N157 form point 9 Small Claims Court

[ModeratetBad]

Hi there, regarding the N157 form for small Claims Court point 9 concerning Witness statement. If you don't realise you have to provide a witness statement because you are the defendant, and you misinterpret the form to think that a witness statement is from someone supporting your case, but who is a separate individual to the defendant, can you have any comeback - we found ourselves in this position, and the judge refused to allow us to do a Witness Statement in front of him. We explained that one of us is dyslexic and didn't understand the form, and neither of us had ever been to court, and so weren't familiar with the process. He also wouldn't let us know that if we adjourned the court to a different day so that we could then provide a witness statement, we would be able to go ahead with this. Either way, we feel that we were shoe-horned into accepting a mediation decision that was innaccurate and unfair, and that we were denied the chance to put forward a very strong counterclaim against a case that had no evidence of agreement or acceptance.