About to be sued because of mistaken identity

B

bb12

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Am just looking for anyones advice input regarding a situation I currently find myself in.

I was at a large horse show in August with a horse of mine, when a woman approached me and accused my horse of having kicked her husband and injured him and having broken his camera the day before.

I had never seen this woman before and knew nothing about what she was talking about. She obviously mistook me for someone else, but was very abusive when talking to me and said she had witnesses etc. I tried to calmly explain to her that I wasn't anywhere near the area she was talking about on the day in question but she insisted that it had been me. She took down my competition number and walked off saying she would take this further. I was completely gobsmacked because as far as I was concerned this was a totally random woman approaching me about a matter I knew nothing about and blaming me for it!

Now I've just received a letter from the horse show's solicitors. Obviously this woman's husband wrote to them intending to make a claim. She obviously gave these solicitors my competition number to follow up on. In their letter of reply to this man (a copy was sent to me) it states 'we have ascertained that the offending horse was the property of' me and my address and they advised that this man should pursue a claim against me!!!

It's as if this horse show are blaming me for an incident of which I know nothing!! They never even enclosed details of the original letter they received from this man intending to make th claim. And surely they should have stated 'the alleged offending horse'?? Nothing has been proved yet and they never even contacted me to get details of my side!!

I'm so hopping mad and upset at this whole affair. I am now expecting to receive a solictors letter from this man any day intending to sue me for damages and I'm a completely innocent bystander in all of this madness! I cannot believe that someone can basically walk up to you in the street and accuse you of all sorts and cause this much trouble for you.

I'm now thinking that this whole situation may get out of hand and that I should go visit a solicitor of my own to protest my innocence. Is this the right move? Do I have a right to demand a letter of apology from the shows solicitors for wrongly implicating me in their letter of reply to this man? And what should I do regarding this mans false allegations? Do I counter sue for defamation and slander?

I'm so upset about all of this right now. The original incident had nothing to do with me whatsoever. It's a classic case of mistaken identity and now I face the prospect of having to pay solicitors fees to defend me for nothing I've done wrong.
 
Wait until you get a summons from the court. Then spend money on solicitor although you done have to. You could always represent yourself and state the facts and the judge might throw out the case.

Anyway these folks are just venting frustration about the expensive camera and are calling your bluff to see are you stupid enough to pay them straight off. Sit on this until you get a proper summons from court.
 
It sounds rather fishy to me. In my opinion if the man had been hurt by any horse, it would have been normal for him to go a hospital/doctor.
Could it be that they are trying to blackmail you?
 
Sounds like they're chancing their arm to me too. In any case surely the show and participants would have been covered by some sort of public liability insurance whatver about the organisers seemingly washing their hands of the issue?
 
i know! this whole situation is so bizarre! i don't know whether to laugh or to cry!!!

i think they're chancing their arm too. however shows generally advise their exhibitors to have their own public liability and don't usually accept responsibility for accidents involving animals, as far as i know...

i don't have any public liability because i've never needed to and anyone even if i did have my own insurance this would still be a wrongful case as the incident had nothing to do with me!! none of my animals have ever been any threat to anyone when out in public! so obviously i'm very worried in case this man starts coming after me personally now...and it just happens to be one of the most expensive cameras on the markets plus he apparently injured his hip in all this also...so you can imagine the type of money we're talking!

i'm assuming there was an original incident because i called the horse shows solicitors to find out what the hell was going on and they said that this man had been carried away in an ambulance...i'm guessing this would have been pretty public and attracted a lot of attention yet his wife the next day accused me and said that she had witnesses that would verify it was me!!

when she first stopped me, her first question was did i know a particular persons name, let's say 'john doe'...it happened to be the same surname as mine, so i was thinking maybe she knew some distant relative of mine or something...but i didn't know anyone of that name...

when i talked to the shows solicitors they told me that there were two suspect horses...and he gave me the competition number of the other one (by mistake i think!). When i checked the show catalogue last night it just so happens that the owner of this other horse also has the same surname as me.

by my deduction and i could be completely wrong but this is the best guess i can make...I'm thinking that an incident did actually occur on the showgrounds and that the person involved or the owner of the horse that did the damage gave his name as 'john doe' say.

i'm guessing there was panic in getting the husband into the ambulance etc so maybe 'john doe' disappeared afterwards...

then i'm thinking this woman decided to look through the show catalogue for the same name and it just so happens that there were only 2 other 'doe' surnames listed, myself and this other horse owner...

i'm now thinking that perhaps she was going around the showgrounds looking for our 2 numbered horses and just by complete coincidence came across me the next day bringing my horse back from its competition...and the whole thing has spiralled out of control from there.

talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time!!
 
Sounds to me like they have absolutely no case against you whatever about against the other bloke. I would sit tight and wait and see what happens next.

The issue of redress for allegedly defamatory letters being sent around is another one that you might want to park for the moment until the main matter in hand is sorted out.
 
You should seek professional advice from a solicitor. I would advise you not to discuss the details of the case on a public forum like this.
 
Have you got any witnesses to prove you were elsewhere at the time of the incident? If so I suggest you get as much written details from then as you can while their memory is fresh.
 
Have the show organisers given your details to the other party? If yes, they may have breached Data Protection legislation.
 
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