Getting taken to court by Civil Enforcement

Below is my first pass; don't worry about formatting, I'll tidy it up later.
I'm not sure how much of a big deal to make about the signage. There is mention of the £100 charge but in very small letters, under the parking fees.

In the County Court Business Centre
Claim Number ****
Between:
Civil Enforcement Limited v ******
Defence Statement

I am ******* the defendant in this matter and registered keeper of vehicle *****. I currently reside at ***.
I would like to confirm that I accept I was driving in the incident in question. I also accept I entered the carpark on the date in question.

However, I deny I am liable for the totality of the claim for each and every one of the following reasons:

1. The Claim Form issued on the XXXX by Civil Enforcement Limited was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed by “Civil Enforcement Limited”.

2. The Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol (specifically 6a and 6c) and does not provide the defendant with enough information from which to form a defence.
(a) Claimant has not specified whether this parking charge is for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and would be defended differently.
(b) The claimant is a serial litigant, speculatively issuing a large number of claims of questionable legality.
(c) The Schedule of information contains insufficient information for the defendant to properly and fairly form the defence.
(d) The Particulars of Claim provided by the claimant were generic and inadequate and asserted no cause of action. The Defendant is unable to ascertain the specifics of the claim: Why the charge arose, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information. The Claim Form Particulars did not contain any evidence of the defendant parking, or that they have not miscalculated the time spent in the car park
(e) If the court decided that this case should proceed, the Defendant asks that the Claimant is required to file Particulars which comply with Practice Directions and include at least the following information. (the defendant would then ask for sufficient time to file another defence)

i. Whether the matter is being brought for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge.
ii. A copy of any contract it is alleged was in place (e.g. copies of signage)
iii. How any contract was concluded (if by performance, then copies of signage maps in place at the time)
iv. Whether the Claimant is acting as Agent or Principal, together with a list of documents they will rely on in this matter
v. If charges over and above the initial charge are being claimed, justification of such additions.
vi. Justification of any interest rates being claimed
vii. Provide the evidence required to prove the defendant was in the car park for the claimed 16 minutes and 18 seconds. As detailed further herein, I returned briefly to the car park to retrieve a forgotten item and I specifically requested that Civil Enforcement provide evidence that they have not calculated the stay time from the first entrance and last exit. The failure of providing this evidence has not only made it impossible for me to defend myself fully, but if they have indeed made this error, the time spent in the car park would be even more fleeting, and the case even flimsier than it is now.
viii. In addition to the previous point the claimant should also provide evidence of the practices they employ to ensure that the times on their ANPR software are accurate at all times.
ix. That the signage was adequate and prominent enough so that it contractually bound the Defendant. Without this evidence, no claim can be brought to bear. (The inclusion of the £60 charge and additional fees is written in such small writing so as to be inadequate to properly inform the public.)
x. The claimant is put to strict proof that at the time of the alleged event they had advertisement consent, permission from the site owner to display the signs and a valid contract with the site owner. Without this evidence the claimant themselves were committing an offense by displaying the signs, therefore invalidating any contract between drivers and the claimant.
xi. The claimant should also include details of the grace period allowed in this car park and what allowances they make for people ‘unloading heavy or awkward items’.

3/ The Beavis case [ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67], upon which Civil Enforcement have relied, is not a relevant precedent. The points below were set out in the Parking Eye vs Cargius case and are also relevant here.
a) The Beavis case was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. The claimant has provided no evidence of the signage, and a return to the fact that because I never actually completed disembarkation, I didn’t look for any signs anyway. Without such evidence, there is no case to answer.
b) Beavis involved a free car park which required a strong disincentive to deter motorists from overstaying. In my case, the car park is paid and includes no “free time”. There is clearly no need for such a disincentive, which is the justification for the high charge in the Beavis case.
c) Due to the car park in the Beavis case being free, the charge was commercially justifiable because it was the only source of revenue for the management company. In my case, Civil Enforcement Ltd get revenue every day from the standard charges.
d) The Beavis case centred around an over-stay. In my case, I did not “over stay”. I did not stay at all.
e) In the Parking Eye vs Cargius case, the charge (£100 for an over stay worth £2) was deemed not to be commercially justifiable. In my case the charge of £100 is for a stay worth less than 10p)
f) The car park at the Rye requires minimal disincentive as the charge and demand is so low.
g) The charge is an unenforceable penalty as there is no commercial justification. The Beavis case confirmed that the penalty rule is certainly engaged in any case of a private parking charge and was only disengaged due to the unique circumstances of that case, which do not resemble this claim.

