Genuinely interesting couple of posts there mackem_beefy.
I can tell you what I personally would have done during that first meeting.
I would have stood up, told them that this wasn't a working relationship which would work well, apologised and told them I was leaving. I would wish them well on their search for a replacement and I would walk out.
As you found out, there is little worse than persisting with that type of person.
I am like this in interviews as well. If I detect a bad match then I will stop an interview immediately. Done that a few times. Never regretted it. It is very important that you realise your personal value and worth to others without being arrogant or aggressive with them. Make no mistake though, you should take no unreasonable crap from anyone. You deserve to be treated with respect.

There is something about this story which doesn't add up.
I have a gut feeling that you are not giving us the whole picture here.

Successful people generally don't get kicked out for no reason but you appear to be painting the picture of the good student who simply loses their position for no reason whatsoever.
In all my years of experience watching working relationships break down I have never seen one which is completely one-sided like this and whilst I am happy to be proven wrong, I tend to always trust my experience and instinct.
My guess is that you have either given the impression of not been putting in enough hours, not getting good enough results, not achieving other targets expected of you or have been at the root of a personality clash. Those are the usual problems in 99% of all cases I have observed and I have seen way more than I can count. For what it is worth, I personally have been at the centre of 3 of those and it took me a while for my ego to accept my role in my own downfalls. I now advice other similarly hot headed individuals who seem intent on making the same mistakes as me.

Three things have been brought up by you which raise red flags for me. First you were told by more than one person that your scientific English isn't good enough but apparently you have disagreed with all of them, choosing instead to believe the word of a non-expert. Re-thinking this would be a good idea.
Second that your hours are not up to scratch and nobody else in close neighbouring groups recognises who you are. Again apparently literally everyone is telling lies and you are the only one holding the truth?
Then thirdly you appear to have pressed the nuclear button by making a formal complaint and then announcing in front of the university authorities that you are terminating all contact with your initial supervisor when it seems you have already failed your viva and been replaced. That smacks of ego right there.

You need to be absolutely honest with yourself here over what went wrong before you waste money on a court case you will certainly lose.

Personally, just based on what you have posted, I would agree with a poster above and strongly, and I do mean strongly, recommend that you drop this, learn whatever lessons you can about yourself and move on.

One caveat. I am, as I do with everybody else, taking your series of posts at face value. The above is the impression you have left on me. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong on any of this.

Thank you for replying :)

Just to be clear, by institution you mean department right? Please don't tell me you are advising against a relationship even with PhD students from different departments/schools within my university? That would make things very, VERY, difficult :D[/quote]

My advice is going to be a little blunt but I am trying to help you here so bear with me.
Your original post seems to betray that you have two problems not one.
Firstly you are lonely for friends. Secondly you are looking for a partner.
I believe your second problem is causing your first problem. You are making the classic young person mistake of confusing friendship and partnership. Separate them out.

To explain this perhaps you could consider why on earth you would write off your female colleagues are "too old" for you when they are barely into their thirties. Too old for what? Friendship or courtship? Why write them off for both because they are too old for courtship?
Is there some problem you have socially which makes incapable of talking to these people as friends? That might sort your first problem out and in doing so you might actually solve your second one inadvertently because these young women will almost certainly have friends If they get to know you as a friend they might be more than happy to introduce you to someone special. I would be prepared to bet that women in this age group would be happy to "mother" a young guy and help them out.

If you want to sort both problems out I would suggest you take a more mature outlook and stop writing people off because of their age because when you do that you should listen very carefully. That banging noise you hear will be doors of opportunity closing all around you. Get yourself some friends first and foremost and go from there. It's way easier to make friends than to pull a date.

Oh and one other thing now that you've annoyed me a little. You should be aware that you are on a website where a large number of us are of a vast range of ages. Some of us are in our 40s, 50s and 60s. It's best under the cirumstances not to wander on talking about people at 33 being too old if you want help. It's likely to piss people off. Just some advice my friend. I hope you take it as such.

BTW I wouldn't let people catch you talking to rabbits :-D

If the year of unpaid work will give you valuable experience and you can support yourself then it is a total no brainer. - take the job.
It has to be better than sitting at home doing nothing and will prevent gaps in your CV.
I have used this a few times in my career and it has always led to paid opportunities elsewhere.
Good luck with your situation.

On a serious note. The Tories are always looking for ways to save money. If they read this thread I think they would have a few ideas about how to cut research funding and to be very frank I think we would be hard pressed to defend some of these research themes at a time when disabled people are having their benefits cut. Blue sky research is one thing but some of these research areas are simply taking the piss.

"I currently have no desire to continue in the research field or the subject area my PhD is in if I finish it, so is there any point in me continuing? "

If after just 5 months in, you have already decided this is not for you then there is no point continuing. Nothing else matters.

You have a few life lessons to learn very quickly here so I won't beat around the bush. I am not having a go at you here - I am trying to help you :-)

1) You need to learn to say No to people starting today.
You have become overwhelmed by work piling in but you haven't learned to say No to people and so they will pile more on you. This will not change until you learn to control what other people are allowed to pile on your desk.

2) You also need to learn to prioritise. It should be obvious that your top priority is to learn the background theory so why on earth are you allowing other people to distract you with technician responsibilities? What your industrial sponsor wants is irrelevant. They have no control over you. Don't allow them to push you for results. Give them what you discover, when you discover it. Don't let them set the pace. Same for your supervisors. Get the theory learned and then make your own decisions about the dirction you want to take. Don't let anyone else bully you.

3) The wedding. This can be as difficult or as easy as you want. I am not going to advise you here. I will merely tell you what I did with my wife because we were busy and had no money to waste on one single day. We eloped. We found a registry office where she was born and got married there with a couple of witnesses and a meal afterwards followed by a couple of nights in a B&B. We knew we would have probably 50 years to be "romantic" when we had more time and money. In our view there was nothing romantic about spending £5k to £10k on what was essentially a party that we wouldn't be able to enjoy anyway because we would be stressing over how perfect the bloody cake was. Best and most relaxing, fun and stress-free days of our lives. I will leave it at that.

4) "I want to leave but it will just be another example of me being a failure". On this note I am not good with self pity :-D
You need to stop this. It's destructive.

Personally I think if you have genuinely lost interest in the PhD then you should bail now.
Staying with it because you have "nothing else" is a terrible idea because the damage caused to your mental state by staying in a job which has made you post the above set of posts might become irreparable. Not everyone is cut out for a PhD. Stop beating yourself up and concentrate on understanding who you really are and finding a career which suits you better. There are no failures in life. There are only bad choices and bad matches. Almost all of which can be fixed simply be making better choices which match who you are.