here propose to advert may seem to call for.

By Your Lordships letter of the 9th September 1848 we were authorized to assign to deserving Officers in our service by way of rewards such a sum as would not in the aggregate exceed the moiety of the total net penalties recovered and until a recent date Informers not in Revenue employment were legally entitled to a moiety of the net proceeds of each particular case in which they were interested. Since the date of Your Lordships letter of September 1848 the expenditure of the Department under our control has been made subject to a vote of Parliament and the amount required for rewards is now annually specified in the Estimates and duly sanctioned by your Lordships. The Act 31 and 32 Vic. cap. 124 has also been passed and under its provisions the whole amount of penalties etc. recovered in cases relating to Inland Revenue are now payable to the Crown and all expenses and rewards connected with such cases become chargeable upon the supply granted by Parliament. Your Lordships will perceive that the effect of this enactment is to impose upon us the duty of assigning to Police Officers and other Informers who formerly were legally entitled to claim a moiety of the penalties recovered.

We should not because of the foregoing considerations merely have desired to disturb the present arrangements under which we obtain from month to month the formal sanction of Your Lordships for the payment of rewards; but, since the conversion of the Assessed Taxes upon servants, horses, dogs, etc. into duty of Excise the number of cases of prosecution to be deal with by us has so enormously increased as to cause considerable delay in the issue of rewards and consequently not only much dissatisfaction on the part of the recipients of the same but also great inconvenience to the Department.

...

We submit for the consideration of Your Lordships whether under the circumstances it would not be advisable that these monthly applications to your Lordships should be dispensed with and that we should have a general authority from your Lordships to pay henceforward from time to time such sums by way of rewards as we may deem fit so long as the total amount fixed in our annual Estimate under this head be not exceeded." (emphasis added)

20. The reply from Treasury Chambers dated 5 August 1872 reads as follows:

"With reference to your report of the 30th ultimo in which you advert to the present arrangement for granting Rewards for the detection of frauds upon the Revenue with a view to such alterations being effected therein as the changed circumstances under which payment on this account are now made seem to call for, I am directed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to state that my Lords are pleased to approve of your suggestion that the monthly applications to this Board should be dispensed with, and They authorise you to pay henceforward from time to time such sums by way of rewards as you may deem fit, so long as the total amount fixed in your Annual Estimate under this head, be not exceeded, but I am at the same time to state that My Lords would be glad to be furnished at the termination of each quarter with a statement showing the amount of the penalties recovered in such quarter and the amount of the rewards paid out of the vote of Parliament."

21. Ever since 1890 the payment of rewards by the Inland Revenue has been, as it still is, regulated by section 32 of the Inland Revenue Regulation Act 1890 (53&54 Vict c 21), which reads as follows:

"The Commissioners may at their discretion reward any person who informs them of any offence against any Act relating to inland revenue or assists in the recovery of any fine or penalty, provided that a reward exceeding fifty pounds shall not be paid in any case without the consent of the Treasury."

22. Section 34 provides:

"All costs, charges, and expenses payable by the Commissioners in respect of proceedings for the recovery of any fine, penalty or forfeiture incurred under any Act relating to inland revenue, and all sums of money allowed as rewards, shall be deemed to be charges of collection and management, and shall be paid out of money provided by Parliament for that purpose."

