November & December 2021

The Aftermath They Refused to See 

Pretending October Didn’t Happen

 

Where the hearing fallout was met with silence, my solicitor spoke like nothing had cracked, and I began rebuilding in the shadow of collapse.

 

After everything that had just happened — the hearing, the pressure, my son’s suicide attempt — I expected recognition. Some flicker of humanity.

 

I told the claimant’s solicitor what had happened. I made it clear: my son had tried to end his life after the chaos and trauma of October. I didn’t expect miracles. But her reply — a brief promise to “review paperwork on Monday” — was colder than I feared. 

 

No reference to what I’d disclosed. Just a polite retreat into process. As if burying herself in documentation would shield her from the emotional blowback of what she’d helped cause.

 

That became the tone for all of November.

 

As if the page had been turned without reading the last one.

 

 

As if October hadn’t shattered something in our home.

 

As if what we’d endured had been “just court stuff.”

 

Still, I carried on.

 

Despite it all, I kept going.

 

I reviewed documents. I restructured the case. I asked sharper questions.

 

I wasn’t chasing compensation — I was clinging to survival.

 

I was trying to prevent more procedural blows that might tip us back into collapse.

 

And I was preparing — for the next attack I knew would come.

 

The Claimant’s Solicitor Reframed Her Role

 

She offered dates. Politeness. Invoices.

But never reflection.

Never acknowledgment that her silence in October left us unprotected when it mattered most.

She began recasting the facts, gently but clearly. Suddenly:

I had drafted the pleadings.

I had misunderstood service rules.

I had caused the confusion.

But only months earlier, she’d called my Claim Form “very well prepared.”

I clung to that line like a lighthouse.

 

The Defence Solicitor’s Cold Follow-Ups

 

He didn’t know what had happened in our house after the hearing.

But his letter, dated 29 October, made one thing clear: he didn’t care.

Gloating. Triumphant.

Words like “successful” and “granted” littered the page — as if the Court’s reluctant redrafting was a prize.

No mention of the bundle delays.

No cost for the harm inflicted.

Just process, wrapped in self-congratulation.

It didn’t feel like we were litigants.

It felt like we were prey.

 

My Son Was Still Trying to Breathe

 

Each night that month, I watched my cub try to sleep.

But nothing was restful.

We weren’t recovering — we were absorbing.

And everyone around us seemed to think the hearing had closed the chapter.

For us, it had detonated everything.

Still, I kept replying.

Still, I scanned documents.

Still, I reshaped the case — so that if they ever came again, they couldn’t say we hadn’t prepared.

Why November 2021 Wasn’t the End

It Was the Aftermath

 

They stopped shouting. But they didn’t stop hurting.

This month showed me how a system resets itself with terrifying ease — how the professionals around it moved on, while I was left sweeping up the fragments of a son who nearly died from the pressure of staying strong.

No one acknowledged it.

No one asked.

The hearing passed. But the fallout lingered in our bones.

The silence wasn’t peace.

It was avoidance dressed as procedure.

And this wasn’t emotional collapse.

It was calculated risk.

My son survived the punch.

Manni-Boo survived the plan.

And when that threat returned — this time with fists — I was there.

Not loud. Not seen.

But I stepped in before the swing found my son.

They didn’t know I was with him.

They didn’t know I was watching.

He wasn’t training a puppy to replace Manni-Boo.

He was trying to train himself to believe in life beyond loss.

That moment wasn’t about starting over.

It was about not letting them end us.

So, if you're reading this dossier, wondering where justice begins — start there.

Start with the punch that missed.

Start with the puppy that didn’t erase grief but gave it breath.

 

And then please ask, because it must be asked:

 

What happened to Manni-Boo?

Because survival shouldn’t depend on silence.

Or obedience.

Or what you're forced  to abandon to stay alive.

