Canal and River Trust's Double Edged Legal Sword

It is well known that going to Court can be a double edged sword. And it seems CRT is going to be put to the knife yet again?

We have recently seen an FoI request revealing how much CRT spent in three other prominent court cases. CRT subsequently say they are unable to provide their internal costs (staff time), so the figures are incomplete, but the cases concerned have on the partial figures cost in excess of £150 000. One case was successful from CRT's point of view (Mayers), but the other two (Wingfield and Dunkley) were settled without full trial.

Now two other boaters have made High Court applications about CRT's conduct. (Outlines of Leigh Ravenscroft's and Matthew Jones' claims can be viewed via these respective links.)

As ever some of the forum trolls have been having a go at the boaters concerned, about the money they are costing CRT, conveniently forgetting that these latest two actions are in response to CRT having previously initiated actions against the boaters. It should also be noted that the respective Courts due to hear both cases had to be satisfied there is some basic merit in the claims before these actions could go ahead.

As many have been asking over the last few weeks, are the levels of legal expenditure being incurred by CRT appropriate?