SIP informed that i was driving does it reset to the start

nosferatu1001

You point out that requiring blue badges fails to make reasonable adjustments fir ALL those that qualify ended the EA2010, which is broader than just those that qualify for a blue badge.

zara1325

Here is my defence.
I am not liable to the claimant for the sum claimed or any amount at all for the following reasons

1. I was the driver of ....which is a mobility vehicle and I am not the registered keeper. The registered keeper is ....name/address.
2. The vehicle was parked in a disabled bay with the correct car parking ticket displayed. The blue badge had fallen onto the passenger foot well. Due to an incident that had taken place with the registered keeper while I was getting the badge out of the glove box. she had fallen while walking into the public house we were going to. She was visibly upset and I had to run to her aid. This can be proven by a GP report as the keeper had to go the next day due to having an injury. The warden watched me from his vehicle struggle getting four ladies out and witnessed one lady falling, he then proceeded to issue a parking notice. I did show him the blue badge after I saw the parking notice, however, he was not interested in listening.
3. An appeal was sent and it was denied by SIP.
4. In order to issue parking charges, and to pursue unpaid charges via litigation, the claimant is required to have the written consent of the landowner, on whose behalf they are acting on. No evidence or authority has been supplied by the claimant or legal representative's, and the claimant is put to strict proof of some, in the form of an unreacted and cotemporaneous contract or chain of authority, from the landowner to the claimant. A managing agent is not the landowner.
5. The claimants representatives, Gladstone Brooks have artificially inflated the value of the claim from £60 to £239.50.I suggest that the added costs have not actually been incurred by the claimant, these figures have been artificially increased regardless of the facts, as a part of their robo-claim litigation model, in an attempt at double recovery, circumventing the small claims cost rules. Further SIP legal appear to be in contravention of the solicitor Regulation Authority code of conduct.
6.The equality Act 2010 says that providers of service to the public must make 'reasonable adjustments' to remove barriers which may discriminate against disabled people. I feel SIP have not adhered to this ruling.
7. The court is invited to dismiss the claim and to allow such defendant's costs as permissible under civil procedure rule 2714.

I'm sure it needs a lot of work on!

Redx

I am afraid that is a witness statement , not a defence

a defence lays out the legal reasons for denying the claim

the witness statements and any evidence come much later in the process

Coupon-mad

The claimants representatives, Gladstone Brooks

I worry about your eye for detail...have you been watching too many TV adverts about PPI reclaim?!

You need to read the example defences in post #2 of the NEWBIES thread, which I am sure includes at least one written for a disabled driver. Have another look.

We are not expecting you to write it from scratch, it is not the excuse/story of what happened.

You should be copying one written here before because the win rate (for posters who stick around and get advice also on their later Witness Statement and evidence and in preparing for their hearing) is successful 99% of the time.

Only ONE case was reported as lost, in the past year, where the posters got forum assistance right up to the hearing.

zara1325

Thanks guys! I told you i'm hopeless at this, back to the drawing board then.

zara1325

what about this defence?

1) It is admitted that the defendant, XXXXXX XXXXX, residing at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is not the registered keeper of the vehicle. The registered keeper is XXXXXXXX residing at XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

2) It is denied that any 'parking charges or indemnity costs' (whatever they might be) are owed and any debt is denied in its entirety.

3) This is a completely unsubstantiated and inflated three-figure sum, vaguely and incoherently adduced by the claimant's solicitors in their claim. The Particulars are not clear and concise, so I have had to cover all eventualities in defending a 'cut & paste' claim. This has caused significant distress.

4) As an unrepresented litigant-in-person I respectfully ask that I be permitted to amend and or supplement this interim defence as may be required following a fuller disclosure of the Claimant's case.

5) This claim merely states: ''parking charges and indemnity costs if applicable'' which does not give any indication of on what basis the claim is brought. For example whether this charge is founded upon an allegation of trespass or 'breach of contract' or contractual 'unpaid fees'. Nor are any clear times/dates or coherent grounds for any lawful claim particularised, nor were any details provided to evidence any contract created nor any copy of this contract,nor explanation for the vague description 'parking charges' and 'indemnity costs'.

