Witness Statement

I got costs! An advocate for the other side turned up and approached me before the hearing to say I didn't need to go in and did I accept the discontinuance but I did not engage with her and just said that I wanted to see the judge anyway.

The judge started with the discontinuance and asked if the reason it was being discontinued was because it was pre 2012 and therefore there was no case to bear if I wasn't admitting to being the driver (I wasn't the driver!). The advocate just went along with it and said it was but don't think she even had many details. I think she was expecting not to go into court.
The judge had received my costs schedule and said that he would go through it. He didn't give much away and, at points, seemed like he was veering towards judging against the costs being awarded but systematically went through the costs schedule to which the advocate argued for every point. The judge said that, despite the fact the email had been sent yesterday, that didn't give me enough time to change leave. He wanted proof and I had printed out the email with the time stamp on so that satisfied him. The advocate argued that I couldn't claim for loss of earnings because I could have not come but the judge said that if I had not come, I wouldn't have been able to claim for costs. He also asked her why she had come if they had not expected me to come and said "what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander".

When he got onto the additional costs, he asked why the claim was unreasonable and I stumbled a bit here with nerves but managed to get across that there had never been a case to answer because not only was it pre 2012 which the solicitor knew was pre POFA but also because I had actually bought a ticket. He actually went through the evidence at this point and saw the PDT log and looked a little bit annoyed. He said "there isn't a weak claim that needs strong litigation to win, there is no claim at all to answer" or something very similar. He asked the advocate to comment on it and she said that she had just been told to come to court to discontinue the claim and because "the claim has been discontinued to this is immaterial" or something similar.

Anyway, he awarded me loss of earnings and travel and 3 hours litigant in person. I had claimed for £20 postage, photocopying and printing but he only awarded £5 as he said I hadn't needed to do copies for everyone. A grand total of £175.

Thanks so much everyone for your help. Thanks to Coupon-mad, Lamilad and Umkomaas - really couldn't have done it without you and probably would have just paid up. I'll start a new thread with all the documentation on from beginning to end so other people can use it they want it. I'm very behind with my own work after spending so long on this but will put it up at the end of the week when I removed all personal information from it.

Thanks again. xxx