23. So much for the law. I turn to consider the claimant's case.
24. The claimant's complaints are set out with admirable clarity and commendable succinctness in his Form N461 and skeleton arguments. The claimant takes six points. I shall deal with them in turn.
25. (1) In the first place the claimant asserts that the Inland Revenue has no discretion in the matter. It is, he submits, under a duty to pay him a reward and, as I understand his argument, to pay him the equivalent of the moiety which previously to the 1868 Act he would have been entitled to. The only discretion he would concede to the Inland Revenue is as to the division of what he calls "the reward certain" if there are multiple informers upon a single case.
26. The claimant's argument, with all respect to the ingenuity with which it has been presented, is quite hopeless. It is, in my judgment, clear beyond all argument that section 32 of the 1890 Act confers upon the Inland Revenue a discretion, both as to whether to pay a reward and, if it does, as to the amount of the reward. The words "may at their discretion reward" are incapable of any other meaning. To be more precise. Section 32 confers on the Inland Revenue a power (subject to the consent of the Treasury in certain cases) to reward certain classes of persons – that is, those who either "inform them of any offence against any Act relating to inland revenue" or who "assist in the recovery of any fine or penalty". I am quite content to assume (though without deciding) that section 32 also imposes upon the Inland Revenue a duty to consider any claim for a reward made by a person who it appears either does or may fall within either of the statutory classes: that is, a duty to consider whether the applicant actually satisfies the statutory qualification and, if he does, a duty to consider whether or not he ought to receive a reward and, if so, of what amount. But that can be the only duty imposed by section 32. Otherwise, section 32 quite clearly confers on the Inland Revenue, as I have said, a discretion both as to whether to pay a reward to a suitably qualified applicant and, if it does, as to the amount of the reward.
27. The claimant's argument to the contrary is based upon the regime which was in place before the 1868 Act and, more particularly, upon the language of the 1872 minute to which I have already drawn attention. I think that the claimant reads too much into the minute. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue, when referring to their "duty", were, as it seems to me, merely recognising that it was their responsibility to administer the system of rewards or, at most, acknowledging that it was their duty to consider claims for the payment of rewards. I cannot read into the minute what the claimant would have me see.
28. In any event, whatever the minute may or may not say, it cannot affect the plain meaning of the 1890 Act. As Walton J pointed out in Vestey v Inland Revenue Commissioners (No 2) [1979] Ch 198 at p 203, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue do not have, any more than does any other emanation of the Crown, any power to suspend or dispense with laws. That is the effect of the Bill of Rights, with its stark denial to the Crown of the "pretended power" of "suspending of" or "dispensing with laws or the execution of laws". The Commissioners of Inland Revenue cannot by administrative fiat absolve themselves from exercising a discretion conferred on them by Parliament. They cannot treat a Parliamentary grant to them of power to do X as imposing on them a duty to do X. Were they to do so they would be acting unlawfully, and any disgruntled taxpayer could probably bring judicial review proceedings to stop them doing so.
29. The claimant submitted that Parliament cannot have intended to confer on the Inland Revenue in 1890 a discretion wholly unlimited as to amount. Parliament, he said, cannot have intended to give the executive the equivalent of a 'blank cheque', there must somewhere be found an upper limit to the reward that can be paid by the Inland Revenue pursuant to section 32 of the 1890 Act, and that upper limit is to be found in the moiety payable to an informer under the regime in place down to 1868. The argument is ingenious but quite hopeless. Section 32 means what it says. There is simply no scope for reading into section 32 by implication provisions swept away by Parliament in 1868.
30. The claimant also referred in this context to section 34 of the 1890 Act and to the decision of the Court of Session in Riach v Lord Advocate (1931) 18 TC 18. I have already set out the terms of section 34. In my judgment it throws no light at all on the present point. With all respect to the claimant I wholly fail to understand how it can be suggested that a mandatory requirement to pay a reward comes, as he submits, from section 34, however much one reads it, as he invites me to, in the context of its legislative history. Nor is there anything in Riach, not even in the judgment of Lord President Clyde to which the claimant drew particular attention, that casts the slightest doubt on the conclusion to which I have come. On the contrary, both Lord Blackburn at p 28 and Lord Clyde at p 32, treat the power under section 32 as being discretionary.
31. (2) The claimant next complains that the Inland Revenue has adopted a test – "leads directly to" – which, he says, has no basis in law and is contrary to the policy and objects of the 1890 Act. I am quite unable to accept this submission. The point, in my judgment, is quite unarguable. Any policy, test or criteria which the Commissioners of Inland Revenue may choose to adopt must, in my judgment, satisfy two criteria. First, it must be intra vires – in other words, it must reward only those who can bring themselves within one or other of the classes of persons identified by section 32. Secondly, it must be reasonable, not arbitrary, it must have some rational or reasonable relationship to whatever statutory policy may be discerned in section 32 and it must rest upon some rational or reasonable basis within the knowledge and experience of the Commissioners. But that is all.
32. It is, in my judgment, and all the more so in a context as difficult and delicate as this, for those on whom Parliament has conferred the discretion, and not for the court, to determine by reference to what policy, test or criteria the discretion is to be exercised. How can a judge possibly formulate the appropriate policy? It is those with operational experience of the realities of handling informers who must be left to decide what policy is to be adopted in deciding how to exercise the statutory discretion to reward them. Parliament has conferred the discretion on the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, not on the court.
33. I have already touched in paragraph [7] above on the policy which underlies section 32. In my judgment, the criteria apparently adopted by the Inland Revenue fully accord with that policy and comfortably meet the requirements of rationality and reasonableness I have referred to, whether the test be expressed in terms of "as a result of", "leads directly to" or "leads to". The claimant's case to the contrary is unarguable. There is nothing in section 32 to preclude the formulation and application of any of these tests.
34. The claimant referred in this context to the decision of the Exchequer Chamber in Tarner v Walker (1867) LR 2 QB 301. That was a claim in contract where the court had to consider whether the judge had properly left to the jury the issue of whether the plaintiff was entitled to recover an advertised reward which was to be paid to "any person who will give such information as shall lead to the apprehension and conviction of the thieves". The case does not throw any light on any question I have to consider and does not assist the claimant.
35. There is, in this connection, one further point that requires to be emphasised. On the facts of this case it matters not which of these tests is applied. The simple fact is that the information the claimant supplied did not lead, whether directly or indirectly, to the recovery of any additional revenue, because the information he supplied either confirmed information already known to the Inland Revenue or was of purely historical interest. I have already set out the key passages in the various letters that make this clear. As Mr Clarke points out, the claimant is in fact in the very position of the informer to whom Lord Blackburn referred in his judgment in Riach:

"the value of the result of the information … may prove to be nothing for reasons of which the informer may be totally unaware, eg, that the Inland Revenue authorities may already be in possession of much of the information which the informer believes to be confined to himself."

