Neil Wilby Media

Paul Ponting, 55, a self-styled corruption advocate and legal expert, based in Ormskirk, West Lancashire, and his wife, Anna Ponting, 53, are facing a second appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice after defying a High Court Order handed down in July 2025.

At the conclusion of a hearing at the famous old courts in London on 22nd July 2025, in which the Pontings had brought injunction and harassment proceedings against the author of this article, Neil Wilby, costs of £1,700 were part of an Order made by Deputy High Court Judge Aidan Eardley KC. The Order also confirmed the striking out of the harassment claim and dismissal of their interim injunction application (read full report here). 

As the headline to that linked article suggests, it was a day in court they would much rather forget, ‘Weighed down and eventually crushed by the mounting burden of their own deceit‘

Surprisingly, the Pontings were given 6 weeks to pay; the usual term is 14 days. The expiry date for payment was, therefore, 2nd September 2025. On 27th August they were sent a reminder and the necessary bank details. No acknowledgement to that email, or the required payment, has been received, in clear defiance of a High Court Order. 

That defiance now ensures a return visit is guaranteed as Neil Wilby roadmaps the route to enforcement of the debt owed to him by the Pontings.

The first step to be taken is an application for a Writ of Control, transferring the debt to High Court Enforcement Officers. Their role is direct: To attend the Pontings’ home and/or office (which they told the High Court, in oral submissions, that they own), seize goods or secure payment. It is an intrusive process and one that is often effective where debtors have chosen to defy an Order of the court. Paul Ponting is familiar with the process as another debtor, again arising from adverse litigation costs in a court Order, has obtained such a Writ.

At the same time, an application for an Order to Obtain Information is in preparation. This would compel Paul and Anna Ponting to travel to the Royal Courts of Justice in London to be questioned, under oath by a Master or High Court judge, about their income, assets, bank accounts and liabilities. They would be required to produce supporting documents and warned that non-attendance can lead to committal. For those who persistently defy court Orders, such hearings are often uncomfortable and reveal information that debtors might prefer to remain concealed. Particularly, if the court rules that the hearing is held in open court.

The third enforcement option is a Charging Order over any property owned by the Pontings. That secures the debt against their assets and accrues statutory interest at 8% per year until cleared. It ensures that the judgment cannot be ignored or evaded indefinitely and, if necessary, can ultimately be realised through a forced sale.

But defiance of court Orders or Penal Notices is nothing new to Paul Ponting: An application, filed by the Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary (Lancs) in July 2025, seeks to commit Ponting to prison over multiple alleged breaches of a lifetime injunction Order imposed upon him in March 2020. They include non-payment of £30,000 costs (plus interest) awarded against Ponting.

The proceedings were only brought by the Chief Constable against Paul Ponting as a result of tenacious public interest journalism, spearheaded by Neil Wilby Media (read just two examples here and here). Otherwise, and absent of such press interest, Lancs was anxious for the breaches to remain buried, along with the now routine exposés of the force’s own record of inaction, behind a wall of opacity and obfuscation.

A Directions hearing, dealing with Lancs’ committal application took place in Liverpool County Court on 6th August 2025 and proceedings continue according to a detailed timetable agreed between the parties. Paul Ponting denies any and all wrongdoing and, in oral submissions, counsel representing him characterised the Lancs application as ‘vexatious’ (read full report here).

Similarly, in harassment proceedings that concluded in April 2024, two further lifetime injunctions resulting from a claim that alleged stalking and harassment, and associated Penal Notices were served on Paul Ponting. The claimants, “Miss G” and “Mrs F”, both Crown witnesses in ongoing criminal proceedings against the same person, and, as such, protected by an anonymity Order, were awarded £26,400 in costs and damages. That sum, or any part of it, remains unpaid. Again, in bare defiance of the court’s authority.

This is a troubling pattern, on any independent view, and raises very serious public interest questions about the persistent misuse of the civil court system by Paul Ponting (accompanied almost invariably by Anna Ponting, either as co-claimant or McKenzie friend). 

At the July 2025 hearing in London, Ponting told the court, emphatically, that he was not a “prolific litigant” and accused Neil Wilby of lying in submitting otherwise. That assertion was made to the judge at the very moment he was involved in his fourth set of injunction proceedings in the space of five years, and in all of which he has been comprehensively defeated, whilst continuing to defy multiple costs orders. There are believed to be at least fourteen other claims in which he is, or was, claimant or defendant.

Paul Ponting’s social media activity tells its own story: In a series of posts published this week under his “UKCP” handle (@UKCorruptPolice), he boasted of having no fewer than eight live civil claims against four different police forces, whilst also ridiculing the Crown Prosecution Service. It is difficult to reconcile that conduct with the picture he sought to present in court of a family man from a backwater town just wanting a quiet life.

This latest defiance of a High Court Order sits alongside at least two other substantial, unpaid judgments and a series of failed claims. It underscores what the court was told in July — that Paul Ponting is a “prolific litigant,” a description he rejected at the time but which his own conduct and social media postings now serve only to confirm.

In addition to the exceptionally high number of civil claims in which he is or has been involved, in April and May 2024 he had four private prosecutions discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service, including one against a serving police inspector, through lack of evidence. A situation that brought reprimand from the senior district judge in Preston Magistrates’ Court (read more here).

Neil Wilby says: “There comes a point where courts must take action against litigants who consistently defy Orders, leaving opponents with unpaid judgments. In my view, it is very much in the public interest that no further claims should be filed in any court, by either of the Pontings, and every current claim stayed, until all Orders have been satisfied in full and adequate Security for Costs paid into court..”

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Neil Wilby is a journalist, court reporter and transparency campaigner who has reported on police misconduct, regulatory failures, and criminal and civil justice since 2009. He is the founder and editor of Neil Wilby Media, launched in 2015.

Page last updated: Wednesday 3rd September 2025 at 18h55

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