Help Requested With WS - Court Hearing vs Gladstones & PPM Ltd

Loadsofchildren123

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part27/pd_part27

Loadsofchildren123

It's in the Lay Rep Order as well

3. (1) Subject to paragraph (2), any person may exercise rights of audience in proceedings dealt with as a small claim in accordance with the rules of court

Loadsofchildren123

muleskinner wrote: »

Aye, yes - that's in there as well.

I guess I should also include payslips/invoices for proof of income?

I haven't done this but am I allowed to ask for costs to cover my time as lay rep or will it only cover Defendant's time?

Rule 27.14 (4)
The limits on costs imposed by this rule also apply to any fee or reward for acting on behalf of a party to the proceedings charged by a person exercising a right of audience by virtue of an order under section 11 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 19901 (a lay representative).


So to recover costs for your own time, you'd have to be charging a fee.

muleskinner

OK, thanks very much LoC. That has me feeling rather more relaxed. I had already printed out the lay rep order and will print out the entire PD should there be an issue.

On the court service website it says Judges discretion and I think another user (Kamril?) was told Judge's discretion the other day, this is why I thought that was the case.

Loadsofchildren123

The judge was wrong in that other case.
Believe it or not, many of them don't know the law properly and so you have to be ready to show them that they are.


I wouldn't be too worried though, even if they think they have to give permission they are likely to do so in a small claim with a nervous litigant in person.

Loadsofchildren123

If the judge gets it wrong, and you have to ask for permission, judicial guidance about litigants in person is in this document.


https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/judicial-college/ETBB_LiP+_finalised_.pdf


Look at para 21:


21) Examples of the type of special circumstances which have been held to justify the grant of a right of audience to a lay person, including a MF, are: i) that person is a close relative of the litigant; ii) health problems preclude the litigant from addressing the court, or conducting litigation, and the litigant cannot afford to pay for a qualified legal representative; iii) the litigant is relatively inarticulate and prompting by that person may unnecessarily prolong the proceedings.


Para 33 is also helpful


para 67 is unequivocal
Small Claims


67. Under section 11 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 the Lord Chancellor authorised
The Lay Representatives [Rights of Audience] Order 1999.19 This is also set out in CPR 27 PD
3.2 (2). This Order survives the 2007 Act coming into force. It authorises lay representatives to appear in small claims. It provides that a lay representative may not exercise any right of audience (1).where the party fails to attend the hearing, (2) at any stage after judgment, or(3) on any appeal. The court has discretion to hear a lay representative even in any of these circumstances but granting a right to appear in an excluded case would require reasons. A lay representative exercising
this right may be restricted if unruly, misleads the court or
demonstrates unsuitability.

pappa_golf

update? ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

muleskinner

F--k me that was much harder work than I thought it was going to be! Almost 2 full hours.

Won. Basic Costs awarded. Unreasonable costs application denied (thought that was a long shot).

Thank you to everyone who has helped me out here long the way, particularly those of you that are legally qualified. Your support and contribution here is very much appreciated.

So, full report follows...

Before Deputy District Judge Sarah Smith at Chippenham & Trowbridge County Court.

No issues whatsoever with me acting as lay rep on behalf of the wife.

A David Blake from PPM turned up in person to represent them - I thought he may do given the proximity of the court to where they are based (Bracknell). I strongly suspect this is the same David Blake discussed here but that's another story. He was pretty incompetent on the whole, turned up in his Jag with minutes to spare. Scamming must be going well.

Judge was stern but fair on the whole. In general everyone was given a good chance to speak and I felt everything I said was being considered properly. There were points I felt I was cut a bit short but, given the fact the hearing lasted almost 2 hours, I can hardly blame her for this.

She did NOT like being quoted case law without context and, generally, I don't think she really liked being quoted case law by individuals with no legal training at all.

Rather than let one side speak, then the other, as I've been accustomed to in these situations. She asked me to list the key points of my defence and then said we would address each individually. I'd already broken things down as follows.

1. If 'consideration for parking service' no parking services were received.
2. Signage was inadequate.
3. No landowner authority.
4. Forbidding signage.

I listed these points very briefly, she said 'fair enough' and asked PPM to respond to each individually. For some reason PPM jumped straight to point 2...

Signage
This did not go well. I explained that the driver never saw the signs and attempted to back this up with Vine vs Waltham. I showed a photo of the sign 3ft above the driver's head, small text, no sign at entrance to bay, bay looks like public highway, change in restrictions, the whole shebang. Pointed out the many parallels with V vs W.

Judge ruled against me on this point. Said change in restrictions was irrelevant, as a motorist you have to be aware of such things all the time (used the example of a 40 limit changing to a 30). Did not agree on my interpretation of V vs W, basically said (after prompting from PPM) that the reason she didn't see the signs was that she was ill.

In retrospect I think I got too bogged down in V vs W at this point, missed the opportunity to explain how the signs didn't adhere to IPC CoP, but it was really her decision that the change in restrictions wasn't relevant that did it for me here.

