Parking Charge Notice in work car park

Le_Kirk

that_girl wrote: »

According to the 'court admin' there is no deadline as no documents are required from me unless I choose to submit them. I have no idea what to do tbh. I just assumed the best thing would be for me to get something over to them, even if they're telling me nothing is needed?

How about a covering letter with your documents explaining that in the absence of proper court direction, you have assumed the "standard" 14 day rule applies.

that_girl

Thanks Le_Kirk - i've added that on my cover page along with my hearing date, time, name, etc.

that_girl

I've just found this on justice.gov.uk under Part 27 - The Small Claims Track

Preparation for the hearing
27.4

(1) After allocation the court will –

(a) give standard directions and fix a date for the final hearing;

(b) give special directions and fix a date for the final hearing;

(c) give special directions and direct that the court will consider what further directions are to be given no later than 28 days after the date the special directions were given;

(d) fix a date for a preliminary hearing under rule 27.6; or

(e) give notice that it proposes to deal with the claim without a hearing under rule 27.10 and invite the parties to notify the court by a specified date if they agree the proposal.

(2) The court will –

(a) give the parties at least 21 days’ notice of the date fixed for the final hearing, unless the parties agree to accept less notice; and

(b) inform them of the amount of time allowed for the final hearing.

(3) In this rule –

(a) ‘standard directions’ means –

(i) a direction that each party shall, at least 14 days before the date fixed for the final hearing, file and serve on every other party copies of all documents (including any expert’s report) on which he intends to rely at the hearing; and

(ii) any other standard directions set out in Practice Direction 27; and

(b) ‘special directions’ means directions given in addition to or instead of the standard directions.

I've added this into my witness statement;

---

Witness Statement

---

1. I am ****, of ******, the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:
2. 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.
3. I was an employee at **** at the time of the alleged contraventions.
4. On the claimed dates, I arrived at work, and parked my vehicle registration no: **** in the car park.
5. My ***** sticker can be seen on the passenger side of my car, attached as Exhibit A.
6. Upon receipt of a parking charge notice from the Claimant, it was stated that I had breached the terms and conditions of the parking for ‘unauthorised parking’.
7. The terms and conditions of the car park are attached as Exhibit B and there is no evidence that my car is in breach of any of these terms and conditions on the signage.
8. According to Protection of Freedom Acts, Schedule 4, Section 9 para. (4) & (5), the notice must be given within 14 days. All parking charge notices were received more than 14 days after the date of the alleged contravention which is against this statute.
9. I received a Claim Form on the 5th July and submitted my defence in a timely manner despite The Particulars of the Claim not specifying what Terms and Conditions I had breached.
10. I received Notice of Small Claim Hearing on the **** stating the date and time of my Small Claim Hearing along with a paragraph stating the claimant must pay the court fees by 31st December 2019 or the claim will be struck out.
11. I have not received any further correspondence from the court with information on what documents I need to submit or a deadline to when I should submit this by. I contacted the court on the ***** to advise I had not received this letter and if they could let me know what I need to send and when I need to send it by. I was advised that I can send documents if I felt it could support me, but no further letter is due be sent to me with instructions and I just need to turn up to court on the date of the hearing.
12. At the time of submitting this Witness statement, no further directions have been sent to me. The Small Claims Track Civil Procedure Rules, under Rule 27.4, Preparation for the Hearing has therefore not been adhered too. No standard directions have been received and I have not been made aware of a 14 day deadline to file and serve documents that I intend to rely on at the hearing. I have also not received a witness statement from the Claimant. I believe this has been done intentionally to put me at a disadvantage.
13. It is my position that the Claimant has no standing, or course of action, to litigate this matter as no contractual agreement was broken, therefore there are no costs to claim.
14. I invite the Court to dismiss this claim in its entirety, and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14
Statement of Truth

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


Does that all sound ok??

Signature

Coupon-mad

Yes it does.

Add in a line pointing the Judge to also read the Supplementary WS because the Claimant has added sums which they are not entitled to recover and that they know, or should know, are an abuse of the court process.

And include a contents page (all pages numbered) and a costs schedule too.

that_girl

Thanks Coupon-mad.

I have a cover page, contents, witness statement, supplementary witness statements, costs schedule, exhibits including signage, small track claims paragraph, beavis paragraphs and CRA 2015 paragraphs. Will add in a line to draw attention to the Supplementary WS too and then i think i'm done. All pages are numbered and have a ring binder ready to put the paperwork in!

I'll email BW legal tomorrow and then post the docs to them, and hand in the folder to court shortly too.

Very busy weekend sorting all this out as well as prepping for a job interview! Fingers crossed everything works out ok!

Coupon-mad

Jolly good prep!

