Court in 2 weeks

Lamilad deserves a knighthood I reckon. Or a Damehood

I arrived at court early with 3 copies of a challenge to RoA provided, like my extensive WS, by Sir Lamilad (sorry if you're actually a lady, I have no idea). The ushers seemed a bit surprised that I was trying to give them additional material and sent me to window 2 to log it in. The corpulent gentleman there seemed even more non-plussed and echoed "Preliminary Material"? as though I was speaking Esperanto. I went back into the waiting area to be greeted by the representative for the Claimant (boo!) who offered me a "conference"...and revealed she was not employed by BWL. A bit pepped up by nerves I demanded to know who she was and immediately tapped her name into solicitors.lawsociety.org.uk on my phone. She politely enquired what I was doing and when I told her said "Oh you won't find me in there".

"What are your qualifications?" I demanded.

Somewhat insouciant "Well I've got a law degree". To be fair she was unflappable throughout

"HA! Then you have no Right of Audience!" I squawked in triumph "I've got a document for you, come with me." by this point verging on Basil Fawlty meets the Gestapo, whereupon we ran round in circles trying to catch up with the Preliminary Matters which I'd left at window 2...but her copy of which was now back with the ushers.

We sat in silence while she read through and made notes and my heartbeat returned to normal. Confess I thought I was home and dry. I wasn't.

When we got in with the judge he was reading through the same document with rather more composure and quizzed the lady on her qualifications, it transpired she had been in front of him before "on numerous occasions" but he did seem to me genuinely surprised that she wasn't a qualified solicitor. I still thought this could be over in round 1...but the law degree kicked in and she convinced him that she was in fact an exemption. I didn't really follow to be honest, something to do with being properly instructed by a solicitor. The man in the chair was satisfied she did have RoA after all but acknowledged my concerns and suggested he was more interested by the lack of a witness, upon which point my opponent had to concede.

The whole thing after that was essentially about signage.

I'd read the various cases supplied by Sir L but in the heat of the moment was only really able to call upon Cutts. I noted the time stamps on the photographs and he acknowledged this called into question they being the same as at the time of the contravention (in the absence of a witness). The lady insisted that signage was in keeping with BPA guidelines but he was dismissive and studied them himself before requiring her to identify in the T&C where it stated that an overstay after purchasing a valid ticket, as I had done, would incur a £100 charge. We sat there in silence for 5 minutes while she examined the various images of the signs, drawing comment from the judge that she was using an iPad to expand the images rather than relying on the photocopies we all had (they would have been bigger and easier to see in the car park she said.)

Of course there was no such unambiguous term on any of the signs, even in the small print. I quoted Denning's Red Hand rule, to which he nodded, but by that point it was pretty redundant I think.

I still wasn't entirely confident it would go my way during his summing up but it came down to the lack of explicit, clear T&C describing that my particular contravention would be subject to a £100 charge. He dismissed the claim and thanked us both for the way we had presented our evidence. Then I went home.;)

Massive thanks again to Lamilad, I couldn't have done it without him. Or her.

And I hope the lady with the law degree qualifies as a proper legal professional and does something a bit more worthwhile. Human rights or something.

No, didn't bother with costs. Was never about the money but the principle! I'm not self employed though did need to take half a day off work, I ran to work like I do every Friday, usually go on my bike (saves on parking!) and I walked down to the court so no travel costs to speak of.