Dacre Son and Hartley Ltd v North Yorkshire CC

Divisional Court, 27 October 2004. Appeal by estate agents (D) by way of case stated against a magistrates' court decision convicting it of making false and misleading statements during the conduct of a proposed sale of a property, relating to a purported absence of damp in the property made at a time when it was aware that the property suffered from damp. Respondent council (NY) had laid a number of informations before the magistrates under the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 s1(1) against D based on complaints from a prospective house purchaser (H). D submitted no charge to answer on the basis that the informations were insufficiently particularised within the meaning of the Magistrates Court Rules 1980 r 100, were therefore defective, could not be remedied by the evidence and that there was insufficient evidence to convict. D was convicted but the magistrates stated a case for appeal. "Held": appeal dismissed. The magistrates were entitled to look at extraneous evidence when examining if the informations had been framed in such a way as to create real unfairness. There was no fatal defect in the informations. There was clear and strong evidence from H against D, which having been accepted, compelled the magistrates to convict D.