36. It is also said by the Inland Revenue, and not challenged by the claimant, that one of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue has personally reviewed the papers and confirmed that no reward is payable either on the basis of a "leads directly to" test or a "leads to" test.
37. (3) Next the claimant says that he had a legitimate expectation that he would be rewarded, this legitimate expectation arising, as he would have it, from his discussion in January 1998 with a certain officer in the Inland Revenue's Special Compliance Office who is named in the papers I have seen.
38. I can take this point very shortly. The relevant facts are set out in paragraphs 64-72 of a very long and detailed witness statement prepared by the claimant and dated 18 November 2002. I need not rehearse what he says. Even assuming that everything he says is entirely accurate – and for present purposes I am entirely content to proceed on that assumption – the claimant's evidence simply fails to assert those necessary facts without which there can be no legitimate expectation: compare R v Inland Revenue Commissioners ex p MFK Underwriting Agents Ltd [1990] 1 WLR 1545 at pp 1569-1570. I should point out that on the claimant's own evidence the Inland Revenue's officer referred him (very properly I might add) to both section 32 and Riach.
39. So the claim fails on the facts. Therefore I need not consider, and do not, Mr Clarke's alternative submission, based on R v Inland Revenue Commissioners ex p Matrix Securities Ltd [1994] 1 WLR 334, that in any event no legitimate expectation of a reward could arise from a promise made by an individual inspector, since the decision to pay any such reward is for the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
40. (4) Next the claimant says that "it is far from clear that Inland Revenue in arriving at its decision did so upon the correct information". That, I am afraid, simply will not do. It is for the claimant to assert and prove his case: it is not for the Inland Revenue to demonstrate that the claimant does not have a case. The claimant has failed to adduce any evidence which even begins to suggest that the Inland Revenue's decision may have been based on incorrect information or some mistaken view of the facts.
41. In this context there is a point that I must emphasise. The Inland Revenue owes enforceable duties of confidentiality both to taxpayers and to informers. This is something that the Commissioners, of course, recognise and take very seriously: see the Investigation Handbook, IH1295, and its replacement, the Enquiry Manual, EM1310. In the very nature of things, therefore, it will be difficult for the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to demonstrate to someone in the claimant's position precisely why he does not qualify for, or is not to be given, a reward. It may be because its own officers have already themselves discovered the same information as that supplied by the informer: it may be because the relevant information has already been supplied by another informer. A disappointed informer in the claimant's position cannot demand full disclosure by the Commissioners: nor should he be enabled to circumvent that necessary restraint by commencing proceedings such as those which I am now considering.
42. (5) Next the claimant asserts that "no reasonable decision making body directing itself properly in law could have arrived at the decision not to pay a reward to [him]". But that assertion, as the claimant's own submissions make clear, is founded on the assumption that the claimant's activities "led to the recovery of record and extraordinary sums". The simple fact is that they did not. And in any event the claimant would still have to meet the point that even an informer who can bring himself within section 32 is entitled to nothing more than the exercise of a discretion.
43. (6) Finally the claimant complains that there is a conflict of interest in the Inland Revenue operating a system of rewards when the money has to come, so he says, from its individual office budgets rather than from a special Parliamentary Vote. Similarly he alleges that the Inland Revenue is biased or potentially biased. There is simply no basis for any such arguments. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue are operating a scheme in accordance with the functions imposed on them by statute. In deciding whether to pay a reward the Commissioners are not determining any right, but merely considering whether to exercise a discretion. There is no conflict of interest. Moreover, the fact, I am told, is that all rewards are paid out of general Head Office funds and not out of the budgets of local offices. The claimant has wholly failed to show any even arguable case of actual or potential bias.
44. It follows that the claimant's application fails and must be dismissed. Put very shortly the case involves a challenge to the exercise of a discretion by a public authority. There are simply no grounds upon which that exercise can even arguably be challenged. The claim must be dismissed.
45. The Inland Revenue complains that in any event the claimant's application for judicial review is out of time. That may be so, but it is not a ground upon which I would have denied him permission to apply.
46. The claimant's application was initially considered on the papers by Newman J. Refusing permission on 10 February 2003 he said, "Despite the careful attention to the preparation of this case by the applicant, I am satisfied that it is a misconceived application. There are no grounds to challenge the exercise of discretion and no grounds exist for relying upon a legitimate expectation." I agree. The claimant's application must be dismissed.
47. Before parting from the case I should like to add two things. The claimant has gone to great trouble to prepare the court bundles in such a way as to comply meticulously with the court's Practice Directions. For that he deserves to be thanked and complimented. Furthermore, he has presented his arguments, both written and oral, with great skill and in an admirably clear, succinct and reasonable manner. He addressed the court with great skill and with courtesy, moderation and good humour. For that again he deserves to be thanked and complimented. But advocacy – even advocacy as skilled as the claimant's – cannot win hopeless cases, and the claimant's case, I am afraid, is in law quite hopeless.