Parking Eye Court Case Defense

nosferatu1001

Include this in your witness statement. As you will by now have read the newbies thread, post two, you will know this comes up

qat

Part of the case being put forward

would this be reasonale..

The [FONT=&quot]Equality Act 2010[/FONT] calls[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]this the [FONT=&quot]duty to make reasonable adjustments[/FONT]. It further goes on to say that you should never be asked to pay for the adjustments. The APNR system is unable to take into account the disabled badge and by the very nature are discriminating, by sending PCNS for extra payment demands.

BPA - DPA
Ensure disabled people are not penalised for the extra time taken when using parking facilities

Coupon-mad

Yes, but it will have to go in your WS as you missed it at defence stage or earlier (this would have been cancelled by PE if you'd simply appealed with the Blue Badge - even at the LBCCC stage).

Tell you what I would do now, I would email PE and tell them this:

I have submitted a defence to the above claim but you need to take into account the following matter which makes your charge in breach of the Equality Act 2010. I will include this in my witness statement and will adduce the EA as an exhibit, should you pursue the case to a hearing, and I may (if he is well enough) bring the passenger with me as he will be providing a Witness Statement for me:

The facts are that my passenger was a Blue Badge holder, my father, suffering from heart failure, respiratory failure and chronic arthritis. I was just was trying to get him out of the house on the day as he spends most of his time trapped at home.

It is discriminatory that ParkingEye has pushed this to court, before giving me any opportunity to respond, especially as I did not receive the original PCN. Had I known about the charge at the time, I am told that providing the attached Blue Badge would have had the charge cancelled immediately. Instead, all I received were court threats and no information that told me that disabled passengers are allowed more time under law.

I had to research this myself. The BPA requires its members to ensure disabled people are not penalised for the extra time taken when using parking facilities. ParkingEye takes no such steps.

The Equality Act 2010 (EA) describes your duty as a service provider, to make reasonable adjustments. It further goes on to say that a disabled person/their carer should never be asked to pay for these adjustments - which include adjustments of time - an example of this 'adjustment of time' is in the EHRC website, in the EA Code of Practice for Service Providers (giving you a statutory duty).

Whilst an arbitrary time limit may be reasonable for able-bodied shoppers, your ANPR system is unfit for purpose for disabled shoppers because it is unable to take into account anyone with a Blue Badge, despite that fact that you are well aware that a percentage of shoppers EVERY DAY will be disabled. You do nothing at all for those people.

By the very nature of your operation ParkingEye are discriminating, by demanding money without telling recipients (either in signs at the disabled bays, or in your letters), that disabled people are exempt from the time limit, or can exempt themselves in-store. You must provide access to reasonable adjustments of time.

A simple step might have included extra, prominent signs at the disabled bays and/or on the doors of the shops/at the CS desks, telling disabled people that they can ask for more time in-store. Another simple step might have been an enclosure with your LBCCC, acknowledging your duties under the EA and asking if any occupants of the car were disabled and needed more time, in which case your arbitrary time limit is rendered unfair and discriminatory.

Perfectly reasonable steps that ParkingEye could take to mitigate the fact that your ANPR system fails. You did not.

Your ANPR system fails to avoid indirect discrimination and your subsequent letter before court gave me no useful information whatsoever and I am now being dragged to court for being a carer of a disabled person. You are causing me detriment and potential loss and this will be drawn to the court's attention and I will ask for an order for costs for unreasonableness.

You have no lawful excuse that you did not 'know or could have known' about my Father's disability need. This is because that clause only relates to direct discrimination, as you will know, so please do not respond pretending that you didn't know so haven't done anything wrong. You have done something wrong; you have breached your duty to take proactive, positive steps in advance, to avoid indirect discrimination, which is equally illegal.

Cease and desist. Cancel the parking charge immediately.

A copy of the Blue Badge is attached.

Email that to:

enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk

With the claim number in the subject line.

DO NOT add anything, DO NOT make an offer, DO NOT accept if they make an offer to settle at £60, DO NOT!! And certainly DO NOT head it 'without prejudice' (nonono).

This will likely be cancelled but they will make an offer first, like I said NONONONO, do not agree to it. They will fold.

qat

Thank you for the response, which I have emailed to PE

I said in my earlier post,that I would revisit the car park, which I did. This is Ilford Retail Park, I know know why the signage was missed by me. The car park is not lit nor are any of the signs. The sign at the entrance are not easily read due to their positioning. The pay machines are not lit, I don't think they are even working. ( although i did not test this). The signs with the wording are too high, and unless you have 20:20 vision you would struggle to read the contractual wording, you'd defintely would need to take a torch.

This is a large car park. so I also checked the signs at the perimiter, which you would not see unless you were parking near them these are lower, but again not lit.

I did not go to the extent of measuring the letters to see if they are BPA compliant, it does'nt matter at this point they have failed to position them well and failed to provide adequate lighting.

I'm trying not to get annoyed, but these people need to be held to account.

I can share my pics if anyone else needs them. They are definetly going into the witness statement.

Thank you again with all the support

Coupon-mad

I'm trying not to get annoyed, but these people need to be held to account.

Yup, we get annoyed and that's why we come back every day for years to assist people to beat the scam, for free, instead of suckers thinking they have no hope or have to pay someone (which they don't).

The success rate here is higher than anywhere else, by a country mile, and we care about people and we don't drop the ball or miss replying and dealing with any case (if one of us does, another regular picks it up). All for free, and we know what we are doing, unlike some other places.

If you do end up with a hearing then the photos of the dark car park will be very useful.

Like I said, I expect PE to 'make an offer' for you to pay them £60 odd for them to go away. Don't. I really think they will not want to see you (and your Dad, who would be a great personal witness) in court.

Expect a discontinuance of you refuse their kind 'offers'.

qat

thanks coupon-mad, really appreciate you help.

no reply yet for PE, will keep you updated.

Coupon-mad

Yes, because you are making a drop hands offer, mark that email 'without prejudice'.

qat

Thanks - just received PEs defence to the previous email explaining the situation about the disabled passenger. I believe they submitted this to court, in light of the additional information. It's a 16 page document explaining why they diagree with points raised.

They have taken some of what has been said out of context. The document is too long any chance I can PM this to you. I will send them the WP response, don't want to mix this up with the WP email.

Coupon-mad

Yes you can pm me a link to it on Dropbox (not photobucket, I can't see that).

qat

Hi PM'd please let me know if you haven't received it. I sent the link to dropbox

ta