Smart parking county court claim

CallaFH

Hi, I'm posting about a parking ticket issued in Oct 2016. The 10 month old daughter had been sick in the car and was screaming and coughing and so was taken to the nearest place to change her and settle her down. It was 20-30 mins. Anyway next thing I know they want £170 for it!!

Of course I did the wrong thing and ignored all the letters.

Now I have a county court claim letter (which I have acknowledged). I want to defend it but having looked through the sticky post I can't see any previous defences which would be suitable in this circumstance.

Can anyone help with this? Someone said there were situations such as having a child under 1 that they take into consideration? I'm not sure where to start and I'm not good with the legal lingo. It's like another language. Thanks in advance

Fruitcake

Start with the guide to court link by Bargepole in the NEWBIES. This tells you how to go through the process, what to submit, and when. It also includes help on how to fill in some of the forms.

There are also links in the NEWBIES about the different stages as well including creating and submitting your defence.

You should start by editing your post a little to remove information about who did what. Only refer to The Driver and The Keeper, and occupants of the car. This is important because hopefully Not so Smart have not followed the strict requirements of the POFA and have failed to make the keeper liable. If that is the case, it is important that they don't find out the driver's identity.

Other things that will help are failures to comply with the BPA CoP such as not allowing grace periods. A breach of the EA 2010 may also be relevant if one of the occupants was a breastfeeding mother.

So, edit, read a bit, and come back when you have further questions. Hopefully some of the more court savvy posters will be here by then to help.

Lamilad

Someone said there were situations such as having a child under 1

This means you have some protection under the Equalities Act. However this would have served you better in trying to get this cancelled before court papers were issued - say through the landowner or the retailer you were shopping with.

having looked through the sticky post I can't see any previous defences which would be suitable in this circumstance.

Do you mean the NEWBIES sticky? You won't find a tailor-made defence for your case, this gives you an idea of how a good defence should be set out and what things you should/should not include. There are linked examples and you'll be able to steal paragraphs from those too build your own defence. As you will from other Smart court threads you'll find by using the Search function.

Suggest you read Newbies again with a more open mind.

Have you ever contacted Smart or any debt collector about this charge? If so have you ever said or suggested who was driving?

Umkomaas

Smart are new to the court scene. One case this week was discontinued by them as soon as they received a swift punch on the nose via a robust defence. As far a we know, they have yet to look a judge directly in the eye.

As I said, they're very new to court stuff - only started issuing claims in the last few weeks; you will be one of a very few at the moment.

CallaFH

I haven't spoken to anyone about this or mentioned who was driving. I have edited the post slightly as has been suggested.

I'll have a look back at the example defences again but I don't really know what I'm reading in the example defences to understand what I need to include and what not to include. I wasn't expecting a tailor made defence though.

Thank you for the help. I've got as far as acknowledging the claim so I suppose I've got 28 days to figure it out.

Umkomaas

I suppose I've got 28 days to figure it out.

If you're not already aware, it is not 28 days from your acknowledgement of service (AoS); it is based on the date of issue on the court claim plus 5 days for service (nominal time in the post to be delivered to you) plus 14 standard days, plus a further 14 days - provided you sent your AoS before the end of the first 14 days. A maximum of 33 days from the date of issue.

System

Can anyone help with this? Someone said there were situations such as having a child under 1 that they take into consideration?

This means you have some protection under the Equalities Act.

Equality Act is 6 months not a year.

As mentioned before get onto the Retail Park to see if they can get it cancelled.

Coupon-mad

IamEmanresu wrote: »

Equality Act is 6 months not a year.

And only for disabled people really - there is no 'discrimination protection' just because someone has a child with them. There is limited protection against unfair treatment (specifically) of pregnant ladies or those feeding babies under 6 months but that doesn't apply here.

The OP should copy from the other Smart defence - just search the forum for 'Smart discontinued' and show us your version, suitably changed to suit. You can do this, you CAN get it discontinued, by defending as registered keeper, not driver.

Once your defence is agreed with posters here and filed in good time with the court, move on to a complaint to Matalan (and I mean a VERY angry complaint about them bringing this monster of a firm in to harass customers) and copy in your MP.

As there is a general election looming, MPs need to hear about this scam and be seen to listen and do something about the cowboy industry discussed in Parliament only weeks ago. MPs will be keen to secure votes right now so contact yours and mention this debate (read the actual debate first):

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/parliament-discuss-unfair-parking.html

As Fruitcake rightly posted on another thread with a similar scam being played out:

Some MPs (not many) are clued up on this scam. Always tell your MP to talk to The Right Honourable Jacob Reese-Mogg MP, as he is an expert in this matter and was very forceful in the recent parliamentary debate on this subject.