In a stern warning to litigants that Sir Rupert Jackson’s reforms of civil procedure are being robustly enforced, a firm of estate agents came within an ace of missing out on the chance of a £450,000 commission due to its failure to serve witness statements before the expiry of a judge-imposed deadline.

A warehouse manager who was sacked for disobeying an instruction to load four banoffee pies onto a lorry before he went home at the end of his shift has been stripped of his right to compensation by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).