The Issue
Disclosure is the mechanism by which the party with access to relevant documents is required to produce them. In a case turning on document authenticity, the execution file, native document metadata, solicitor's attendance notes and completion records are not peripheral — they are the primary materials by which authenticity can be tested. Refusal of disclosure, followed by use of the resulting evidential vacuum against the non-disclosing party's opponent, inverts the disclosure regime completely.
The Law: How It Should Operate
CPR 31 / PD57AD — documents which are or have been in a party's control and which are relevant to the matters in dispute must be disclosed. Where a document is central to the claim — as the operative mortgage deed is — all documents relating to its creation, execution and delivery are disclosable. Arrow Nominees Inc v Blackhouse Ltd; Keefe v Isle of Man Steam Packet Co [2010] EWCA Civ 683 — adverse inference may be drawn from non-disclosure. A party cannot withhold documents and then rely on their absence.
How It Operated in Lawrence v HNW Lending Ltd
Disclosure of the execution file, native document, metadata, solicitor file and completion records was refused. The court then treated the absence of documentary proof of forgery as proof that there was no forgery — without acknowledging that the route to that proof had been closed. The evidential vacuum created by HNW's non-disclosure was used as proof failure against Ms Lawrence.
"The question is not whether one court reached one adverse result. It is that the same failure of protection recurred across courts, tribunals, administration, policing and oversight — making the pattern visible only because the case passed through so many forums."
— Open Letter to the Lord Chancellor, 15 May 2026