Northampton Court Claim arrived (MCOL)

Coupon-mad

JackBasta wrote: »

Just wondering if there's a single resource anywhere for looking up transcripts of old cases that won. I can see people mention parking prankster but do I have to look through every blog post?

Errrm...Google 'Parking Prankster case law'!

JackBasta

Ah ok - I was looking on his blog! My fault. Sorry.

JackBasta

Where do I stand on including case law for things the PPC have refused to supply? For example, I'm looking at the Sharma case on contracts between landowner and PPC. I requested all info via a part18 and CPR31.14 but got no response. Should I still include case law for that, even though they may have watertight contracts (doubtful)?

Coupon-mad

I would not use the really old Sharma case these days, at all. The Beavis case showed that there could be a contract between PPC and driver, regardless of the arrangements between PPC and landowner.

JackBasta

Quick question. My defence had a lot of points that I can't really expand on in my witness statement, but I really want the judge to take them into account. For example, the fact that they're charging me 5 years worth of interest on the initial charge because of their 5 years worth of inaction.

Am I correct in stating that the WS only needs to include points I wish to expand on? I can leave the other stuff in my defence and they'll still be included? I just want to make sure I'm not disallowing points if I leave them out of my WS.

Lamilad

JackBasta wrote: »

Quick question. My defence had a lot of points that I can't really expand on in my witness statement, but I really want the judge to take them into account.

Your defence is the primary document as it states your arguments and all the reasons you dispute the case. Your WS supports your defence with evidence and facts.

A WS written by Bargepole recently had this as point #1

"The facts of the case are as set out in my defence, filed in response to the original claim and verified by a statement of truth. They do not bear further repetition here, but by this statement i now adduce evidence in order to prove my case"

This directs the judge back to your defence as the main guiding document.

JackBasta

Ah that's excellent. In that case, I'll do a bit of tidying and stick up my WS on here in a few mins.

JackBasta

WITNESS STATEMENT
I, xxxx, am the Defendant (referred to throughout as “I”) in this matter as an unrepresented consumer, and says as follows:

1. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. Where they are not within my knowledge they are true to the best of my information and belief.

2. I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any sum at all

3. The facts of the case are as set out in my Statement of Defence, filed in response to the original claim and verified by a statement of truth. They do not bear further repetition here, but by this statement I now adduce evidence in order to prove my case. A copy of the statement of defence can be seen in Exhibit 1.

4. I assert that I am the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, registration xxx I also assert that I was the registered keeper of that vehicle on the date 21st July 2012.

5. The second (fully particularised) set of claims issued by the claimant states in point 5 that I am being pursued as the driver or alternatively as the registered keeper of the vehicle pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA 2012). No reasonable presumption can be made that the registered keeper of the vehicle is the driver and by law, breach of contract can only occur with the actual driver of the vehicle at the time of the incident. The date of the incident is nearly 5 years ago. At that point in time there were multiple people insured to drive the vehicle. The insurance certificate covering the date of the incident (Exhibit 2) shows myself and my partner both insured to drive the vehicle, plus there were other people who worked for my company who also used to drive the car under DOC insurance. Because the claimant has chosen to wait so long between the event and the claim, I have absolutely no recollection who was driving at the time of the incident and there is no legal requirement for me to disclose this anyway. On the balance of probabilities alone, I was not the driver.

6. I wish to draw your intention to POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) Lead Adjudicator’s Henry Greenslade’s words in the 2015 POPLA Annual report. - “However keeper information is obtained, there is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort” (Exhibit 3)

7. Regarding use of Schedule 4 of POFA 2012 to allow the registered keeper to be pursued in place of the driver, this legislation did not come into force until 1st October 2012. As the date of the incident (21st July 2012) predates the enforcement of this act, there is no way this legislation can be used to pursue the registered keeper. Only the driver can be pursued, of which there is no evidence. The proof of date of enforcement of Schedule 4 of POFA 2012 can be seen on page 7 of Exhibit 4. I’d also like to direct the court to the following case law

17/11/2016 C3DP56Q5 Excel Parking Services v Ian Lamoureux. District Judge Skalskyj-Reynolds rules that as the claimant is not seeking to rely on the Protection of Freedom Act, there is no proof that the registered keeper was the driver, so dismissed the claim. (Exhibit 5).

