A further hearing took place before me on 12 October 2023, where the principal application was COPA’s application to make an unspecified but large number of additional allegations of forgery. The application was based on the analysis in Madden1 as to documents he considered to be inauthentic. I heard that heavily contested application on 12^th October 2023 and handed down my Judgment on the application on 24^th October 2023: see [2023] EWHC 2642 (Ch). Dr Wright’s team estimated that COPA were seeking to add around 400 additional allegations of forgery, based on the proposed amendments, or at least 180 based on a schedule exhibited by Mr Sherrell to his witness statement supporting the application.

For the reasons set out in that Judgment, I gave COPA permission to plead forgery of a total of 50 additional documents in a pleading to be served within 7 days of that Judgment, along with a schedule identifying by ID number both (a) the Reliance Documents and (b) other documents which they alleged to be forged along with all reasons relied upon in support of the allegation of forgery, cross-referenced to Madden1, and the reasons why Dr Wright was alleged to be responsible.

My resulting Order dated 31 October gave COPA permission to plead additional allegations of forgery against Dr Wright (as I said, limited to 50) and some further directions. All of these allegations originated from COPA’s challenges to authenticity of documents disclosed by Dr Wright (i.e. the list of Challenged Documents served on 5 May 2023) but Madden1 enabled COPA to plead forgery.

At that stage, the principal outstanding procedural steps were service of the expert report on forensic document analysis from Dr Wright’s side on 23 October 2023 and service of Dr Wright’s reply fact evidence on 1^st December 2023. In an attempt to reduce the burden on Dr Wright and his team in view of the impending trial date, I took the view that Dr Wright’s response to the new allegations of forgery did not need to be made in a responsive pleading, but could be set out in his witness statement in reply.