Gladstones County Court Claim Form

WBM

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback. I have taken your comments into account and have removed the legal parts added the line 'my defence is repeated and just amended some other points. I think this should cover it unless there is something you guys think is missing. I am going to print out and post everything tomorrow or day after. Just a quick question as well would I need to print out the full Beavis case transcript?

Witness statement:

I, ************ of **************************************** am the defendant in this case. I am unrepresented, with no experience of Court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the way that the Claimant may do, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience.

1. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. Where they are not within my own knowledge there are true to the best of my information and belief.

2. I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defence as already filed.

3. Whilst I was the Registered Keeper of the vehicle concerned, there is no evidence of the driver and as this event has been resurrected from two years ago, it is impossible to expect a keeper to recall who might have been driving.

4. My Defence is repeated.

5. At the time in 2016, the insurance had full comprehensive cover so any other person such as a family member could have driven the vehicle at the time, who I have no obligation to name to a private parking firm. It remains the burden of the Claimant to prove their case.

6. This unwarranted harassment and baseless litigation has caused me significant alarm and distress, such that I intend to report WYPE Ltd to the Information Commissioner for misuse of my data, obtained from the DVLA in 2016.

7. My DVLA data was supplied for the single strict purpose of enquiring who was driving, not for storing for a period of time then suing me as if I can now be held liable, in the hope I will not defend/will have lost the paperwork/will have moved house, or even better, that I will be so scared that I will pay £328.30 including the legal insult of interest, for what was apparently an unproven £90 charge, allegedly incurred by another party, if incurred at all.

8. The claimant has failed to properly respond to my request made on 08/06/17 by royal mail postal service, requesting any documentation and relevant contracts with the land owners that allow the claimant to issue claims upon the landowner’s behalf. My request was not actioned appropriately (I received 4 questionable colour photos of the car park and the original PCN only, without further information).

9. The Claimants are known to be serial issuers of generic claims similar to this one. I believe the term for such behaviour is roboclaims and as such is against the public interest.

10. I also dispute that the Claimant has incurred £50 Legal representative’s costs to pursue an alleged £90 debt, the costs of which are in any case not recoverable.

11. The claimant described the charge of £50 as ‘legal fees’ not ‘contractual costs’, CPR.14 does not permit these to be recoverable in the Small Claims Court.

12. The Claimant has at no time provided an explanation how the sum has been calculated, the conduct that gave rise to it or how the amount has climbed from £90 to £328.30.

13. The Protection of Freedom Act Para 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper. However, I am not aware of any postal Notice to Keeper being served so put the Claimant to proof that the Notice to Keeper was served. Therefore I am relying on the amount stated on the picture of the sign provided by the claimant.

14. The first I have heard of this alleged charge was from a Debt Recovery company referred to on the letter as ‘Debt Recovery Plus Ltd’ which stated the reason for issue as ‘4-Parked in a permit only parking area without clearly displaying a valid permit’. This is contrary to the sparse Particulars of Claim stated on the Claim form.

15. WY Parking Enforcement Ltd is not the lawful occupier of the land. I have reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no rights to bring this case.

16. The Claimant is not the landowner and is merely an agent acting on behalf of the landowner and has failed to demonstrate their legal standing to form a contract.

17. The Claimant is put to proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge. I have reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no right to bring action regarding this claim.

18. I would like to point out that according to their parking sign this parking area does not offer a free parking period, so the ParkingEye v Beavis does not apply in this case.

19. The Claimant is stating that they had a legitimate interest to set the charge. However, the time of the alleged contravention was 10pm on a Saturday as is shown from the pictures provided to me by the Claimant. There is no legitimate interest that is being protected as there are no businesses operating at the parking area at that time, so it is unclear what legitimate interest is being protected at that time.

20. The Claimant has also duplicated the claim and is charging for the same alleged contravention. In the Claimant’s Letter Before Claim they have listed the same PCN Number on the same date with two separate charge amounts of £150 each. The Claim Form then is claiming 8% on a £300 charge. This is clearly an attempt at dishonestly duplicating their claim.

21. The pictures that the Claimant has provided themselves shows that the parking sign is shrouded by the larger signs around it. Additionally, the sign itself is so small in size that it would be impossible to read it to be able to agree to its terms when entering the parking bay.

I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.

WBM

Also would I need to show my insurance details from 2016? As I have changed insurers since then plus it has been 2 years since so i am not really able to get it.

