Who judges the judges? Paul Millinder, that's who...

[Hercule Parrot]

Another not-quite-sovcit-but-getting-there caper from the annals of BAILII.

Back in 2013, Paul Millender was a pioneering green entrepreneur, celebrating a groundbreaking partnership with Middlesbrough Football Club. The club granted his company, Empowering Wind Ltd, a lease to install a huge 136m wind turbine in the overflow carpark at their Riverside Stadium - the club would get free power for their premises, and Empowering Wind would sell the surplus into the national grid network.

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/ryedal ... bine-deal/

This mutually-rewarding arrangement had potential to be replicated with thousands of businesses, venues and farms across UK, so our hero was strategically placed to become the Henry Ford of renewable power. Empowering Wind Ltd was one of several family companies used for this mission, albeit with somewhat cavalier governance which would later feature in his tragic nemesis.

Alas, the path to completion of this project was strewn with challenges. The nearby regional airport claimed that Paul's massive erection would interfere with their landing radar, causing planes to fall from the sky and make a terrible mess. The airport demanded £700,000 for a new radar system. Although this seemed quite likely to be an expedient 'planning ransom' ploy, Middlesbrough Council's planning dept had no means to assess the real risk, so their vital approval was paralysed.

Another businessman might've paid the planning ransom or abandoned the project. Paul Millender was made of stronger stuff, and embarked upon a campaign to disprove the airport's concerns. He commissioned expert investigations and reports, and dragged the Civil Aviation Authority and government ministers into this "increasingly acrimonious dispute". It appears he was eventually successful, but this quixotic battle had delayed the project by nearly two years.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -radar-row

Middlesbrough FC were presumably frustrated that construction hadn't even started, and their free energy supply was now a year overdue. However the pain was somewhat greater for Empowering Wind Ltd, because they were now contractually obliged to pay the club's hefty electricity bill in addition to the agreed lease terms. Whether the airport's planning objections qualified as a force majeure exception was unclear, and will forever be so now. What is certainly clear is that the relationship of mutual trust and confidence was rapidly crumbling.

The coup de grace was delivered by National Grid (who manage the national electricity infrastructure). Their approval was of course required for this project. The wind turbine would be permitted to interconnect with the national network via two 11KV substations already located at or near the Riverside Stadium. But National Grid stipulated that ownership and management of these substations must be transferred to the local site, presumably to ensure that the interconnection was safe & stable.

Middlesbrough FC very firmly - and quite understandably - said they didn't want to buy, own or manage any high-voltage substations. They had no experience or capacity in that specialised, complex & risky sector, and it had never been part of the deal with Empowering Wind Ltd. I imagine they expected Empowering Wind Ltd to manage the high-voltage substations, but for unclear reasons that didn't happen. Maybe Paul Millender didn't want to be responsible for the HV interconnect, or maybe the National Grid didn't consider Empowering Wind Ltd to be fit & proper for that responsibility.

Whatever the reasons, this imploded the fragile accord between our hero and the football club. Bitter, acrimonious emails flew, slanderous accusations etc. Empowering Wind Ltd now owed the club £250k, and other debts to HMRC. Millender either couldn't or wouldn't arrange funding to cover this. Empowering Wind Ltd was subject to winding-up and dissolution in 2016, and of course this also terminated the project agreement with Middlesbrough FC.

But our hero wasn't finished yet - he claimed that in the dying throes of Empowering Wind Ltd, he and his brother agreed as directors to assign that company's rights to another family company - Earth Energy LLC. By this means he could continue to battle with Middlesbrough FC, and prove they were a bunch of lying bar-stewards who owed him big, big money. The evidence for this 'assignment' was sketchy at best, and courts subsequently declined to recognise it, but the question became moot when Earth Energy LLC also went into liquidation in 2018.

Apologies for this lengthy backstory, but we can now proceed to the meat of the tale. And it's bat-shit crazy stuff that would earn an approving nod from old Mr Ebert himself. Paul Millender was undaunted by the dissolution of his companies, and basically just carried on attempting legal proceedings in their names. I've located 5 or 6 judgements, below in chronological order, and they're astonishing vignettes of demented, vexatious litigation at it's worst.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2019/226.html
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2020/3159.html
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2020/3202.html
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ad ... /1865.html
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ad ... /2832.html

Millender has no interest in res judicata, and relentlessly repeats collateral attacks by any route available. He has literally applied to multiple judges for the same things, just ignoring refusal and trying again with someone else the following week. He refuses to understand that he doesn't own or control the companies, and continues profligate litigation. As time goes on, he becomes more bitter and vindictive, targeting opponents & judiciary with abuse and threats. He has made several attempts to instigate criminal proceedings and warrants for arrest against senior judges, govt ministers, and lawyers. He has established false companies as litigation sock-puppets, and adopted various fictional identities to evade restrictions. He has invested very substantial time and work into creation of a fake anti-corruption organisation which platforms his massive archives of grievance -

https://mobile.twitter.com/intelligenceuk1
https://intelligenceuk.com/fraudulent-a ... sh-judges/

Millender now openly claims to be the victim of a vast Jewish Masonic conspiracy to swindle him of his proper entitlement to wealth. Ironically, he has become the Henry Ford of nasty bigotry instead. He has earned an Extended Civil Restraint Order, upgraded that to a General Civil Restraint Order, and then achieved VexLit Hall of Fame by winning an All Proceedings Order. He simply ignores these Orders, claiming they are wrongful, ultra-vires, fraudulent etc, and therefore void.

