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

FlyingHorse

Hi everyone,

So today is the day! Any last minute tips on how to conduct myself in court?

bargepole

FlyingHorse wrote: »

Hi everyone,

So today is the day! Any last minute tips on how to conduct myself in court?

Address the Judge as Sir or Madam.

Only address remarks to the Judge, not to the other side's representative.

Keep quiet when the other side are speaking, and note down any points you disagree with. Address those when it's your turn.

If referring the Judge to one of your documents, allow him/her to read the relevant part before carrying on.

Take a pen and notepad, and record all of the Judge's comments, particularly when giving Judgment. Make sure you know who has to pay exactly what figure to whom, and by what date.

Once the submissions are over and the Judge starts giving Judgment, you cannot interrupt or say any more. Just write it all down. If the verdict is 'claim dismissed', then make your request for costs.


And of course, provide a fully detailed write up for this thread.

FlyingHorse

Court Report:

R, M and me (T) arrived 30 minutes before the hearing, suited and booted, and after passing through security, checked the county court listings to see what room we had been assigned to. (a quick note: forks and torches are not allowed in court!). There were 3 other parking cases being heard that day, one at the same time as us. We went to the reception desk and signed in. The claimant had not arrived yet, so we went and took a seat and kept a close eye on the door for anyone that might be the opponent. Looking around the waiting room, we noticed that most defendants had turned up in casual clothing which surprised me.

Our case was being heard at 2pm and had been block booked with another parking case. 2pm came around and the Claimant still hadn!!!8217;t turned up. The other parking case got called in first so we had to wait another 30 minutes or so before we were called.

Lo and behold, when our case was called, no representative for the claimant had shown up. We were shown to the court room, got a friendly welcome from the judge and took our seats. The room was fairly small, more like an office with a large desk with the Judge at one side and us at the other.

The judge began by asking who we were, apologising for the wait. He then commented that the claimant had asked for the judge to represent them, which had baffled him, and commented that he assumed this meant they wanted the case to be heard on papers, which had already been denied by us and of course a court date had been set so they should have turned up!

He then commented that it was rare that he has seen such a well presented and thorough defence and that it was somewhat daunting the amount of case law I had compiled. I jokingly apologised for this and he replied that there was no need to apologise and that he was impressed! He continued to compliment me throughout the hearing

He then summarised what he thought were the events in the case and got us to confirm that he had got the gist of it correct (which he had). He then summarised our main argument, that the tenancy agreement and lease agreement gave unfettered rights to park and allowed M to give R the right to park as a visitor. He asked a few clarifying questions to M regarding whether a permit had ever been required or issued (which it hadn!!!8217;t).

The judge then read out some of the Claimant!!!8217;s witness statement. He noted that the language used in the WS was confusing and didn!!!8217;t make a lot of sense. He also read out certain parts, for example where it said that !!!8220;without concession the Defendant has failed to prove otherwise!!!8221; when we clearly had proved that we had rights to park and the evidence was straight forward and clear.

He then moved on to judgement.

I have to say, I was pretty surprised by just how scathing he was towards UKCPM and Gladstones. I didn!!!8217;t note everything that he said but some of the phrases I noted down were that UKCPM had !!!8220;spectacularly failed!!!8221; no prove we had done anything wrong or they had standing to issue the charge. He also commented that this was not the first time that a parking company had attempted to sue based on no evidence and would not be the last. He said that the Claimant had not stopped to consider any of our valid defences and commented that the Claimants case was !!!8220;completely and wholly flawed!!!8221; and that the documents presented were !!!8220;lazy and sloppy!!!8221;. He then dismissed the case. We won!

He then moved on to the issue of costs. He stated that usually the court can only award costs from appearing at court (i.e. lost pay and travel expenses) and that he would award these unless we had any requests for further costs if we thought the Claimant had acted unreasonably. I then cracked out the application for costs, which he hadn!!!8217;t yet seen (although he had seen we had sent one in). He took a look through it, then looked though the costs schedule and asked how I had calculated the rate (the response was a simple !!!8220;it!!!8217;s the litigant in person rate!!!8221; !!!8211; I think he was just testing me here). He then asked If there were any other costs we think he should consider. I mentioned that we had needed childcare for the day. He reserved any opinion on this and instead moved on to clear up what costs we were asking for for the day in court.

