An angry litigant who turned up at a law firm’s office and demanded money to drop fraud allegations was effectively blackmailing the lawyers, a judge has ruled.
Litigant in person Andrew Baldwin committed what the court found was a ‘sustained campaign of harassment’, bombarding lawyers with ‘increasingly angry, threatening and abusive’ emails making entirely unfounded allegations and demanding up to £1.8 million in return for not taking his complaints to regulators and the media.
Susie Alegre, sitting as a deputy High Court judge in Travelers Insurance Company Limited & Ors v Andrew Baldwin, imposed a permanent injunction on Baldwin after finding he had used legal proceedings to expand the scope of his allegations.
She added: ‘The emails and conduct complained about in February and March of 2025 are clearly designed to extract ever increasing amounts of money from the claimants to make the harassment stop. They are tantamount to blackmail.’
The court heard that Baldwin had begun his campaign against south west London firm Owen White Catlin after it had represented his daughter in employment tribunal proceedings.
After he had made complaints of fraud and forgery of documents to the legal ombudsman, OWC had agreed to pay £859 to settle a dispute over fees. Baldwin was unsatisfied with this outcome and visited OWC’s offices unannounced, refusing to leave and acting – according to the firm – in a threatening manner which caused distress to its employees to the extent that the police were called.
Baldwin took his complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which resolved that no further action be taken.
National firm Mills & Reeve was instructed by OWC’s indemnity insurer Travelers to look into Baldwin’s various allegations and complaints. It ruled out any suggestion that a fraud had taken place and stated that a threatened claim for £1m appeared to be ‘simply fabricated figures aimed at frightening or blackmailing our client into paying’.
Baldwin again visited the OWC office unannounced and even handed out leaflets to passersby outside, again prompting the police to be called. He started demanding monies from all the claimants in return for stopping his conduct and dropping proceedings: amounts increased from £108,000 in February 2024 to £1.8m by January this year. No basis for the figures was ever provided.
The judge added: ‘The level of seriousness of the behaviour is, at this stage, well beyond irritating, upsetting or annoying. Employees and those associated with the claimants have had to call the police when Mr Baldwin has carried out his conduct in person at their offices and the constant bombardment with threatening and abusive emails with such serious allegations has undoubtedly caused them distress and anxiety. To be publicly accused of fraud and corruption and to be unable to escape the constant slew of threats is intolerable.’
