Preston pilot extended for e-mail document transfers

The pioneering e-mail pilot scheme at Preston Combined Court has been extended to allow important court documentation to be sent and received electronically.

The first stage of Preston e-mail applications (PREMA) was introduced at Preston Combined Court in February 2001 with the aim of allowing solicitors to issue certain applications in civil, family and insolvency cases - such as applications to disclose evidence - via e-mail.

It met with such success that the pilot scheme was extended indefinitely.

The second stage of the project, PREMA 2, has been piloted for the last fortnight in association with Preston firm Meloy Whittle Robinson, and will go live this week.

Under PREMA 2, the court can now accept a wider range of documents over e-mail, such as list and allocation questionnaires.

The whole Court Service at Preston is also able to use the new scheme, rather than just the judges.

Eddie Mansley, a litigation executive at Meloy Whittle Robinson, has been very involved with the pilot of PREMA 2.

'The new system means that almost any documents can be sent over e-mail,' he said.

'Under the first stage of PREMA, requests for judgment by default had to be filed by post or in person, whereas now they can be done electronically.'

Mr Mansley said there had been some minor technical hitches with the system, with documents being sent in the incorrect format, but he was confident that once it is operating it will save time for both solicitors and the court.

Victoria MacCallum