Bay Festival founders Jonathan and Jamie Irving have lost their last chance to appeal a rejected multi-million pounds negligence claim.

Jonathan and Jamie Irving had been ordered to pay their former advocate Jerry Carter £111,000.

Now the judicial committee of the Privy Council – the court of final appeal for the Crown Dependencies – has refused them permission to appeal.

The committee said the Irvings had failed to raise an arguable point of law.

It’s a decision which must surely bring to a close the father and son’s protracted legal battle over the winding up of their Street Heritage development company.

Street Heritage was wound up following a short court hearing on February 24, 2010, over an unpaid tax bill of £182,929.

The company’s advocate Jerry Carter did not turn up in time for the hearing.

Then government advocate Stephen Harding, who was acting for the assessor of income tax, failed to inform Deemster Doyle that a 28-day adjournment had been agreed.

Mr Carter arrived at court about 10 minutes after the hearing had ended and did not – despite being invited by the Deemster’s clerk to do so – ask the court to reconvene immediately to secure the adjournment.

The Irvings maintain that had an adjournment been put into effect, Street Heritage would have avoided liquidation, claiming it could have called on funds from other sources to pay off the debt and continued as a going concern.

But their £3.5m claim for damages against Mr Harding and other government officials was struck out in May 2011.

They went on to pursue a negligence claim for some £5m against their lawyer Mr Carter.

In a 2017 judgment, Deemster Andrew Corlett ruled that Mr Carter had been negligent in not turning up in time to adjourn the winding up application.

But in a subsequent judgment, Deemster Corlett said the Irvings’ losses were not caused by the defendant’s negligence.

He said Street Heritage had been insolvent and would have been wound up anyway.

The Irvings lodged an appeal but last September this was dismissed by the appeal court which then ordered the Irvings to pay Mr Carter’s law firm costs of £111,000.

The Irvings renewed their application for special leave to appeal to the Privy Council only for this now to be rejected too.