Court proceedings for auto repair visit

foofcat

Thanks KeithP - for now I've left it out because it's so long (and still a bit unfocused I think) but I'm keeping it in reserve. Thank you for linking straight to that, very handy..

I know you have pretty well covered everything in the defence but as they want a paper hearing and don't want the expense of anyone attending I think their witness statement should be picked at to find something that would require cross examination of their w

Can they do that after a physical hearing has already been decided? My original plan was to include a thorough rebuttal of their WS as an appendix but I've run out of time and space.

I don't think you need to worry about a Judge understanding what 'before proceedings commence' means, as set out in a Statute!

I do think you need to remove the unnecessary stuff and keep it simpler, and make sure you evidence that you did transfer liability, which was in time.

Thanks Coupon-Mad, I agree. I'm just about to post the latest version (61 pages including all evidence). Now that I see it all togehter I'm worried that the Parking Prankster / Watchdog blog will look like speculation on my part and they might object. Should I tone it down and possibly remove Exhibit F?

Posting the link as soon as I've redacted everything

Coupon-mad

We will have another look, let's see the latest. 61 pages is very long, I'd try to remove something if I were you.

After all you just are not the liable party so surely that's almost all you need except for a summary of the secondary issues?

foofcat

I know I think I'm just being paranoid / trying to cover all angles because I don't know how it will go on the day..

I think I should take out Exhibit C and all references to it in its entirety. And Exhibit D includes the full judgement for a case that works quite strongly in my favour but maybe I can just use the last page of that?

Here is the corrected link to the latest and I bet you anything I've missed a redaction, but I've been working on this since Friday and I'm too tired to care presently.

It's navigable by bookmarks if you're using Acrobat or similar so might be easier to download for anyone who is able to do so.

I've had to completely redo the DPA breach section because I'd misread the dates on the DVLA SAR - PCM appears to have accessed my data exactly when they should have... but on the other hand, they were not entitled to enforce parking there so that's how I've now framed it. Bit annoyed that I did a SAR to PCM yesterday asking them to explain the discrepancy - but hopefully the Court will understand it was a genuine error on my part.

Thanks for the help as ever

DW190

If you have rebutted the witness statement you have brought doubt in it which is good reason to cross examine the witness. If the witness is not there the Judge should ignore the parts of the statement you have rebutted as if they are not there. It works in your favour.


Recently read where a defendant wanted to cross examine about the authority mentioned in the statement. No witness to cross examine so the judge accepted the defendants argument that there was no authority to bring proceedings.

Umkomaas

The link doesn't work, but this is getting hideously complicated. 61 pages?

You need to make sure you don't p|ss off the Judge by giving him/her a disproportionate volume of verbiage to deal with a small claim. There have been very unfavourable comments about such tomes from Judges previously.

At an average of 500 words per A4 page, that's over 30,000 words, notwithstanding that some pages include photos. Out of all proportion in my view. But it's your document, not mine.

While a 'kitchen sink' POPLA appeal might put off a PPC from contesting, it doesn't work in the same way in the small claims court - from what I've learned on the forum.

DW190

Umkomaas wrote: »

The link doesn't work, but this is getting hideously complicated. 61 pages?

You need to make sure you don't p|ss off the Judge by giving him/her a disproportionate volume of verbiage to deal with a small claim. There have been very unfavourable comments about such tomes from Judges previously.

I think the OP has put the full Judgement of a case being relied on.

Only the relevant pages should be put in.


In the ??? Court ABC v XYZ case number 12345 at page No. ?? (Copy of page or paragraphs)

bargepole

Coupon-mad wrote: »

We will have another look, let's see the latest. 61 pages is very long, I'd try to remove something if I were you.

After all you just are not the liable party so surely that's almost all you need except for a summary of the secondary issues?

About 50 pages too long, I think.

Most courts have very busy lists, and a Judge certainly isn't going to wade through that lot to try and pick out the points which are actually relevant.

The words 'concise' and 'summary' should be kept in mind when compiling these documents. You can always expand in oral submissions if the Judge wants to go into the fine detail of a particular point.

foofcat

I've fixed the link now - apologies.

I agree with everyone that it's too long. The WS itself is 17 pages but I think I could try and get it down to 15. All images and supporting evidence are included via a section called Exhibits which includes pages where it's just a single large photo. The Word count in total is 7963 (not including screenshots of the judgement of relevant cases which I could only access as uneditable PDFs). I was assuming that the judge would only read the WS (5,278 words) and skim the rest, but that I should include it all as evidence so that I can rely upon it on court. It sounds like I've misunderstood this, and even if not, it needs trimming down!

I can make the Exhibits more concise by:
- Removing Appendix C (6 pages) and incorporating the most relevant parts into the WS itself (which may make the 15 pages bit harder)

- Removing the case law I'm relying on entirely (10 pages for both cases) and incorporating the most relevant quotes from it into the WS (as above)

- Removing the DVLA SAR (3 pages) because the other side's WS shows evidence that they did access my details anyway so I don't think I need to evidence that

- Remove the first FOI (not the one I requested but one that is available online as it basically says what my ones say.

That brings it down to 51 pages (bearing in mind some pages that only contain single images or where a page break has been used for ease of reading. If I made the formatting more compact for the images that's 3 more pages gone, bring it down to 48. Which when printed would make it about 24 pages double sided, compared to Gladstones which is 12 pages double sided).

Will aim to do this after work tomorrow. Thank you all for your help

DW190 - I'm interested in your point re: cross-examination but will need to think about it when I'm fresher tomorrow and how I can use it to work in my favour in my own Witness Statement. I'm guessing the witness that I'd want to cross-examine is G Philpiotts in this instance.

Coupon-mad

Hang on, let us look at it!

foofcat

I will! Too tired to do anything with it now but just letting everyone know that I'm taking the feedback seriously!

Side note: You're all being very patient with me. I promise I'm not thick, this is just all rather unfamiliar territory and a bit overwhelming (in light of other life stresses at the moment - but I suppose everyone has those). Funny enough, had I actually been driving or keeping the car at the time, I probably would have just paid up. That was me before I discovered this forum.