Landowner Authority
This is what won it and where David Blake demonstrated remarkable incompetence. They had included, in their WS, documentation that showed completely without doubt that the 'site' on which they were contracted to operate started beyond the point driver was issued the PCN. Blake was like a headless chicken when confronted with this and when pressed by the Judge even said 'That's an internal document, it shouldn't have been in there'!

Judge completely ignored quotes from VCS vs HMRC in his WS, Blake had already made a big deal about he was operating within limits set out by the landowner so he shot himself in the foot there.

I also presented photographs of council signage now at the site. I offered no explanation for this but simply said it made it look very much like PPM were never supposed to be there in the first place. Blake obviously had no idea how to respond to this and got himself in a right flap, even saying at one point that the land was owned by the co-op which contradicted what was on his contracts. Judge did not look kindly on this.

In the end Judge ruled in my favour on this point, considered contracts didn't cover the land in question and signage was put up in error. Consequently she gave no ruling on the following point, though it was discussed at length...

Forbidding Contract / Consideration For Parking
I explained that PPM had not made their position on this clear, that the charge had to be either for contractual breach or a consideration for parkings services. If it was for contractual breach then it was a forbidding contract as the act of entering into the contract would have been the breach. If consideration for parking then no parking services were received as driver was told to remove their vehicle immediately by the 'warden'. I backed this up by all the references to 'unauthorised parking' on the correspondence.

Judge seemed to totally get this and pressed Blake on it. Blake was quite unbelievably clueless on this point and even said at one stage 'I don't understand the terminology' or something to that effect. His only defence was really 'This is how it's done everywhere' and 'If you can't do it like this how can you enforce 'no parking''.

The Judge seemed to take his points on board but I suspect she may have ruled in my favour on this issue, it's hard to say though. 70/30!

Costs for 'unreasonable behaviour' not awarded as Judge thought behaviour needed to be extreme to warrant this. She did listen to my application, cut me a bit short but time was dragging on. Kept mentioning the fact that they'd adhered to deadlines.

On the way out Blake asked me if I was a lawyer (I make videogames for a living!) and also said to me 'Don't take it personally, it's just business' to which I responded 'It's not business for everyone at the receiving end of it is it?'. He made a fairly swift exit at this point. Bottom-feeding scumbag.

So, a victory, though a somewhat pyrrhic one. What struck me about this whole experience is how utterly, utterly rotten this entire industry is. His 'business' basically involves bullying people for money, how he sleeps at night I don't know. My wife wouldn't have been able to defend herself without my help and neither, I'm sure, could many of the hapless folk he's preyed on in his time.

And.. if they were only on this land by 'mistake' what about all the other people they've 'accidentally' profited from? maybe I should report them to the police for fraud?

abeltasman

Thanks for that really helpful breakdown. It sounds really intense!

I have exactly the same defence as you (minus the contracts not covering the land in question).

Interesting that the judge didn't like the signage argument. Would you suggest I keep linking it back to the IPC CoP when the time comes?

As for the case law comment at the top, that's a bit worrying! Did she take the time to look through any of the transcripts your provided?

muleskinner

abeltasman wrote: »

Interesting that the judge didn't like the signage argument. Would you suggest I keep linking it back to the IPC CoP when the time comes?

I think I would certainly explain my point of view in layman's terms (including obvious CoP violations) before backing it up with case law.

The problem with the signage argument in my case was that, to be fair, the sign was placed in the position you'd expect it to be if it were a council-run bay. Rightly or wrongly the Judge wasn't bothered about the size of the text, or whether it could be viewed whilst parking, it was simply that that's where you should expect the sign to be and, given it was there, you should have read it. Not being aware of it because you were accustomed to restrictions being different was not an excuse as these things change all the time.

As for the case law comment at the top, that's a bit worrying! Did she take the time to look through any of the transcripts your provided?

I don't know is the honest answer. The only time she really got a bit tetchy though was over being quoted case law out-of-context (probably by people she didn't think really understood it anyway and she could have had a point).

I had taken pains to make sure I hadn't presented things out of context. I'd included two entire Judge's statements from Vine vs Waltham and any other case law was all presented with surrounding paragraphs. I told the Judge I had the entire V vs W transcript with me if she wanted to read the whole thing.

Vine vs Waltham just wasn't the silver bullet I thought it might be and I didn't want to push things as I could tell the Judge had had enough and I wasn't so sure of my footing either.

I should note that the quote the Gladstones/PPCs use from Vine vs Waltham is almost obscenely out of context as it presents the Judge explaining the respondent's case as if it were the Judge's opinion. Again, I didn't want to get into this for fear of digging myself a hole.

Another thing I should add is that she wasn't the slightest bit interested in other County Court judgements, PCM vs Bull etc. She pretty much dismissed these out of hand - 'other judgements in other County Courts have no bearing on this one' type of thing.

It's pot luck to a large extent though. I've read of Judges who have gone off, read the V vs W transcript and come back and declared the case for the motorist straight away. I guess the advice is - don't rely too much on one thing and if things don't seem to be going your way move on quickly, if they are going your way go for the jugular which is what I did on the whole landowner authority thing.