The Court declined to grant declaratory relief regarding the existence and terms of a lost trust deed on two grounds: first, the declarations sought concerned pure matters of fact rather than legal states of affairs; and second, there was no contradictor and no party with a genuine interest in opposing the relief. Instead, the Court gave judicial advice under r 54.02 that the trustee was justified in administering the trust according to a reconstructed version of the trust deed, including a missing page whose contents were established through comparison with the solicitor's precedent document. The case confirms that where an original trust deed is lost and copies are incomplete, secondary evidence including precedent documents, contemporaneous records, and witness testimony can provide the requisite 'clear and convincing proof' of the deed's contents.
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