Peters v Joseph: fresh evidence and serial forgery allegations in beneficial interest dispute

The High Court has allowed an appeal in Ashley Peters v Mary Joseph [2026] EWHC 775 (Ch), setting aside a county court finding that a declaration of trust over a residential property in South East London was a forgery. Mr Justice Edwin Johnson remitted the matter for re-trial, having admitted fresh documentary evidence under CPR 52.21(2)(b) and identified two material flaws in the recorder's reasoning.

The dispute concerned the beneficial interest in 1 Cicely Road, London SE15, purchased by the respondent and her former husband, Peter Enulue (now deceased), from Southwark Council under the right-to-buy scheme in 1997. The appellant, one of the couple's four children, claimed that a declaration of trust dated 3 January 1997 divided the beneficial interest 99% to Peter and 1% to the respondent, and that Peter's 99% share passed to him under a 2010 will. The respondent, appearing in person, contended that both the declaration of trust and the will were forgeries, and that she and Peter had held the property as beneficial joint tenants — meaning the entirety passed to her by survivorship on Peter's death in June 2019.

The recorder at Central London County Court accepted the respondent's account, finding the declaration of trust to be a forgery, and made a declaration accordingly.

Fresh evidence

Following the trial, the appellant discovered three categories of documents: correspondence from 2001 found in a briefcase in the property's loft, screenshots of emails from 2009 retrieved from the deceased's computer, and further email screenshots obtained from the appellant's uncle. The 2009 emails — several sent from the respondent's Prison Service email address — appeared to show her repeatedly demanding a larger percentage of the beneficial interest from Peter, with explicit references to her then-existing 1% share.

Applying Kieran Corrigan & Co Ltd v Timol [2024] EWCA Civ 1233 and the established Ladd v Marshall criteria, Edwin Johnson J admitted all the further documents. Crucially, he found that the absence of any disclosure order in the proceedings meant the appellant had no mechanism by which he could have compelled their production before trial. The documents were not obviously available to him, and it would have been harsh to conclude otherwise.

Two grounds upheld

The appeal succeeded on the first and second arguments within Ground 1. First, the fresh evidence was directly inconsistent with the recorder's forgery finding: had the 2009 emails and 2001 correspondence been before him, the recorder would have been required to consider whether it remained tenable that the declaration of trust was fabricated when its contents were entirely corroborated by apparently contemporaneous communications. That finding could not be regarded as reliable without such consideration.

Second, drawing on Aldermore Bank plc v Lynch [2022] EWHC 3050 (Ch) and the well-known passage from Robert Goff LJ in Armagas Ltd v Mundogas SA, the judge held that the recorder had failed to grapple with the inherent improbability of serial forgery. The respondent's case required the court to find that the declaration of trust, the purchase agreement form, and the will had all been fabricated — yet the recorder treated validity of the declaration of trust as the only question directly before him, without weighing the cumulative improbability of that account.

What was not decided

Grounds 3 and 4 failed. The procedural irregularity arising from the appellant's 94 prepared cross-examination questions going astray was accepted as a serious failure, but the recorder had reviewed those questions after trial and concluded they would not have altered his findings. That assessment was entitled to respect. The severance argument — advanced as an alternative case that the joint tenancy had been severed by Peter and the respondent's post-separation conduct — was refused on the authority of Singh v Dass [2019] EWCA Civ 360; it was a new point that would have required the trial to be conducted differently, and it would be procedurally unfair to permit it now or at re-trial.

Remission

The case returns to the County Court at Central London before a different judge. The further documents will be admissible; the severance argument will not. The judgement is a reminder that where serious forgery allegations are made against multiple documents, a court must confront the inherent improbability of that case directly — and that the absence of disclosure orders in county court proceedings can have significant consequences when relevant documents surface only after trial.

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