Disclaimer: This article is general guidance, not legal advice. Always refer to the original authorities for full legal context.
Key Takeaway: In Wiltshire v Aioi Nissay Dowa [2025] EWCC 13, the claimant lost on credit hire, credit recovery, storage and collection/delivery charges. The only award was basic loss of use. The court criticised template-driven witness statements, confirming that CPR Part 32 compliance is not optional in bulk litigation. Credit hire teams relying on standard-paragraph drafting are exposed, not to a new risk, but to one the court has now made clear it will enforce.
If you work in credit hire, you need to know about this case. Not because the law changed, but because the court showed exactly what happens when process replaces thinking. The claims process used by Winn Solicitors Limited and their subsidiary On Hire Limited unravelled under oral evidence. Mistakes made by claims handlers and fee earners were exposed, and the court was not impressed.
1. What the Court Actually Decided
District Judge Jenkins heard this case under standard Fast Track credit hire directions. The Particulars of Claim followed a simple precedent template. The Defence contained more detail. That imbalance set the tone.
The witness statements were built from templates. Standard paragraphs, dropped into a standard format, with minimal tailoring to the actual facts. When the handlers who signed those statements were cross-examined, the gaps became obvious. They could not explain the detail of what they had signed. The statements looked professional on paper but did not hold up in a courtroom.
The court made three critical observations.
2. Three Observations Every Credit Hire Team Should Know
First, on the use of templates in bulk litigation: the court confirmed that volume is not an excuse. The fact that your team handles hundreds of similar claims does not mean you can treat witness statements as a copy-and-paste exercise.
Second, on the legal standard: there is still an obligation to ensure that any witness statement complies with CPR Part 32. Those rules do not bend because you are busy.
Third, and most directly: blind following of a company process is no substitute for understanding these requirements. Process is important, but process without understanding is a liability.
3. Why This Matters Beyond One Case
This judgment did not create new law. It applied existing rules. That is exactly why it matters.
If your team is producing witness statements the same way, you are exposed. The court has now made clear it will scrutinise template evidence and will not give bulk litigation a free pass. Claims that should succeed will fail, not because the facts are not there, but because the evidence does not do them justice.
4. Practical Steps for Your Team
Audit your witness statement process. Look at the last 20 statements your team produced. How many contain identical paragraphs? How many reflect the specific facts of each case? If the answer is "most of them look the same," you have a problem.
Train handlers on CPR Part 32. It is not enough to train people on your internal process. They need to understand the legal requirements that sit behind it. If a handler cannot explain why a witness statement needs to be in a particular format, they are not ready to prepare one.
Move from template-first to fact-first drafting. Start with the facts of the individual case. What happened? What was the claimant's specific need? What were the actual circumstances around hire, storage and recovery? Build the statement from those facts outward, not from a template inward.
Test your evidence under pressure. Before a statement is finalised, ask a simple question: if this person were cross-examined on this document tomorrow, could they explain every paragraph in their own words? If not, the statement is not ready.
Build compliance checks into your workflow. Do not wait for a judge to tell you your statements fall short. This is precisely what our witness statement drafting software for UK law firms exists to do, running automated CPR Part 32 compliance checks on every draft before it reaches a fee earner.
5. How LegalDocs Assist Helps
The Witness Statement Generator does not produce templates. It builds case-specific witness statements grounded in the actual facts you provide, checked against CPR Part 32 requirements, with 14 compliance checks and verified UK case law support, including Wiltshire v Aioi Nissay Dowa itself.
Every statement is different because every case is different. You input the specific details of your claim and the system generates a statement that reflects those details, not a generic paragraph that could apply to any case on your books. Export to Word or PDF for review and sign-off.
Key Authorities (for Reference)
- Wiltshire v Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Company of Europe [2025] EWCC 13 (template witness statements; CPR Part 32 compliance in credit hire).
- CPR Part 32 and Practice Direction 32 (requirements for witness statements).
- Bunting v Zurich Insurance Plc [2020] EWHC 1807 (QB) (factual challenges to BHR evidence at first instance).
- Stevens v Equity Syndicate Management Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 93 (mainstream/lowest-reasonable rate).
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