CEL Court Claim - Assistance please

AlliK

Hi
I originally received a letter from Wright Hassall Solicitors which was the first I knew about receiving a PCN in the car park of our local Lido, saying they were acting on behalf of ZZPS (debt recovery) who were of course working for CEL. The long & short of this is that I wrote to Wright Hassall explaining my situation which was:

I am registered with the Lido & pay an annual charge for parking (ANPR system)

I changed my car registration number which I advised the Lido of (reverted back to the original number plate as I was in the process of changing my car). They took the details to update their system.

I received the PCN last November (although nothing received in the post) until the Solicitors letter arrived!

The Manager of the Lido has taken full responsibility as it was an oversight on their part as they did not update my registration number in their system.

Wright Hassall have now advised they are no longer dealing with this matter & to contact ZZPS which I did & they to advised that they are no longer dealing with the matter & to revert back to CEL!

In the meantime, I have received the court claim form from Northampton, followed 5 days later by papers from CEL outlining the claim against me.

I realise that I now have to build a defence after submitting on line that I refute the whole claim (now £326.00). I've not done that her but am still within the 14 days.

The Manager of the Lido is kindly writing me a supporting letter to confirm that the error was theirs & to take liability but I am a little confused as to what details I need to use in my defence letter which I will send alongside that one, I am not denying it was my car etc. As it was.

Any help would be very GREATLY received.

Lamilad

Have you read the NEWBIES thread at the top of page 1 ?

Have you read any of the countless other recent threads about CEL court cases, many with example defences which can easily be adapted to suit individual circumstances?

Redx

you dont refute the claim, you acknowledge that you will be defending it, after reading the advice in post #2 of the NEWBIES sticky thread

you dont post anything at all in the defence box, no refuting , nothing

then put CEL DEFENCE into the drop down forum search box and choose VIEW POSTS , then read all the CEL court claim posts for this month only - JUNE 2017 , NOTHING OLDER

THEN DRAFT YOUR OWN DEFENCE AND POST IT HERE FOR CRITIQUE

AlliK

Yes I have read a lot of them but cannot find anything similar to my situation & am apprehensive to put something in my defence that really does not apply/is inappropriate.
I guess I need to draft the letter & maybe seek advise then?

Coupon-mad

AlliK wrote: »

Yes I have read a lot of them but cannot find anything similar to my situation

Search the forum for 'CEL defence'. They are ALL the same, all won without a hearing.

If unsure how to search on this forum, merely go back ten pages or more and read any CEL defence. All the same. No-one denies it was their car...

AlliK

Thanks... I'll do that..

Redx

AlliK wrote: »

Yes I have read a lot of them but cannot find anything similar to my situation & am apprehensive to put something in my defence that really does not apply/is inappropriate.
I guess I need to draft the letter & maybe seek advise then?

your "situation" is largely irrelevant

a defence relies on legal arguments because its a legal case in a court of law

most of the defences are roughly the same for that very reason, although when you have copied and pasted one you need to look for anything in their defences that isnt true in your case, because you are signing it as being true if you look at the bottom line statement of truth

so you scour the draft for errors or inconsistencies , if its a free car park you wouldnt mention a payment machine etc , if it was poorly lit at night you wouldnt mention daylight issues, or vice versa , if the paperwork arrived in january 2017 you wouldnt say it was february 2016 , etc

you have 28 days from the date of the claim (approx) to draft your defence, once its been acknowledged online (which gives an extra 14 days on top of the 14 days allowed anyway)

so if the claim arrived recently, no need to rush it, do some studying for a week or so, then post your completed draft for checking, with any references or VRM details or personal details removed

Coupon-mad

You need to post your defence draft here. Stick to one thread!

AlliK

Hi - here is my Draft Letter... Any advise greatly received
Thanks in advance Peeps..


In the County Court Business Centre

Claim Number:
Between: Civil Enforcement Limited v

Defence Statement

I deny that I am liable for the entirety of the claim for each of the following reasons:

1. The Claim Form issued on the 13 June 2017 by Civil Enforcement Limited was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed by ‘Civil Enforcement Limited (Claimant’s Legal Representative)’.