6) The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor even checking for a true cause of action. HMCS have identified over 1000 similar poorly produced claims and the solicitor's conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the SRA.

7) I believe the term for such conduct is ‘robo-claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. I have reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to my significant detriment as an unrepresented Defendant.

8) I suggest that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.

9) It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim. The proper Claimant (if any debt exists, which is denied) would be the landowner.

10) The alleged debt as described in the claim are unenforceable penalties, being just the sort of unconscionable charges exposed as offending against the penalty rule, in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

11) Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA), a registered keeper can only be held liable for the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (a sum which is much less than the claim).

12) It is submitted that (apart from properly incurred court fees) any added legal fees/costs are simply numbers made up out of thin air, and are an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which would not be recoverable in the small claims court. The lack of diligence in this claim demonstrates admirably that at best a ‘copy and paste' is the closest a human, legally trained or not, came to the information transmitted from claimant to the Money Claims Online system. There are no real costs and POFA prevents claims exceeding the sum on the original parking notice.

13) It is denied that there was any 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' relating to any single parking event.

14) Notwithstanding the provisions of the POFA it is denied that the signs used by this claimant can have created a fair or transparent contract with a driver in any event.

15) If the court is minded to accept that the Claimant has standing then I submit that the signs on site at the time of the alleged events were insufficient in terms of their numbers, distribution, wording and lighting to reasonably convey a contractual obligation and did not in any event at the time comply with the requirements of the Code of Practice of the Independent Parking Committee’s Accredited Operators Scheme a signatory to which the Claimant was at the relevant time.

16) In the absence of any signage that contractually bind a driver then there can have been no contract and the Claimant has no case.
17) This case can be easily distinguished from Parking Eye v Beavis which the Judges held was 'entirely different' from most ordinary economic contract disputes. Charges cannot exist merely to punish drivers. This claimant has failed to show any comparable 'legitimate interest' to save their charge from Lord Dunedin's four tests for a penalty, which the Supreme Court Judges found was still adequate in less complex cases, such as this allegation.

18) The defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts claimed due to the aforementioned reasons. It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant is wholly unreasonable and vexatious. As such, I am keeping a note of my wasted time/costs in dealing with this matter.

19)The equality Act 2010 says that providers of service to the public must make 'reasonable adjustments' to remove barriers which may discriminate against disabled people. I feel SIP have not adhered to this ruling.


20) I request the court strike out this claim for the reasons stated 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 Gladstone’s 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''.

Statement of Truth: I confirm that the contents of this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

zara1325

Hi

Could you please see if the above defence would do please as time is ticking on! I'm worried about missing the deadline.

Thank you

Coupon-mad

1.1 It is admitted that the defendant was the driver of the vehicle, however a passenger on the material date was xxxxx xxxxxx, the registered keeper, who is disabled under the definition in the Equality Act 2010 (the EA).

The above might make a better first point. No need to say where you live.

Then you could add to that first point, to explain what this is all about, and the passenger's right to park there (ONLY if I have got all these facts right):


1.2 The vehicle was properly parked with a pay and display ticket and displaying a Blue Badge when parked in a disabled bay due to the needs of the passenger. Neither the Defendant nor the Passenger knows at what point the displayed Blue Badge was caused to slip out of view, if it did.

1.3 Even if the Claimant is able to show that no Blue Badge was visible from the careful angles at which their photographs were taken, this does not prove on the balance of probabilities that it was not displayed when the Defendant parked, and not visible at all through the windscreen.

1.4 Even if the Claimant can show that a Blue Badge was not displayed, it is a fact that this is a Council-only scheme, a permit that is used and abused by the private parking industry as an excuse to issue PCNs to disabled people. This is not a scheme that affords the Claimant an excuse to breach the EA with unfair and unenforceable contractual terms which (even if displayed on signs) in fact give rise to an imbalance, heavily against the rights of disabled consumers, to their detriment.

