ParkingEye Ltd County Court Claim Form stage

JonnyRotten

Hello Forum can you Help?

History - The driver parked at an outer Newcastle Shopping Centre early-May and overstayed the 3hr free period by less than half-an-hour. The registered keeper, who was not the driver, received a Parking Charge Notice Reminder with entry and exit ANPR photos from ParkingEye Ltd towards the end of May. We were angry with the driver's buffoonery but thought that it may just be a scam because of the poor quality letter and chose to ignore it. This, of course, was a mistake having not updated ourselves with the change to the law. The RK wanted just to pay it but was talked out of it and we decided to continue to ignore until we received a Court summons. Received a reminder after 9 days, a recovery letter after 25 days, a letter before County Court claim at the beginning of July and the the N1CPC claim form at the end of July. Having confirmed the latter with the Court I responded with an Acknowledgment of Service and trawled all of the help on websites to prepared a skeleton defence that needs to be with the County Court by the end of August.

Can I post the draft for an experienced 'Defender' to proof read and advise please?

Thanks

Just JonnyRotten

Stroma

Please put it up, also read parking pranksters website, and buy his ebook on defending claims from parking eye

JonnyRotten

Stroma, Thanks.

I have read and used the Parking Prankster's guide and am about to buy his ebook once I had some activity here. I used info from MSE, PP, PePIPoo, CAB and a really good example of a Skeleton given by a legal team of Michel Kallipetis Q.C. and Geraldine Andrews Q.C. in August 2004, cannot remember which website I found it on though.

Draft to come when redacted of pertinent detail.

Thanks

Just JR

bargepole

JonnyRotten wrote: »

I have read and used the Parking Prankster's guide and am about to buy his ebook once I had some activity here. I used info from MSE, PP, PePIPoo, CAB and a really good example of a Skeleton given by a legal team of Michel Kallipetis Q.C. and Geraldine Andrews Q.C. in August 2004, cannot remember which website I found it on though.

You don't actually need a full blown skeleton argument at this stage, and it's unlikely that the one you referred to will be relevant to your case.


The MCOL response form limits you to 122 lines, and all your initial response needs to do is contain enough information so that the admin centre at Northampton can register it as a defended claim.


You should also be aware that many of the points in the Prankster Guide, and found elsewhere on forums, such as contract, standing, and GPEOL, do not currently work with many Judges, as the Judgment of HHJ Moloney in ParkingEye v Beavis is seen as persuasive, although now the subject of an appeal.


You need to include, however briefly, any and all facts relevant to your particular case, and try to distinguish your situation from that of Beavis.


You can expand on all that, and submit a proper Witness Statement and Skeleton Argument, to your local court, once the case has been transferred there.

JonnyRotten

Stroma Thanks again and here be the draft.
It is crafted in Times New Roman and spaced 1.5 lines with wide margins so that the Judge can make notes. Numbered paragraphs are indented by 1 cm from non-numbered paras.

IN THE XXXXXXXXXX COUNTY COURT Case No: XXXXXX

PARKING EYE LTD Claimant
-v-
Xxx Xxxxx Xxxxx Defendant

DEFENCE

1. On the material date, the Defendant was not the driver of vehicle XXXX XXX.

2. The Defendant was made aware of Parking terms, by the Claimant’s Parking Charge Notice to Keeper letter, that parking was free but limited to 3 hours.

It is asserted that the Defendant is not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all for the following reasons:

1. The Claimant’s notices do not create any contractual relationship between the Claimant and motorists using the car-park.

2. The Claimant is not the landholder, and therefore has no Locus Standi to offer or enforce parking contracts with the Defendant or any other person. Any consideration flows from the landowner. The Claimant therefore has no standing to bring claims in their own name.

3. The Claimant has suffered no actual, or genuine pre-estimate of, loss as a result of the Defendant's failure to move off within 3 hours, and their charge of £100 is, therefore, not recoverable.

4. Additionally, as there is no consideration for parking in a "free" car-park, the Defendant avers that, even if the Claimant has standing and can show a genuine loss, there can be no contract in place without consideration.

Further:

5. The Claimant’s mandatory Letter to Keeper is not compliant with Schedule 4 Section 56 of the Protections of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA) in that it did not declare the total cost to the Defendant and was called a Parking Charge Notice Reminder. The Claimant also names itself as the “Creditor”; only the landowner can be the Creditor. The syntax error on line 5 of the Particulars of Claim section in the Court N1CPC Claim Form (04.14) that confuses the Claimant’s name must render this form inadmissible.

