Witness statement help please - Court date set! Gladstones / UKCPM

Coupon-mad

I like the wording of that lease agreement from your landlord, seems to offer unfettered, exclusive parking rights that hand right down to tenants and visitors alike.

To take that right away unilaterally is a derogation from grant by the Managing Agents, who had no right to allow a residents group to impose such a nuisance as a marauding ex-clamper firm intent on predatory ticketing and profit.

FlyingHorse

Hi Coupon Mad, thanks for the comments.

Yes, it seems to me that the lease agreement is pretty much the clincher here.

I have had a similar opinion on PePiPoo that the agreement between UKPCN and the leaseholder that signed it simply can't be enforced as the car park is a shared area used by all the separate leaseholders and the lease agreement gives unfettered rights for tenanats and visitors to use it. A leaseholder cannot unilaterally alter the terms of this lease agreement, that would need to come from the landowner.

I intend to use these cases to back this up (i.e. tenancy trumps signage):
PACE vs Mr N
Jopson vs Homeguard

Then for the forbidding / inadequate signage I am using these cases:
UKPCN vs Bull et al
UKPC vs Masterson

Does this sound right? Are there any obvious cases that I've missed?

I will be writing the Skeleton Argument over the weekend. Any tips on this?

Coupon-mad

You could include Link v Parkinson as well, from the Parking Prankster's case law pages.

FlyingHorse

Hi everyone, I've now managed to put together a first draft of my Skeleton Argument and would greatly appreciate any feedback!

You can view the redacted version here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x17fyl2okyokh6s/Skeleton%20Argument%20Draft%201%20%28redacted%29.pdf?dl=0

Please let me know if there is anything you think I've missed and if the legalese is correct.

Thanks in advance!

KeithP

Just one small point:

IPC = International Parking Comunity

FlyingHorse

KeithP wrote: »

Just one small point:

IPC = International Parking Comunity

I'm confused about this as the website says International Parking Community as you say but the code of practice says Independent Parking Committee! I assume the two bodies are the same and there was a name change at some point, but would it confuse a judge to call them the International Parking Community when the code of practice itself says Independent Parking Committee?

Perhaps I should say International Parking Community (pka Independent Parking Committee)?

bargepole

FlyingHorse wrote: »

Please let me know if there is anything you think I've missed and if the legalese is correct.

Just some procedural points.

The paragraph numbering seems a bit random, and should follow a sequence throughout the document.

The whole thing should be written in the third person, referencing 'the Claimant' and 'the Defendant', the words 'I' and 'me' should not appear anywhere.

I wouldn't bother personally with paras. 31 and 32. The arguments about planning and advertising consent have gone precisely nowhere in any case I'm aware of, and unless the Local Authority have instigated proceedings against the PPC, you are wasting yours and the Judge's time with those arguments.

Para. 35 invites the Judge to strike out the claim. That's not going to happen now that it's reached this stage. It should be asking the Judge to dismiss the claim.

The case law you have referred to is not 'evidence'. These are authorities relied upon, and there should be a list of these at the end of the document.

A SA is not signed with a statement of truth, and conventionally no signature is needed. It is not a statement of facts, but of the legal arguments. All it needs at the bottom is the name of the author, and the date, in bold.

KeithP

I think they're out to confuse people:

IPC ACCREDITED OPERATOR SCHEME - CODE OF PRACTICE

Even though every page of that document is headed:
THE INTERNATIONAL PARKING COMMUNITY
ACCREDITED OPERATOR CODE OF PRACTICE
the Glossary on page 5 still says:

"IPC" means the Independent Parking Committee;

Are you referencing the correct version of the CoP?

FlyingHorse

Thanks Bargepole, much appreciated!

bargepole wrote: »

The paragraph numbering seems a bit random, and should follow a sequence throughout the document.

I thought that it was numbered sequentially? Do you mean that I should number the subparagraphs, i.e. 21.1.1 rather than 21.a.i? I read somewhere that judges preferred the second of those options as this was British standard, perhaps that was wrong though?

The case law you have referred to is not 'evidence'. These are authorities relied upon, and there should be a list of these at the end of the document.

Should I still list the authorities in the body of the text as they appear as well (e.g. 'AST APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.1' after paragraph 2) or should I just collate these all at the end of the document?

A SA is not signed with a statement of truth, and conventionally no signature is needed. It is not a statement of facts, but of the legal arguments. All it needs at the bottom is the name of the author, and the date, in bold.

Just to clarify, should the SA be signed by me, the lay representative, as author, or by the Defendant even though she did not herself write it?

KeithP wrote:

Are you referencing the correct version of the CoP?

It appears not! Thanks for linking this, Keith! I just took the top google search which is clearly an older version. By looks of it, the versions are not too dissimilar so I shouldn't need to change too much.

System

If you want you should draw the court's attention to the contract signed with the Leaseholder specifically item one.

They make no effort to check whether the person signing has the authority to enter into a contract. They could make simple checks from publicly available information but do not. As such they are accessing personal details at the DVLA with no "reasonable" cause.

A judge may bite and make a ruling on that point but likely avoid it. But if you do get a bite, it opens up all sorts of avenues for later.

Also if it is put into the SA which Gladstones will read, they may spot what is an obvious open goal for the judge and decide to pull out.