The judge in the Beavis case explicitly stated that charges should not be “extravagant and unconscionable”. The following additional points explain why this claim is both extravagant and unconscionable:
a) I was only in the car park for just over 16 minutes*
b) I did not occupy a parking space, no other cars were stopped from parking.
c) I wasn’t “parked”, but was unloading and disembarking young children.
d) The car park was almost empty
e) £60 for 16 minutes in a carpark where it is 25p per hour is nothing if not extravagant and unconscionable, even if I had parked; the fact that I didn’t even complete disembarkation makes this claim look completely unreasonable.

*I am still unsure whether my stay was in fact this long as Civil Enforcement still haven’t produced evidence that they haven’t “double dipped” me given I returned briefly for a forgotten item


4/ The claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. All communications received by the defendant have clearly been made from templates involving minimal or no human intervention. The particulars of claim provided by Civil Enforcement provide no justification for the huge amount claimed. This can only be viewed as extravagant and unconscionable.
5/ In the case of Jopson v Home, “it is possible to draw a real and sensible distinction between pausing for a few moments or minutes to enable passengers to alight or for awkward items to be unloaded, and parking in the sense of leaving a car for some significant duration of time”. Not only did I have heavy and awkward items to unload (3 bikes), I had my small children to alight and take care of. See below for further explanation by Judge Harris on this:
“To leave a vehicle in a carpark or other reserved space” and “To leave in a suitable place until required.” The concept of parking, as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it, and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture. Merely to stop a vehicle cannot be to park it; otherwise traffic jams would consist of lines of parked cars. Delivery vans, whether for post, newspapers, groceries, or anything else, would not be accommodated on an interpretation which included vehicles stopping for a few moment for these purposes.
Whether a car is parked, or simply stopped, or left for a moment while unloading, or (to take an example discussed in argument) accompanying a frail person inside, must be a question of fact or degree. I think in the end this was agreed. A milkman leaving his float to carry bottles to the flat would not be “parked”. Nor would a postman delivering letters, a wine merchant delivering a case of wine, and nor, I am satisfied, a retailer’s van, or indeed the appellant, unloading an awkward piece of furniture. Any other approach would leave life in the block of flats close to unworkable, a consideration which those instructing Miss Fenwick seemed reluctant to accept. I am quite satisfied, and I find as a fact, that while the appellant’s car had been stationary for more than a minute and without its driver for the same period (whatever precisely it was), while she carried in her desk, it was not “parked”. Accordingly, for that reason too, the appellant was not liable to the charge stipulated in the respondent’s notice.
I entered the car park, pulled up by the park (without using a car parking space and with a view to moving my car to a space once the children and bikes were safely unloaded), disembarked the children, and unloaded our 3 bikes. Upon finding a fault with one of the bikes, I then had to reload, re-embark and leave. Given the above court precedent and the reasonable assumption that if you don’t park, you shouldn’t have to pay the parking charges, the defendant denies any liability for the amount claimed.
6/ The Defendant denies any liability to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has:
(a) used deliberately misleading statements in their correspondents such as ‘your ability to obtain credit in the future could be affected’’, ‘prevent future lending’, ‘affect current employment or future prospects of employment’. These statements are stretching the truth at best, at worst they amount to a form of intimidation. The defendant highlights the fact that even the claimants company name “Civil Enforcement” is designed to invoke an impression of unjustified authority.
(b) failed to respond to a letter from the Defendant dated *** requesting further information and details of the claim, including evidence of the re-entry of the car park.
7) The defendant asserts that Civil Enforcement Ltd have no legitimate interest in enforcing a charge that is out of proportion with any loss or damages the true landowner could pursue




I believe the facts contained in this Defence Statement are true.

Signed
Date

Do I need to include any transcripts of the cases I cite? Or is it sufficient to quote them with the number as above?

Also is there any other information I should attach with my claim?
Should I state that I will be seeking costs in the event that I have to attend court?

Yes it was 12th June, but the I emailed the court asking when I needed to file my defense by after I did my AOS and they said I have till the 21st! Anyway I have filed it now and I can see in the portal that it has been received.(they also replied by email answering my question if I needed to do anything else, confirming that I didn't!) It's a very good service actually.
I will let you know how I i get on.
Thank you again so much for your help, your advice really does help to level the playing field so that these companies can't bully people into paying up!