8. In the second (fully particularised) claims, the claimant finally produced an image of the sign they claim forms a contract (Exhibit 6). No explanation has been forthcoming on why that sign is dated nearly 3 years later than the parking incident, and is for a parking charge for a different amount (£100) to the £125 amount first seen in the Letter before Claim (Exhibit 7) and the original county court claim itself (Exhibit 8). I’d like the court to consider that without a picture of the sign dated July 2012, showing the same parking charge amount in the claim, the possibility exists that the claimant has just supplied the earliest picture they could find, and this sign may have not been present at the time of the incident.

9. I propose that the sign supplied in the claims in any case is completely incapable of forming a contract. The wording is muddled; there is no prominence given to the charge amount. There is a lot of information on the sign which can easily distract a driver from the key information. A comparison can be made to the signage of the case of ParkingEye v Beavis 2015 case ID UKSC 2015/0116 (Exhibit 9) where the high court deemed that the sign was clear enough to form a contract with the driver. The sign is much clearer, in high contrast colours, and has the charge amount in a huge font.

10. I wish to direct the court at images from Google Street View dated August 2014 (the earliest I can find) that show the parking area and signage as it was then. Exhibit 10 shows the that there are no signs on entry and exit to the parking area. The signs are on the two walls at the back of the parking area. It also can be seen that those signs are too small, and there is not enough contrast between the signs and the wall behind. The signs are also too low. An overfilled wheelie-bin with the lid up would completely obscure the leftmost sign, and a van would completely obscure the rightmost sign. The signs are completely unlit and would be difficult to see on a cloudy day and impossible to see at night. There is high probability that a driver could park in this carpark without knowledge of any liability. In Exhibit 11, a further view can be seen from directly outside one of the vehicles. Again, it is evident the signage is inadequate and there is absolutely no way the sign could be read from within the vehicle. The driver would have to get out of the vehicle and walk up to the sign to read it. Exhibit 12 also shows the view to the immediate left of the parking area. Here, there is a council parking area, stating vehicles can park free of charge for up to 2 hours. There is no demarcation between the two parking areas. The sign for the free council parking could easily be construed as covering the area of the parking incident, especially with the inadequate signage of the area of the parking incident. For these reasons, I propose that there is no way a contract could be formed, and hence no contract to breach.
I wish to direct the court to the following case law
15/09/2011 1SE02795 Excel Parking Services v Martin Robinson Cutts
District Judge Lateef rules that the signs weren’t clear, contained a lot of information which could distract the driver from the key points, and the claimant had not taken reasonable steps to bring the required information to the driver. (Exhibit 13)

11. The landowner is the only proper claimant, not Millennium Door and Event Security who is an agent. It is submitted that the Claimant is merely an agent acting ‘on behalf of’ the landowner who would be the only proper claimant. Strict proof is required of a chain of contracts leading from the landowner to this Claimant, to allow them the right to form contracts and to sue in their name. This information, along with proof of planning permission for signage, copies of the notice to driver and notice to keeper, was requested in a CPR31.14 request sent to the claimant’s solicitors on 21st November 2016 (Exhibit 14), but no response was forthcoming. A further Subject Access Request (Exhibit 15) was also made to the Claimant asking for all pertinent information relevant to the case on 21st November 2016. The claimant responded that their solicitors would take care of the request. Again, I received no response from the claimant’s solicitors.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH I believe the facts stated within this Witness Statement are true.

JackBasta

let me know if anyone wants me to post up any of the exhibits

Coupon-mad

Looks good, Jack Basta.

I’d also like to direct the court to the following case law

...even though the PP uses that term, small claim decisions aren't 'case law' as such, so - also avoiding shortened words like 'I'd' which should be written in full - this should read:

I would also like to direct the court to the following case transcript which recently dealt with the fact that a registered keeper cannot be held (or assumed) to be liable, where a parking firm cannot or does not (for whatever reason) rely upon Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012:

15/09/2011 1SE02795 Excel Parking Services v Martin Robinson Cutts

Did Martin Cutts have that middle name? Normally he is referred to as 'Martin Cutts'.