2. The Defendant advises that the Claimant and its agents, have been made aware that ‘Fusion Lifestyle’ who run the Wycombe Rye Lido take full responsibility for not updating their systems accordingly with the Defendants new car registration number thus rendering the ANPR system in place incorrect. Please see supporting document in attachment from the Manager of Wycombe Rye Lido.

3. It is submitted that neither the Claim form or additional particulars of claim meet the requirements of practice directions and civil procedures.

4. The Defendant received no compliant ‘Letter before Court Claim’, under the practice Direction.

5. The Claimant is a serial litigant whose business model is to file large numbers of spurious claims and pressure defendants into paying up. In a preliminary hearing of several cases in Bristol, HHJ Denayer expressed his concern at the way Civil Enforcement Limited were conducting their cases and described correspondence issued by them as a disgrace.

6. The additional particulars of claim which are dated the 13 June 2017 but arrived much later are signed purportedly by Ashley Cohen. Mr Cohen was reported to sign off witness statements under London Councils POPLA on behalf of Landowners, for CEL POPLA cases falsely stating authority. It is submitted that he is a director of another company, Bemrose Mobile Limited which supplies the pay by phone payment methods for parking. Mr Cohen was a former director of Creative Contracts Limited but has since resigned. Me Cohen is therefore put to strict proof the capacity and authority he has in signing such statements.

7. It is believed Civil Enforcement do not hold a legitimate contract at this car park. As an agent, the Claimant has no legal right to bring such a claim in their name which should be in the name of the landowner.

8. CEL suggests that Beavis sets a precedent. This is only true if the facts of the case are similar. In this case, none of the exceptions to disengage the penalty apply.

9. The Beavis case confirmed the fact that, if it is a matter of trespass (not breach of any contract), a parking firm has no standing as a non-landowner to pursue even nominal damages.

10. The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. If the ‘Civil Enforcement Limited (Claimant’s Legal representative)’ is an employee then the Defendant suggests he/she is remunerated and the particulars of claim date 13 June 2017 are templates, so it is not credible that £50 ‘legal costs’ were incurred. I deny the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever.

11. The Claimant is a serial abuser of the courts, filing many thousands of claims in the last few years. However, it is widely reported that the Claimant fails to turn up to defended cases, wasting both the Court’s and the Defendant’s time.

12. The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant as liability has already been accepted by Fusion Lifestyle and asks the Court to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit and no reasonable prospects of success

13. In the event the claim progresses, then as an unrepresented litigant in person, I reserve the right to alter, vary and add to this defence or reply to any further particulars of claim/documents the Claimant may provide.

I confirm that the above facts contained in this Defence statement are true.

Signed:

Name:

Date:

Coupon-mad

That's good. To add to your defence, seeing as you can't allege 'no keeper liability' because you gave away who was driving to Wright Hassall (ouch!), here are some comments that you could adapt and add to the start of your defence. These came to my attention re other cases about this site, where people are planning to sue over DPA breaches, which you can't because you gave away who was driving:

Members of the gym get free parking as part of their membership and are required to leave their reg no at reception, but they still get NtK's.

The pay machines are inoperative in the car park more often than they work.

It is a very poorly managed car park.

This location has been the subject of much controversy ever since Wycombe District Council decided to offload the Lido, gym and car parking to a private company – who then brought in CEL out of all the options they could have chosen.

The machines frequently break down or don’t accept coins, and there was a period when all parking was free while this was sorted out: http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/14492496.PARKING_CHANGES__Don___t_get_caught_out_this_weekend/#

But the local yobs appear to have done well out of the scheme: http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/14750238.Vandals_attack_High_Wycombe_leisure_centre_parking_machine/

There is also a Facebook group about it, I think. I'm not on Facebook.

You will win this and hopefully if you add more to your defence, they will fold without a hearing, as usual.

AlliK

Thanks Coupon-m... I'll add some more about the car park.

What is annoying as well is I do pay an annual parking fee to the Lido as I am not a gym member but my child goes to school close by & the school has an arrangement with the Lido to do this... maybe I should add something in about this as well as saying the car park is poorly managed etc...