6. The Claimant’s notices are non-compliant with the British Parking Association Code of Practice. They must be conspicuous and legible, and written in intelligible language, so that they are easy to see, read and understand. They do not comply with these conditions because of their poor positioning, the extreme height (approximately 9 feet) that they are above the ground, the small-form Notice size and tiny almost unreadable small print.

7. The Claimant relies on photographic evidence from an Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system. These systems are well known to be prone to error. Photographs produced as evidence, can be digitally altered, and may not prove: the identity of the driver; that the vehicle is unquestionably entering or leaving that car-park; that the vehicle was unquestionably parked within that car-park’s boundaries; and that the vehicle unquestionably remained within that car-park for the full stated 3 hours and xx minutes and did not leave and return.

Car-parking cases explore complex areas of law and I estimate that a hearing will require approximately one half to one full day to hear all of the issues.

The Claimant is not known to attend court personally but use an advocate from LPC Law, who charge a fixed fee service of approximately £250 for a 3-hour hearing, or more should the hearing take longer. The Claimant can confirm the detail.

Legal costs are not normally reclaimable in a small claims court, thus it is clear that the Claimant has no sensible financial basis for pursuing this claim as they will make a loss, whatever the outcome may be. Moreover, this case will take up a great deal of the court’s time.

I invite the Court, in the first instance, to strike out the claim as being without merit and with no realistic prospect of success.

Should the Court decide to proceed with the claim, I invite the Court, in the second instance, to stay the case in order to refer it to the industry standard Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process.

This uses the Claimant’s appeal service, followed by Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) appeals service, the Independent resolution for non-statutory parking charges. This route would cost the Claimant approximately £27 and whatever the result, would result in saving of valuable Court time and reduced costs for the Claimant.

POPLA is not normally binding on the motorist. However, I will agree to be bound by the POPLA ruling.

The Claimant is also known never to agree to use POPLA unless the court orders this. This order would follow many similar Court Orders in a number of this Claimant's cases now successfully resolved, such as: in the order made by District Judge Mayor, Croydon Court, 13/09/13 (Case no. 3JD00719, ParkingEye v Mr O), by Deputy District Judge Bridger, Southampton Court, 21/01/2014 (Case no. 3JD05448, ParkingEye v Gilmartin) and by Deputy District Judge Buckley, Blackburn County Court, 11/02/2014 (Case number 3JD10502, ParkingEye v Mrs P).

A similar order would save costs for the court and all parties.

If the court should decide that the ADR route is not suitable, then I invite the Court to stay the case in order for both parties to compete pre-court actions.

The above points will be covered fully in the Defence bundle, which will be served not later than 14 days before the date of any hearing.

I believe the contents of this Defence to be true.

Signature

Date

Dee140157

Think the posts probably overlapped! I can't comment as I know nothing about this, but do read bargepole's advice.

bargepole

Further to post #4, I recognise most of the text in your draft, as it is based on defences I used to write.


However, post-Beavis, most of those points no longer apply, and it's quite possible that will be struck out by the Court as disclosing no reasonable prospect of defending the claim.


Back to the drawing board and lots more research, I'm afraid, and only stuff post - May 2014 is relevant.

JonnyRotten

bargepole, thank you.

The response form to Northampton N9B(CPC) Defence and Counterclaim(specified amount) (04.13) states - Set out your defence in Section 3. If necessary continue on a separate piece of paper making sure that the claim number is clearly shown on it. In your defence you must state which allegations in the particular of claim you deny and your reasons for doing so. If you fail to deny an allegation it may be taken that you admit it. If you dispute only some of the allegations you must specify which you admit and which you deny; and give your own version of events if different from the claimant's.

Thus my Skeleton Defence on its own 4 sheets of paper. I originally started writing my Section 3 doing exactly as above and then found the legal defence document that was excellently worded and pretty close.

However, if I am wrong that is why I am here and I am open to all the assistance I can get.

Still JR

JonnyRotten

bargepole, sorry our posts crossed.

OK, thanks but I have not seen the PE v Beavis case, where can I find it? So you are saying that the Beavis case rules out the points that I made. Any ideas on where to go now please?

Definitely JR

bargepole

It's here:


http://nebula.wsimg.com/8bc2fd992ffc9ff3697c488fd4583721?AccessKeyId=4CB8F2392A09CF228A46&disposition=0&alloworigin=1


You need to completely rewrite your defence with this in mind.

Stroma

Please follow the advice from bargepole as he has the experience here. Parking Eye bases most of their crap around the beavis case now , even though it's up for the court of appeal shortly.

Don't know if it's worth trying to get this stayed until the coa of the beavis case ?