Proceedings issued, NTK invalid, Gladstones/Millennium refusing to respond

Loadsofchildren123

I have gone the whole hog with the Skeleton - included every argument I can think of.
One school of thought would say this is a mistake, I should just concentrate on my best points.
Another school of thought is to put everything in.


I've tried to make it simple on the first couple of pages - the rest of the document falls away if the court finds Defendant wasn't the driver and isn't liable as keeper because of the breaches of POFA.

Loadsofchildren123

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Norty - in excess of the BPA CoP ceiling then, and also not POFA compliant because the NTK fails to repeat the info in the NTD.


No it doesn't, but it is over the amount allowed under the CoP and you could read the Schedule 4 Guidance notes, maybe it's in there (from the OFT). Ignore the guff about GPEOL.

Answering C-M post #101:
Yes it is in the Notes to Schedule 4
“The creditor may not make a claim against the keeper of a vehicle for more than the amount of the unpaid parking related charges as they stood when the notice to the driver was issued" (paragraph 4(5)

bargepole

Loadsofchildren123 wrote: »

I've at last finished my Skeleton. I've done a list of breaches of POFA and the BPA CoP as separate schedules, as Lamilad did.
The Skeleton is long because it is very full.
I will work out how to get these onto a dropbox account and post a link tomorrow, i'd really appreciate feedback.

That is some Skeleton - 32 pages, mine are usually 4 or 5 at most. Yours is not so much a skeleton, more like Mr Creosote in Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

You've also managed to include citations of just about every parking case I've ever been involved in, going right back to Parking Eye v Sharma - have you got transcripts for all of those, and a sack barrow to wheel all the file folders into court?

There is a strong possibility that a Judge will look at that, and decide that a 2 hour slot is not long enough to deal with all those arguments, and relist it for a full day hearing.

But the way it is written, obviously by someone with legal training, may well make Gladstones / MDS decide that it's not worth the candle, and discontinue the claim.

Loadsofchildren123

I agree bargepole. What shall I do? Was thinking of sending it direct to millennium rather than Gladstones and inviting them to discontinue.
I think every argument has merit. I just can't see how to make it significantly shorter without making those arguments unconvincing. I don't care if it gets adjourned as long as no costs order. It's either got to be really short or really long, there's no in between.
I'm glad you have noticed I am a great avid fan of your blog ��

Loadsofchildren123

I'm completely carried away with wanting to squash them. Is this stopping me seeing the wood for the trees?
With this Skele I wouldn't make any oral submissions except to reply to whatever they say. So in that sense it saves court time.

bargepole

Loadsofchildren123 wrote: »

I agree bargepole. What shall I do? Was thinking of sending it direct to millennium rather than Gladstones and inviting them to discontinue.
I think every argument has merit. I just can't see how to make it significantly shorter without making those arguments unconvincing. I don't care if it gets adjourned as long as no costs order. It's either got to be really short or really long, there's no in between.
I'm glad you have noticed I am a great avid fan of your blog ��

I wouldn't send it to Millennium, if the address for service on the court papers is Gladstones, you should send it there, otherwise you could be criticised for not following the court procedure.

What blog? I don't have one, you're thinking of the Parking Prankster, that's not me.

Loadsofchildren123

Oh sorry bargepole, for some reason I thought PP was something to do with you! I've obviously become a fan of yours through the PP blog though!
The reason I thought the Defendant could send it to Millennium was because I think Gladstones just ignore everything as part of their zero costs approach until a day or 2 before the hearing when they send the papers to their advocate. I was just thinking that it might open Millennium's eyes. If a solicitor did this it would be very bad but I'm not sure it would really matter if a LiP did it. But I don't want the judge to be annoyed and will follow your advice.

The problem I'm still left with is whether the Defendant really goes armed with all this stuff - all the authorities etc, like you say they will fill a couple of bundles. The defence case is simple: not the driver and no keeper liability under POFA. Only if those 2 fail do pages 4 onwards become of any relevance.

I'm just trying to picture someone in Gladstones trying to get their head round all this

Coupon-mad

I was just thinking that it might open Millennium's eyes.

Nope. They don't care.

The defence case is simple: not the driver and no keeper liability under POFA. Only if those 2 fail do pages 4 onwards become of any relevance.

That's often the case in these defences. And no, Gladstones don't get it but they just hope that a Judge won't either.

Loadsofchildren123

If the Defendant runs the contract arguments, this could be very bad news for Millennium:

If there is a finding that it is not entitled to ticket drivers on Copper Quarter this makes all Copper Quarter tickets open to challenge, which they wouldn't want, it's a huge site and must be very profitable for them (although I have seen on pepipoo their contract was ended in November because of over-enthusiastic ticketing of residents/genuine visitors - but there must still be plenty of historic tickets going through the pipeline).

If there is a finding that the contract (landowner-PPC or PPC-driver) was with MPS and not MDES then effectively this means that every single Millennium ticket will be extremely vulnerable to challenge. And I will go to the local press with this - they ran a story about 6 months ago which was basically an advert for MDES saying how they won ALL their cases and drivers/keepers ALWAYS had to pay up and I have been itching to get that extremely poor journalism corrected.

Of course the decision isn't binding and only persuasive, but this is an operator based in and around one specific area of the country (Swansea) and so fellow DJs are less likely to go against the decisions of their brethren if they know them (as opposed to going against, say, a Manchester DJ).

That was my reasoning in wondering if Millennium would really want to go ahead with this case if it knew what the risk was to the bigger picture. As a commercial decision, I'd be ditching this case if I was them. I'm not sure why they wouldn't care about that.

But perhaps they are genuinely that blinkered that they don't even consider the strength of a defence, they just plough on regardless?

I can't see how this Defendant would lose on keeper liability - they are relying on POFA and the NTK was 48 days out of time. But never say never!!!

C-M any thoughts on the Skeleton? Do you think I should fillet it or just leave it all in? Am I missing anything or running any bum points?

Coupon-mad

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybqnmy5v37ci3p1/SKELETON%20anonymised.docx?dl=0

Loadsofchildren123 you are a legend. Talk about leaving no stone unturned and setting that out so well - step by step - and with relevant case law. I love that skeleton and I agree with bargepole that it is long but it might just lead to a discontinuance.

I'm off to add your skeleton as an example in the NEWBIES thread. Well worth reading and other people learning from, as long as they understand the context I'm sure some others will be able to use some of your wording in their defences or skeleton arguments.

The only thing I saw that needs a tweak was the UTCCRs (I think I saw it quoted) which was repealed and incorporated into the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a month before this parking event.