A High Court judge has warned a litigant in person suing Birkbeck School Of Law for alleged breach of contract that his pleaded case is a ‘hopeless mess’ as he granted him permission to appeal against a summary judgment.

Mr Justice Martin Spencer said today that the standard way to plead a breach of contract claim – ‘contract, term, breach, damage’ – was ‘the basic learning of any law student’.

He told law graduate Paul Constantine to ‘try to seek some help’ in pleading his case ‘so that the appeal is presented in a coherent fashion’, warning him: ‘If you fail to do so, then the judge hearing the appeal is likely to be both irritated and unsympathetic.’

The judge earlier said Constantine’s pleadings were formulated ‘without any precision at all’, describing them as ‘a complete mish-mash of various things being alleged at various times in various places’.

Martin Spencer J nonetheless granted Constantine permission to appeal, but said: ‘I do not want to hold out to you any false hope that an appeal might overall be successful.

‘I am going to grant you permission to appeal and I am going to say no more than that, but I think it is only right that you should know this: that the pleadings are a mess and it would help your appeal were you to produce an amended or draft amended particulars of claim which set out properly and clearly your cause of action.’

He added: ‘Although you are a law graduate, as you have conceded to me you are not a barrister and a lot of paperwork which you have submitted, which is prolix if I can say that, is not concentrated and rather confirms your not being a barrister.’

Birkbeck was not represented at the hearing.