December 2021

 When They Both Got Busy: Not with Help, But with Distance

 

Where the defence solicitor sharpened his tactics, and the solicitor I had engaged softened hers — leaving me to fund, respond to, and interpret conflict I never caused.

I Received Email After Email

 

Not support. Not strategy.

 

Just demands disguised as updates — from both sides.

 

The Defence Solicitor Pivoted from Gloating to Pressure

 

He knew I hadn’t dropped the claim. That unsettled him. So, he shifted tactics.

 

After his 29 October victory lap fell flat, he began targeting my expert.

 

He sent formal letters accusing him of non-compliance under CPR 35.6.

 

And he cc’d me on every word — trying to make me feel implicated in what he called “unsatisfactory answers.”

 

“Your answers… are not satisfactory and I am considering making an application to the Court.”

 

“With respect, it is not your position to unilaterally decide which questions you should or should not answer.” — (Defence solicitor to expert, 2 December 2021).

 

But when the expert pushed back? The defence solicitor didn’t escalate.

Instead, he asked for an extension.

 

He requested 28 extra days to file the Defence, citing holidays and “procedural issues.”

 

He knew I could say no. I didn’t.

 

I said yes — not because I had to, but because I wanted clean hands if this ever went before a judge.

 

As expected, he made no formal application.

 

Just repositioned again in another letter — promising to explain why his questions were valid.

 

No follow-up. No motion. Just posturing.

 

The Claimant’s Solicitor Charged Me to Defend What I Didn’t Cause

 

While this unfolded, I turned to my solicitor for guidance.

 

Her reply?

 

“If you wish me to go through the questions and answers… I would be grateful if you could provide a further payment on account… £480 plus VAT.”  — (Claimant’s solicitor, 6 December 2021)

 

This wasn’t a new application.

These weren’t my questions.

But she billed me anyway.

I didn’t know the rule at the time. But I knew the price — and I paid it, because both solicitors told me I had to.

She knew I’d paid the barrister’s instruction fee just weeks earlier.

She asked anyway.

And I paid it.

Because I was still fighting a case while carrying October’s aftermath — and I couldn’t afford to trip, even on steps that weren’t mine.

“I paid £480.00 into the claimant’s firm account yesterday morning.”  — (Me, 8 December 2021)

When Certainty Was Used as Proof

They didn’t show me the law.

They didn’t explain the guidance.

They didn’t draw the line between my duties and my expert’s independence.

They insisted I was liable — for questions raised by the defence under Part 35. 

Two seasoned solicitors — opposite sides of a dispute — both reinforcing the same fiction.

One demanded answers.

The other demanded fees.

And I believed it.

Not because it made sense — but because it came wrapped in authority, invoice codes, and confidence.

I still trusted that my solicitor knew what she was doing.

Still thought if I was being charged, there must be rules behind it.

Still hoped that if I complied, maybe the harm would stop circling.

But what they gave me wasn’t certainty.

It was choreography.

Because both knew — or should have known — that under CPR 35, the dispute sits between the instructing party and the expert.

Not the litigant-in-person with no legal training.

Not the claimant who had already disclosed every document asked of her.

And yet they maintained — without question — that I was the one liable.

So, I paid. Again.

And I waited — hoping one of them might clarify the rules or at least explain why I was being charged.

But they never did.

Because silence, once embedded, is harder to challenge than error.

And when two professionals repeat something confidently enough, it stops feeling like opinion.

It starts feeling like law. 

 

December ended not with resolution, but with repetition.

 

I paid for advice I’d already received.

I was charged to defend questions I hadn’t asked.

 

I was told — by both solicitors

That I was liable for a strategy I never shaped.

But no one clarified the rules.

No one challenged the fiction.

 

So I entered January 2022 not with closure, but with a fresh invoice.

While my expert stood firm.

The Defence solicitor sharpened his script — turning pressure into performance.

 

The silence of December became the pressure script of January.

And I was still expected to fund, interpret, and absorb it all.

 

 

 

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