Millender purports to live outside the UK now, which has so far protected him from punitive consequences. He was sentenced to 3 months jail last year for criminal harassment, and in Nov 2022 he was sentenced to a further 15 months for breaches of the All Proceedings Order. I do not know if extradition is available, or if his whereabouts are sufficiently known. Perhaps (((TPTB))) are content to discourage him from re-entering the jurisdiction.

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/litig ... 52.article

[rosy]

An All Proceedings Order! Impressive.

[The Observer]

The nearby regional airport claimed that Paul's massive erection would interfere with their landing radar,...

I guess he should have reduced his Viagra intake.

[John Uskglass]

He has invested very substantial time and work into creation of a fake anti-corruption organisation which platforms his massive archives of grievance

Oddly, I chanced on that site when looking up private prosecutions to contribute to the MoB thread.

This page is quite convincing, unless you wonder why such an apparently successful organisation that 'carries out complex assignments for large law firms' has a donations button. Incidentally, the page prevents you from copying the text therein.

https://intelligenceuk.com/private-detective-services/

[mufc1959]

A masterful summary, Monsieur Parrot, of a saga that I've followed for a while. Millinder definitely seems to fit the description of someone who is 'morbidly querulous'. In my career I've come across a few of these, and, for the people having to deal with them, it's stressful, tiresome, time-consuming and wearying.

https://www.judcom.nsw.gov.au/publicati ... igant.html

[John Uskglass]

Although Millinder is clearly as mad as a box of lorries, he may, on a stopped clock basis, be on to something when he talks about shady dealing associated with local Conservative politicians on Teesside. I won't go much further than that, for fear of breaching the 'no politics' rule, but readers of Private Eye will know what I'm on about. Or look up the ongoing saga of the mass die offs of marine life on the North Yorkshire coast.

[TheRambler]

Alas, the path to completion of this project was strewn with challenges. The nearby regional airport claimed that Paul's massive erection would interfere with their landing radar, causing planes to fall from the sky and make a terrible mess. The airport demanded £700,000 for a new radar system. Although this seemed quite likely to be an expedient 'planning ransom' ploy, Middlesbrough Council's planning dept had no means to assess the real risk, so their vital approval was paralysed.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... -fc-radar-

Not so sure, it’s a big turbine and in just about the worst place you could choose to build it. “Radar” tends to be a generic term when referring to wind turbine interference with aviation related electronic equipment. As stated, it’s in a critical position close to glide path intercept for RW23 at Teesside. You really don’t want to find out after it’s been built that the ILS signal has been degraded. How Peel arrived at the figure of £700,000 is unclear, that wouldn’t buy much radar, it would be interesting to know.

TheRambler

[aesmith]

Around here the airport concerns were about interference with basic radar, direct returns rather than transponders (I think that's "primary" radar). The first problem was that the blades are moving at speeds similar to aircraft, so they can't be filtered out as static fixed returns, they had to ignore any return from that location. The second problem was that they can't detect altitude, meaning that the blind spot extended from the ground all the way up. The position seemed to be that they could work around a certain number of these blind spots but not an unlimited number. This lead to bun fights where they responded to two applications saying they could tolerate one but not both, and left it to the Planning dept to decide which.

I remember one comment from a developer saying the solution was to make transponders mandatory for the whole control area, otherwise "it's not fair on farmers who want to put up wind turbines". Even that solution would only work if they were completely confident that nobody would breach the airspace by mistake.

[TheRambler]

Around here the airport concerns were about interference with basic radar, direct returns rather than transponders (I think that's "primary" radar). The first problem was that the blades are moving at speeds similar to aircraft, so they can't be filtered out as static fixed returns, they had to ignore any return from that location. The second problem was that they can't detect altitude, meaning that the blind spot extended from the ground all the way up. The position seemed to be that they could work around a certain number of these blind spots but not an unlimited number. This lead to bun fights where they responded to two applications saying they could tolerate one but not both, and left it to the Planning dept to decide which.

I remember one comment from a developer saying the solution was to make transponders mandatory for the whole control area, otherwise "it's not fair on farmers who want to put up wind turbines". Even that solution would only work if they were completely confident that nobody would breach the airspace by mistake.

