Request for popla refused despite quoting legislation, what to do now?

Suggested letter to SRA spelling out their breaches (you could send a draft of this to Gladstones with the letter chasing the £10 - so they can see you are serious). I've simply copied and pasted from a letter I sent to Gladstones, you may need to amend this so it fits in with your complaint.

Just by way of background: the solicitors professional code of conduct is based on "Principles" and "indicative behaviours" and "outcomes" which show you have/haven't complied with the principles. It is an absolutely appallingly drafted code, drafted (IMHO) by a numpty with not very many brain cells. But there it is, nothing any of us can do about that.

You will need to add in some paragraph numbers to set this out properly.

You are a firm of solicitors and your fee earners are bound to comply with your own Professional Code of Conduct issued (and enforced) by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA). The Code obliges you to abide by certain Principles, which include:
1. uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice;
The notes to Principle 1 state “You have obligations not only to clients but also to the court and to third parties with whom you have dealings on your clients' behalf - see, e.g., Chapter 5 (Your client and the court) and Chapter 11 (Relations with third parties) of the Code.”
2. act with integrity;
The notes to Principle 2 state “Personal integrity is central to your role as the client's trusted adviser and should characterise all your professional dealings with clients, the court, other lawyers and the public.”
3. n/a
4. n/a
5. provide a proper standard of service to your clients;
The notes to Principle 5 state that “You should, e.g., provide a proper standard of client care and of work. This would include exercising competence, skill and diligence, and taking into account the individual needs and circumstances of each client.” And “For a solicitor, meeting the competencies set out in the Competence Statement forms an integral part of the requirement to provide a proper standard of service.”

Underlying the Principles are various “Outcomes” and “Indicative Behaviours”.

Outcome 5.6 states that you must “comply with your duties to the court”. I am sure that this includes complying with the CPR, which you have failed to do [include examples of most serious breaches]. Your breaches are so fundamental that you must have knowingly committed them – you are therefore in breach of Principle 1, 2 and 5.

Indicative Behaviour 5.7 states that acting in the following way would be breach of the Professional Rules: “constructing facts supporting your client's case or drafting any documents relating to any proceedings containing (a)any contention which you do not consider to be properly arguable;”. You must have known that the case set out in the particulars of claim was not properly arguable [in my letter I gave examples of where other courts had thrown out Gladstones incoherent particulars of claim to illustrate this - if you want my list let me know and I'll post it. In your case you might also want to add other things such as the false photographs, but you'd need to show that Gladstones should have known or knew they were fabricated]. This also puts you in breach of Principles 1,2 and 5 of your Professional Rules of Conduct.

Outcome 11.1 provides that you must not “take unfair advantage of third parties in either your professional or personal capacity” and Indicative Behaviour 11.7 says that it would be a breach of this if you were to take “unfair advantage of an opposing party's lack of legal knowledge where they have not instructed a lawyer”. You are again in breach of your Professional Code of Conduct (this time Principle 2).

It is a serious matter to have issued a Claim Form containing such woefully deficient particulars, and to seek to take advantage of a litigant in person – a fact made infinitely more serious by the fact that you must know that they are deficient because of the cases I am aware of in which other courts have struck out identical claims which you have issued [ if you want a list of these I can give it to you].

Another breach of the same principle is your letters seeking to misrepresent the court rules and the strength of your client’s case.

And now to your latest breach: the fact that you sent me a cheque in respect of the costs order made on [date], which you then cancelled without any notice to me. I received no communication from you at all about this - the bank informed me that you had stopped it. This is a serious breach of principles 1 and 2.