He then moved on to judgement regarding the costs order, he started by explaining that under normal circumstances the court cannot award costs as the purpose is not to be punitive against claimants. As he was doing this, I really thought he was about to dismiss it, but then he said that this circumstance was one of those rare ones where the claimant (and Gladstone's who should have known better) has acted so unreasonably that he was minded to award our costs! Buzzing! He commented that he thought my costs schedule was a little excessive in terms of time spent - this irked me a little bit as I had actually underestimated the time I had spent on this! But then again, I didn!!!8217;t really need to go into the amount of detail I did in the end ((this is just in my nature though and the judge did state earlier that it is better to be overprepared than underprepared) hence why I under quoted my time in the first place. He apologised that he couldn!!!8217;t award childcare costs. But he decided to award us £400 costs plus our costs for the day in court so a grand total of about £550!

Some notes:

I was surprised by how casual the whole experience was. I expected things to be a lot more formal. The judge was really friendly and really helped relax us. Perhaps this was because the claimant hadn!!!8217;t turned up so it wasn!!!8217;t adversarial. He was also very reasonable. In hindsight, I really should have been more confident in just how strong the first issue of our case was (re: tenancy and lease) as this really was the clincher and the majority of what I had submitted just wasn!!!8217;t required.

A big, BIG thank you to all of you who gave advice, tips and pointers. I couldn!!!8217;t have done it without the help of both this forum and PePiPoo. I will try to return the favour by helping others on the forum using my experience.

NeilCr

Congratulations!

While I have some reservations about some of the issues aired here about communal estate parking problems you had such a worthwhile case that I am genuinely pleased you won. The PPC acted appallingly.

Not quite the same but I have attended "courts" and "tribunals" for evictions and benefit claims and they are as informal in the way they are held as you say. It's an important message to get across to people. There are many who think they are going in to face a judge high above them in a wig and robe.

Umkomaas

Excellent result and a super synopsis of the case to go along with it. Very well done. :T

[Deleted User]

:beer:Nice. Decent costs order too,!:T

pould

Quite staggered by this costs order. Jolly well done.

markrg1965

Congratulations, I'm the registered keeper of a vehicle in dispute with UK CPM as well so this was great news.

Coupon-mad

I have to say, I was pretty surprised by just how scathing he was towards UKCPM and Gladstones.

...some of the phrases I noted down were that UKCPM had ''spectacularly failed'' no proof we had done anything wrong or they had standing to issue the charge. He also commented that this was not the first time that a parking company had attempted to sue based on no evidence and would not be the last. He said that the Claimant had not stopped to consider any of our valid defences and commented that the Claimants case was ''completely and wholly flawed'' and that the documents presented were ''lazy and sloppy''.

He apologised that he couldn't award childcare costs. But he decided to award us £400 costs plus our costs for the day in court so a grand total of about £550!

Yay, that is a shining example of another win!

Well done to you, another one bites the dust, the 99% win rate here is still intact.

Which court, claim number and which Judge, please? So we can quote it for others...!

bargepole

FlyingHorse wrote: »

The room was fairly small, more like an office with a large desk with the Judge at one side and us at the other

This is a common scenario in many courts, often referred to as 'in chambers'. It is consistent with the informal procedure generally adopted in small claims hearings, although the ruling of the Judge at the end carries as much weight as if it had been held in a fully equipped court room.

FlyingHorse wrote: »

He commented that he assumed this meant they wanted the case to be heard on papers, which had already been denied by us and of course a court date had been set so they should have turned up!

This is now a common tactic with Gladstones. They seem to have worked out that spending ~£200 for an advocate is a waste of money, when they lose most properly defended cases anyway, and may win some on the papers when it's a clueless defendant with a hopeless defence.

FlyingHorse wrote: »

I have to say, I was pretty surprised by just how scathing he was towards UKCPM and Gladstones. and that the documents presented were lazy and sloppy

Most Judges see claims like this every week, and soon realise that the WS filed by Gladstones is just the same template slightly modified. Some of them can barely disguise their contempt for that firm.

FlyingHorse wrote: »

But he decided to award us £400 costs plus our costs for the day in court so a grand total of about £550!

Most successful defendants get between £100-£200, so that was a great result.

FlyingHorse wrote: »

In hindsight, I really should have been more confident in just how strong the first issue of our case was (re: tenancy and lease) as this really was the clincher and the majority of what I had submitted just wasn't required.

We did try to tell you that all along, that issue was always going to be the clincher.