Parking Charge for Stopping/Waiting less than 20 seconds!

Coupon-mad

I can recall one case like that on pepipoo or here, a couple of months ago.

We have to assume this is a horrible error by Gladstones but great ammo for you! So, send the usual response to the Court and Gladstones and use this as another chance to ask for a Judge to review the woeful lack of particulars and strike the case out or order the claimant to file full particulars without which it will be struck out.

'Jack Basta' just achieved exactly that at the same stage you are at now, with one letter:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5554723

In your case, add in a copy of the rogue 'you've got a CCJ' letter and point out that it is indicative of negligence, intimidation, robo-claims with no regard for the court or the defendant. Add that to the usual letter Jack Basta used (as shown also in hopsfield's and in spaceman8's and Gin and Milk's thread). Send a copy of everything to Gladstones from this point on, as per the court rules.

backtobasix

Thanks for the feedback -

How long does it ususally take for the N180 to arrive following the submission of the defense? its been 17 days since i got the acknowledgemnt of receipt from the Court.

hoohoo

Did you file your defence on time?
If you received it 13 dec (not sure if you did) then you had until 10 Jan to file a defence. Not sure whether you missed the boat?

backtobasix

Yes I received the acknowledgement letter from the Court on 10th Jan to confirm receipt of my defence.

However still waiting for the N180 form...

backtobasix

Further update on this -

I called the court erlier in the week and they confirmed that a judgement hadnt been made against me and that thye were awaitg the N180 back from me. I said I ahdnt received it, so they emailed me one.

i'm now going to send the completed for with the following letter as per suggestions in other threads:


Formal objection to the Claimant's ''REQUEST FOR SPECIAL DIRECTION''.

As an unrepresented defendant I require a hearing at my local Court because the Claimant solicitors have followed their usual path of robo-claims by:

1. Continued harassment sending threatening letters from debt collection agencies and trying in every possible way to extract money out of me. In fact they have stooped so low that they have unlawfully sent me a letter dated 19 Jan 2017 (attached for reference) saying that a Judgement has been made against me in this case and that I need to pay them the monies within 30 days. This letter had caused me a great amount of distress. I had to get confirmation from the Court that in fact, no judgement had been made against me and the case was still ongoing, and awaiting for the return of my Directions Questionnaire.

2. No clear and concise Particulars of Claim. They are known to withhold any contract/facts until the last minute (often ambushing Defendants late with paperwork never shown earlier).

This potentially causes me at an extreme disadvantage if this cases is heard 'on papers' because based on the routinely sparse information provided to me so far, it has been almost impossible to put together a detailed defence. I respectfully request that, in the event that the claim is not struck out due to the reasons in this letter, the court exercises its discretion to allow a more detailed defence to be submitted without cost, should Gladstones finally produce late evdience.

3. Finally, the particulars of claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached. Indeed the particulars of claim are not clear and concise as is required by CPR 16.4 1(a). The Claimant are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one. HM Courts Service have identified over 1000 similar sparse claims. I believe the term for such behaviour is ‘roboclaims’ and as such is against the public interest.

Practice Direction 3A which references Civil Procedure Rule 3.4 illustrates this point:

1.4 The following are examples of cases where the court may conclude that particulars of claim (whether contained in a claim form or filed separately) fall within rule 3.4(2)(a):
(1) those which set out no facts indicating what the claim is about, for example ‘Money owed £5000’,
(2) those which are incoherent and make no sense,
(3) those which contain a coherent set of facts but those facts, even if true, do not disclose any legally recognisable claim against the defendant
3. The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
(1) No Letter of Claim was sent to the Defendant and no initial information was sent to the Defendant.
(2) I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and I'd also point out that there can be no reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the Pre-action Conduct process, especially bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by their own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before issuing proceedings.

On the basis of the above, and for similar reasons cited by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 where a similar claim was struck out without a hearing, due to Gladstones' template particulars for a private parking firm being 'incoherent', failing to comply with CPR16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''; the Defendant requests that the court strike out the claim for want of a cause of action.

Coupon-mad

Nice. Send that!

eeq

Just thinking about the image questions earlier. [STRIKE]I don't know whether the image has been doctored or not, but[/STRIKE] the image in the extra evidence clearly wasn't taken at the same time as the alleged contravention (based on shadows and dampness of ground). Google Street View shows an image from May 2016 (so 5 months later) which shows no signs at all at the entrance: https://goo.gl/maps/TdDhPA5qokR2

Actually, looking at it again. From the image you have, and the Google Street View images below, I think that the white parking sign over the yellow 'No Stopping' sign has been added in to the evidence image:

• The angles look very sharp, and show no variation due to image angle.
• The 'drop shadow' on the sign doesn't match the other shadows
• The back of the sign looks like it should easily be visible in evidence picture 08.jpg
• If you compare the alignment of the sign with that in the most recent Google Street View image (October 2016, https://goo.gl/maps/psKiS1KSXG32), both the horizontal and vertical alignments are different (horizontal is easier to spot, compare with the lettering edge of the 'No stopping').

It seems odd to me that the signs would be:

1. In place December 2015 (evidence photo)
2. Removed in May 2016 (link above)
3. Put back in October 2016 so as to be virtually identical to December 2015 (https://goo.gl/maps/57wcvHMp2us)

I hope that all made sense and is useful.

eeq

Also:

1. The photo of the entrance signs show old tarmac, and no cross-hatchings under the gym sign, evidence photo 08.jpg shows new tarmac and and cross-hatchings.
2. 'Site Images 1.jpg' and 'Site Images 2.jpg' were not taken at the same time. 'Site Images 2' shows (l-r) 'Notice to all guests to the gym', 'No Stopping', an air-vent, and a camera warning sign'. In 'Site Images 1', the same wall is seen next to the 'Subway' board, but it does not have the 'Notice to all guests to the gym' (also 'Site Images 4'). Just to be clear: 'Site Images 1' would seem to have been taken significantly before the others, and so a very long time before '08.jpg'.
3. Just because I've spotted it: the car was across two spaces in '02.jpg', so doesn't look parked to me (either that, or the keeper will get a PCN for not parking within a marked bay!).

Coupon-mad

Totally agree - you are concurring with the views of Mark the Shark in the link I gave in post #96. He thought:

The "signs" have been inserted in to a jpeg file as giff files and the image saved again as a jpeg the image is a most obvious and very poorly done fake.

eeq

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Totally agree - you are concurring with the views of Mark the Shark in the link I gave in post #96.

I wasn't totally sure whether MarkTheShark was referring to the other thread, the images of which I can't see. Either way, I hoped my observations might be helpful.

The other thing I've just done is to look at the embedded data. That confirms that 'Site Images 1' was taken on an iPhone 6 at 11:58:20 on Friday 6th March 2015, some 9 months before the date on 'Site Images 2'. All the others have no date/time information embedded.