VCS - Court

So for anyone who’s interested, I had the court hearing for this case last Tuesday, and I’m happy to say that I won! The judge ruled the case in my favour due to the car park having insufficient lighting. Here’s a quick summary of the day for anyone who may be in a similar situation to the one I was in and is a bit unsure of how the hearing process works:


I arrived at the court house a bit before my hearing was due to take place and upon entering the waiting room I was asked by security to empty my pockets and was patted down etc. I then spoke to the receptionist and signed in. @Lamilad, who had very kindly volunteered to act as my lay rep for the hearing, arrived shortly after and signed in as well. @Lamilad and I then spoke to the solicitor that was representing VCS/BW Legal and informed her of some preliminary matters which questioned her right of audience in the hearing (the judge rejected these matters for reasons I’ll explain later). Before we could properly finish the conversation we were called into the judge’s room for the hearing. The judge started with the first point in my defence statement (this funnily enough was as far as he got into my statement) which basically stated that there weren’t enough signs and that none of them were appropriately illuminated for any ordinary person to have seen. He questioned the solicitor on this matter to which her reply was that VCS had done everything the regulations stated they should regarding the amount of signs and the lighting. The judge then referred to bad quality pictures of my car taken on the night by the ticket warden and stated that these show the lighting was clearly insufficient and supported my point. At this point the judge then ruled the case in my favour, the hearing only took around 15 minutes in total so it would seem he made his mind up before the hearing begun which would explain why he rejected the preliminary matters earlier on. I was only awarded £5 in total for fuel+parking, I tried to argue that I should be compensated for having to miss time at university for the hearing but he said it doesn’t count as loss of earnings. It’s a shame I couldn’t recoup all of my losses but I’m just glad to have it over and done with.


I’d like to say a huge thanks to @bargepole for preparing all of my defence documents for me and for all of the advice he’s given me. Also to @Lamilad for representing me on the day, although it turned out to be a short hearing, it was good to know there was someone with the experience and knowledge on hand to help.



Thank you to everyone who replied to the thread offering help and advice, it’s great to know people are so willing to help. Hopefully more people can find sites like this and get the advice they need in order to take the fight to scumbag parking companies like VCS!