Good luck with the job interview. Wear your lucky suit/clothes to both, as a formal office-based job interview is similar to the court hearing in some ways.

that_girl

Witness statement has now been received from the sols and apparently the terms and conditions that I am in breach of is not displaying a valid permit, and they have included photos of my car, with the permit in full view as part of their exhibits??

I mean, I'm either completely missing something as surely they can't be that stupid or i've just got this in the bag!

On a sidenote, I got the new job!

Le_Kirk

No you are not missing anything, they are that stupid!

Well done on getting the job.

that_girl

Thanks Le_Kirk!

I;m still pretty dumbfounded, had to read it twice to make sure that's all they are accusing me of. Will let you all know how i get on with the court case!

that_girl

I won!

So this was how the day went. I turned up at half 9 ready for my hearing which was set for 10am. While waiting, a guy came up to me and introduced himself as the claimant but not the bad guy (?) he said that I had a very detailed witness statement and basically said what would happen in the court room. That it probably won’t take long and will be very informal. He was friendly but found it a little weird.
Anyway, the waiting area was very busy and one by one people were called into the court room. Over 2 hours had passed and the usher said we should be seen within half an hour. It then got closer to the 3 hour mark and the usher said apparently my case got allocated to the wrong judge and they’d just given my case to the right judge so he needed to make himself familiar with the case and then we’ll be called in. Very frustrating.
Eventually we get called in and it’s a pretty small room, looked similar to a classroom with 2 rows of desks and the Judge was sat at the front of the room at a higher desk. He starts off by apologising as he’s just been given the file and says he’s read through and can see the dispute is over a parking permit not being displayed and ran through how the hearing will go. Said that he went through my statement, can see I admitted to being the driver and that a permit was displayed and that my supplementary witness statement had a lot of legal stuff in which I probably got from the internet(!) and he’ll go through all the facts first and come back to the legals later. Then he turned to the claimant to hear his claim. He starts going through his paperwork which seemed to be in a different order to mine and the judges, had slightly different photos and was not numbered so it was a bit all over the place and he had to keep ripping out pages to show to the judge. He made the claim that the permit is not showing clearly in any of the photos so I have breached the terms and conditions. His photos looked a lot clearer than mine and I could see my permit clearly in the photos but I just kept quiet and let him carry on until it was my turn to talk. The judge went through the photos at the same time so we were all looking at the same thing. After the judge was finished with the claimant he turned to me and asked a few questions to make sure he had all the facts like confirming I was the driver, I was an employee at the company within the business park, what dates I worked there etc. Then I gave my side of the story which was quite simply my permit can be seen on the passenger side of the windscreen in all photos, it was physically stuck to the window and only removed when I left the company. I also said that I had mentioned this in my defence and witness statement, however up until I received the claimant witness statement, it was never explicitly stated what terms and conditions I was in breach of. The judge then turned to the claimant to see if he had any questions for me and he was literally scraping the barrel with what to ask me. He pretty much repeated some of the questions the judge had already asked, then asked me things like how many employees there were at my company, what the sticker said on my car, if I still had the permit even though I left the job 2 years ago, why I didn’t respond to the pcns, if I had read the terms and conditions in the car park. Then he tried to claim that I can’t actually prove that the permit showing on the windscreen is actually a permit to park in the car park as it’s not clear and it could be just a permit to show I’m an employee? Literally was making no sense. I answered all his questions politely, and after he finished his questioning the judge asked if he had any other evidence he wanted to rely on such as calling the parking attendant but he said no. He then asked if I had anything else to say which I didn’t. The claimant was digging himself a hole with every argument he had so I didn’t really need to say anything else. At one point, he even said to my defence that he thought the permit was in the passenger window not the windscreen because of how I had worded it in the statement but even the judge said something about how that doesn’t matter as can see something clearly in the windscreen.
The judge then summed up everything and basically said that he didn’t need to go through the legal part of my witness statement as he can make his decision on the facts alone. He said based on the evidence presented in the courtroom today, he is confident that the object in the windscreen shown consistently in all the photos in the same place was a permit that as an employee allowed me to park there, the claimant has not shown any evidence that disproves this so he dismissed the case in its entirety!
The claimant said well done to me, then turned to the judge and said, I think the answer will be no but wanted to see if he can appeal for loss of leave or something? Can’t remember his wording but the judge just laughed and said no.
When we were outside the court room he asked if he could have the photo of my car that I had as part of my evidence as he didn’t have the photo, but I had taken the photo from when I submitted a SARS request months ago so just gave it to him as it was from the parking company anyway lol. Not sure why he asked for it as his photos were identical but anyway.
I forgot to ask about costs at the end, not sure if it’s too late now? I was just happy for it to be over! Was a long 3 hour wait but was over and done with in about 20 mins. Very happy!