You're correct, wind turbines most commonly affect primary radar systems, but adverse effects on any electromagnetic device are a possibility. As is said in my previous post:

it’s a big turbine and in just about the worst place you could choose to build it

No primary radar system has a height finding capability that's good enough for establishing separation between traffic. There are various height determination features commonly used on air defence radars but they're insufficiently accurate to ensure that airliners don't exchange paint schemes. Even the most cursory examination of a map would show that the proposed site was likely to attract an objection from Teesside Airport (It will always be Middleton St George to me!) Why on earth didn't they didn't select less controversial site for their pilot project? As for mandatory transponders, if that came via their "expert witness" then he probably knew a bit about radar but little or nothing about the division and classification of airspace. Anyway, even if unknown traffic is transponding and showing a Mode C (Altitude) return, you still cannot rely upon it for separation.

TheRambler

TheRambler

[Hercule Parrot]

It certainly appeared plausible to me that a very large wind turbine located barely 10 miles from the airport might interfere with radar in some way, but the that experts didn't agree. Millinder hired Doug Maclean ("a former National Air Traffic Service expert on the operational effects of wind turbines on radar displays") to analyse and make recommendations. Both the CAA and aviation ministry endorsed Maclean's findings:

He said: "It is impossible to imagine the Riverside turbine clutter as continuing to represent a real aircraft that DTVA do not know about or control. In my very experienced view of radar operations and particularly radar operations around clutter, I believe there are no safety implications for the full operation of the Riverside wind turbine."

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... y-airport/
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... bine-plan/

I have no knowledge at all in this field, and I couldn't locate a copy of Maclean's report.

[TheRambler]

It certainly appeared plausible to me that a very large wind turbine located barely 10 miles from the airport might interfere with radar in some way, but the that experts didn't agree. Millinder hired Doug Maclean ("a former National Air Traffic Service expert on the operational effects of wind turbines on radar displays") to analyse and make recommendations. Both the CAA and aviation ministry endorsed Maclean's findings:

He said: "It is impossible to imagine the Riverside turbine clutter as continuing to represent a real aircraft that DTVA do not know about or control. In my very experienced view of radar operations and particularly radar operations around clutter, I believe there are no safety implications for the full operation of the Riverside wind turbine."

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... y-airport/
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... bine-plan/

I have no knowledge at all in this field, and I couldn't locate a copy of Maclean's report.

It would certainly be interesting to see MacLean’s report and the endorsement of his conclusions by NATS and the CAA. Peel of course have have obtained their own assessment that appears to run counter to MacLean’s. Peel’s conduct as airport owners both at Teesside and elsewhere has been controversial, they acquired and closed Sheffield City and Doncaster Sheffield airports. However the one thing you can be sure of about Peel is that they are focused on return on investment and if that means building on regional airfields rather than operating them, then that’s what’s going to happen. Their attempt to generate additional income from Mallinder might not seem out of character. One could point to similar tactics in many fields of activity.

TheRambler

[Hercule Parrot]

Peel’s conduct as airport owners both at Teesside and elsewhere has been controversial, they acquired and closed Sheffield City and Doncaster Sheffield airports. However the one thing you can be sure of about Peel is that they are focused on return on investment and if that means building on regional airfields rather than operating them, then that’s what’s going to happen. Their attempt to generate additional income from Mallinder might not seem out of character.

Yeah, I got that undertone from the comments under local newspaper articles. There was scepticism about the authenticity of Peel's radar assessment, a belief that they would seize any pretext to enrich themselves. As I said above, I have literally no clue about the technology side of it. Would be interesting to read Maclean's report though - if it was submitted in planning proceedings it must be public domain?

[TheRambler]

There is clearly more to this than meets the eye. So far I have traced the planning application and start of the controversy back to 2008:

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... bine-plan/

Unfortunately, I haven't found any trace of the relevant expert reports.

TheRambler

[Hercule Parrot]

There is clearly more to this than meets the eye. So far I have traced the planning application and start of the controversy back to 2008...

Interesting. 2008 is somewhat earlier than the storyline I gleaned from the court judgements. If it had been going on for that long, I can appreciate Millinder's frustration -

He said: "It's great that the condition, which should not have been imposed by the council in the first place, has been discharged, but due to the length of time it's taken, we have lost the tariff we were going to get for the electricity it generated. We will have to pursue litigation with the airport, and possibly the council, over it as the lost revenue amounts to £2.8m, plus costs."

[Hercule Parrot]

Completlely batshit crazy now, Jewish Freemason paedos etc...

"A vexatious litigant on the run from a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court today failed to reopen his case via an application from a company apparently created for the purpose. Following a half-day hearing in Court 1 of the Rolls Building, Mr Justice Fancourt ruled that two applications brought by Edinburgh-registered Deuda Lid were in reality the work of Paul Millinder, who has been the subject of successive civil restraint orders."

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/banne ... 08.article