Retired businessman Jonathan Irving and his son Jamie have won a major court victory over the winding up of their Street Heritage company seven years ago.

In a High Court judgment, Deemster Corlett ruled that Street Heritage’s advocate Jerry Carter had been negligent by not turning up in time for the winding up hearing that took place on February 24, 2010.

Mr Irving said he and his son had now established liabiility in their multi-million pound negligence claim.

He said: ’We brought this claim at our own cost and risk for the joint benefit of the creditors of Street Heritage Ltd.

’As a family, at long last we feel vindicated and hope that we can now draw a line under this and move on.’

In his judgment, Deemster Corlett concluded it would have been ’very probable that the court would have agreed to adjourn the case, thereby giving the company time to attempt to put together a rescue package’.

That rescue package would have been based upon a sale of land in Peel and promises of cash to pay off a tax debt totalling £182,929.

Mr Irving told the High Court that publicity from the winding-up order had tainted their other businesses which were ’damned by association’.

Ticket sales for the 2010 Bay Festival, which the Irvings were organising through a separate company, started to dry up and it went on to make a loss.

For his part, Mr Carter told the court he believed that the Irvings’ financial empire was due to collapse in any event as Street Heritage was ’clearly insolvent’ at the time of the presentation of the winding-up petition, with other creditors ’waiting in the wings’.

He said he was told by the Irvings that the hearing was at 10am but by the time he had arrived at 9.40am, the case had already been dealt with.

Deemster Corlett said: ’The company and the Irvings therefore lost the chance of staving off the winding-up order.’

He concluded that Mr Carter acted negligently and was in breach of contract in not ensuring he knew the correct time for the hearing and not bringing the Deemster back into court to rescind the winding-up order.

He found the Irvings were not guilty of contributing to the situation and that Mr Carter’s breach of duty and contract were capable of causing the type of losses alleged by the Irvings, including those incurred in the 2010 Bay Music Festival.

The judgment does not deal with any award of damages.

l More on this story in next week’s Examiner.