Respondent falsifying emails

[Sch4971]

Hello, I’d appreciate some advice if at all possible.

I am currently at the disclosure of documents stage of my unfair dismissal claim and I’m unrepresented. I have previously found evidence of the respondent editing documents they’ve provided as evidence to strengthen their argument.

Now that they have provided further evidence, I am pretty sure they have fabricated an email trail. Is there a way of getting the original version ordered, how does it work with email trails? How can we be sure they’ve not edited the versions supplied if there is a way to get originals?

They’ve acted so dishonestly up to this point and whilst I can prove it with various documents, I obviously don’t have copies of their internal emails.

thanks in advance

[efpom]

It is the job of the judge (sitting as a jury) to weigh the evidence.
In the case of live witness testimony it can range from “thoroughly honest” to “thoroughly dishonest”, However, as the scales of justice can never be in equilibrium, the tipping point, either way, is the well worn phrase “ On balance I prefer the evidence of X to that of Y”

The following analogy occurs to me. A witness is being examined, He/she is caught in one lie. Does that mean that everything he says in his testimony is a lie? No. The judge has to weigh all the evidence, but he also has to take into account, the lie.

The same would apply to documentary evidence.

It follows that if you can prove document forgery in one instance, that does not mean that the remainder of the documents are also forgeries but it reduces the weight of the entire package of evidence, and the more forgeries that can be proved, the lighter becomes the weight of evidence.

So much for theories of law.

You do not have the right or the economic means to investigate what might be held on an email server, which might be a block away or at the far side of the world. You are stuck with the documents as presented in evidence. But it is notoriously difficult to forge a suite of documents, there will be contradictions or mismatches and not just in the words of the document, so you give a very close examination to each document – ref numbers, Invoice numbers out of sequence and for electronic documents – the source code of the documents. Even a pdf copy of a document can reveal contradictions.

At a very simple level,though not directly on point, I was recently faced with an English law firm that, whilst I corresponded with it electronically, replied by post. That built in delay, and was done to do exactly that. So I examined the ref no - it started with PA - personal assistant maybe - looked up the firm's website - only one solicitor with initials PA - took a guess - pxxxx.axxx@shylock.com, wrote to the email address I guessed at, asking for confirmation of safe receipt - reply by email, acknowledging receipt - Success.

[charitynjw]

I agree with efpom & would add my six penn'orth.

Don't just examine the evidence disclosed.
Also look for anything that (from the disclosed stuff) should be there.....but isn't!