1.5 The EA states that any contractual term which has the effect of restricting or limiting the right to a reasonable adjustment (e.g. disabled bay provision on private land) is a term which is unenforceable in contract law.

1.6 Even if the Claimant expects to see a Blue Badge displayed, the fact is, this is merely one of many indicators of disability, which include:
(a) the car is a Motability vehicle as registered at the DVLA, and this data was obtained by the Claimant
(b) the disabled passenger was seen by the operative who issued the ticket
(c) the Claimant knew from the appeal made by the disabled registered keeper at the outset, that they are genuinely disabled
(d) the Claimant has been sent a copy of the Blue Badge well before proceedings started.

1.7 All of the above demonstrates that this Claimant 'knew or should have known' about the passenger's genuine disability need, and to continue to (wrongly and unfairly) insist that their contractual term to display a Blue Badge is the only issue at hand, is to restrict or limit the passenger's legal right to use a disabled bay. The Defendant avers that such a 'strict liability' term (effectively ''display a Blue Badge or you pay us £100, even if you later prove you were in fact disabled and had the legal right to park'') is precisely the type of 'unenforceable' term that those drafting the EA envisaged.

1.8 The Defendant avers that the Claimant is a 'service provider' as defined in the EHRC Code of Practice (EA CoP) for Service Providers. The Claimant therefore has a legal duty to follow the provisions of the Act and to make 'reasonable adjustments' for disabled people. In a car park, this is not limited to painting or patrolling a few disabled bays. It includes knowing that a person has a right to use that bay based solely on their medical need as a protected person under the Act.

1.9 The EA is - for obvious reasons - silent on 'Blue Badges' or any other method shifting the burden to the disabled person to 'prove their right' to use a provision, such as special bays intended by the landowner unequivocally for unharassed use by disabled visitors to a public car park. Whilst the Defendant understands that looking for displayed Blue Badges is, in the first instance, the easiest way for the employee on site to make an initial decision about whether a car should be in that bay, under the EA and the accompanying EA CoP, once the Claimant knew about the disability they should have simply cancelled the PCN.

zara1325

Thank you sooo much coupon mad! You are a life saver

Coupon-mad

No problem, then add all the rest you had there, of course, as well.

Sign & date it, and have the necessary headings at the top, as shown in the NEWBIES thread example defences, and email it as an attachment to the ccbcaq email address covered everywhere here (and easily Googled).

As long as I am right that she has a Blue Badge then it makes sense to argue the above as the primary point, IMHO. Amend any detail if I said something that isn't true. For example, only say this if this is true:

''the car is a Motability vehicle''

It is for them to prove that no BB was displayed (first hurdle for them, maybe their photo angles are questionable) but even if they can, I've given you some further argument that says even if they do show no BB was visible, they had a greater/overriding duty to make that reasonable adjustment available to you and the passenger anyway, and cancel the PCN.

Councils do. Invariably they have a policy to cancel if a BB isn't displayed but is later shown in an appeal.

Private firms hope you don't know about the EA.

You do need to read it in depth; the section about reasonable adjustments for disabled people and the part that declares in no uncertain terms, that terms that have the effect of restricting or limiting provisions of the Act, are by definition, ''unenforceable''.

You are the one who will need to print off the relevant sections as evidence to accompany your Witness Statement a few weeks down the line, prior to the hearing. You are the one who needs to know where the EA says what I said it does!

And the passenger should do their own WS as well, and attend the hearing with the Blue Badge to support your defence. So when the DQ (the next form that arrives) asks how many WS you will be submitting, it is two. Yours and hers.

You will also need to Google the EHRC EA CoP for Service Providers and pick out the relevant parts that support your case (not me!). I know it does help your defence, though, because the CoP provides for a legal duty (it's not just guidance).