Coupon-mad

Yes if you can get it, you can send a SAR to the insurer and they might cough it up quickly.

WBM

Okay ill call the insurance company hopefully i can get it. Does the rest of it seem okay? Also do i need the full transcript of the beavis case?

Coupon-mad

'Duplicating the claim' is not the right wording. They haven't filed two claims, have they?

Also do i need the full transcript of the beavis case?

No.

WBM

No they havent filed two claim forms but it's the same alleged breach being claimed twice in one go. So it's basically they have one pcn but have literally put it down twice. Is there another word for it?

Coupon-mad

I don't think the WS explains that.

Did they issue two PCNs? One one day and one the next, when the car hadn't been moved, or what?

I couldn't glean any of that from your WS and I think it should make it clear that only a £90 PCN can be pursued but only if the driver was known. They fail on both counts.

WBM

It's a weird situation. It's one pcn but they must have put it twice in their system with the same reference for the same day and same time. This is what i am referring to in point 20. I could reword it to say they have 'duplicated the event' instead of duplicating the claim. If that help it clear things up?

Coupon-mad

20. The Claimant has also duplicated the claim and is charging for the same alleged contravention. In the Claimant!!!8217;s Letter Before Claim they have listed the same PCN Number on the same date with two separate charge amounts of £150 each. The Claim Form then is claiming 8% on a £300 charge. This is clearly an attempt at dishonestly duplicating their claim.

Maybe change it to:

20. The Claimant has also duplicated the claim and is charging for the same alleged contravention twice. In a clear (deliberate or negligent) attempt at double recovery, in the Claimant's Letter Before Claim they have listed the same PCN Number on the same date with two separate charge amounts of £150 each. The Claim Form then is claiming 8% on a fraudulently misdescribed '£300' charge. This is clearly an attempt at dishonestly duplicating their claim; the epitome of a typical robo-claim emanating from what MPs described recently as an 'outrageous scam' (Hansard 2.2.18) industry.

20.1 Whilst any contravention or relevant contract/relevant obligation is denied, if there was a charge at all, it was £90. The Claimant must concede half the claim and it is astonishing that they have proceeded this far against a consumer, with no checks being made regarding the sum they are trying to recover, which is made up out of thin air with no basis in law.

20.2 The Claimant's failure to comply with the Practice Direction, failure to set out clear Particulars of Claim and their failure to correctly state the sum of the single parking charge pursued, has caused me considerable wasted time and stress, prevented the possible avoidance of litigation, and prevented me from being on an equal footing with the Claimant.

20.3. These failures and the vexatious nature of this typical cut & paste 'one size fits all' parking charge robo-claim, with no checks being made about the facts to show that the Claimant has any claim in law, cannot be described as 'trivial' and as a result, sanctions should be imposed as per para 41 of Mitchell v. News Group Newspapers Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 1537, [2014] 1 WLR 795 which is re-iterated in para 24 of Denton v T H White Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 906.


Include (or send later to the court and the claimant a couple of days before the hearing) your costs schedule to claim costs 'on the indemnity basis' for the wholly unreasonable and vexatious claim and conduct from start to finish (sum it up in bullet points and ask for your wasted costs/time at £19 per hr LIP rate). Make it well into 3 figures, if not 4 figures like in sassi's thread. On the day, take a wage slip to also claim loss of leave/salary.

What evidence are you filing with your WS?

Look at the lost of typical things to file with a WS, in post #2 of the NEWBIES thread.

WBM

Thank you for that! I'll add that in to the WS. The evidencing I am planning on filing is:

1) The Witness Statement.
2) a copy of Schedule 4 of the POFA.
3) a copy of Henry Greenslade's wording from the POPLA Annual Report 2015 'Understanding Keeper Liability'.
4) a copy of the Beavis case sign as a comparison to show how awful the small print sign was in my case.
5) I was looking to include pictures that Gladstones sent me showing my car parked there and how small the sign looks surrounded by other larger signs.
6) The Letter I sent to Gladstones requesting information such as the particulars of the claim and whether they were pursuing me as the driver or keeper.
7) The Letter Gladstones replied with refusing to give further information other than the pictures provided stating they have complied with the most recent Practice Direction.

Also if I am referring to case law would I need to evidence the actual transcripts of the cases? Or is this not necessary in the small claims court? For example you have listed 3 cases there would i need to show the transcript for all these cases?

Would you suggest to add anything else that I might be missing out?