Pleading in error

There must be times as a district judge when you wonder whether it is all worth it, faced by endless petty disputes and lawyers beseeching you to allow them just a bit more on costs.

So daft errors in pleadings and the like must bring welcome relief.

The Association of District Judges publishes in its monthly magazine a seemingly endless stream of mistakes its members have come across, including: 'The claimant applies for permission to be garrotted...' from one application; in a case launched against a certain Dennis Trident, the court received this letter from Stagecoach's solicitors: 'Good service has not been made.

Our clients do not employ a driver called Dennis Trident.

Dennis Trident is the make and model of a bus'; and finally, from another affidavit: 'My ex-boyfriend was violent towards me during our relationship.

For example, in 1996 he dragged me upstairs and dangled me from a barrister.' It's good to know the bar still has a role of some sort in modern society.