URGENT: County Court Claim

Quentin

There is no reason why it takes them 3/4 weeks to remove the judgement from the register - they can do it today! (If it had been awarded against you today it would have been put on the register today!)


(Unless it has been - hence the court referring to your "credit rating" rather then the "register"! )(The courts don't deal with an individual's credit rating! The credit rating agencies don't usually update immediately)


You can check the "Register" yourself via the trustonline website

Coupon-mad

I sent off my defence for all 5 claims before the 5pm deadline. I included all claim numbers on the defence letter as well as the email subject. I received an acknowledgment letter for 4 out of the 5 claims.

If you sent ONE defence email with all the Claim Numbers on it, that was open to error so don't do that again. I can see how one email mentioning all 5 claims, led to that human error.

I speak as someone who has worked in admin management in various places all my life, and one single letter/email is absolutely not advisable even when emailing something innocuous, but certainly to be avoided in something as important as 5 separate court claims.

e.g. when emailing the DQ do it separately per case, with the individual claim number carefully changed in the subject line. Five emails. Five DQs.

If these 5 claims all deal with the same facts/car park, put a covering letter with your DQ asking for the matter to be put before a Judge again to merge the claims, under the Court's case management powers, to avoid unnecessary cost and time spent by you and the courts, multiplied by five for no reason at all.

If that doesn't get the desired response, when you see that the case has been allocated to your local court, write to the local court immediately (this time you CAN write one letter with all 5 claims marked clearly at the top!) and ask for ONE hearing for all 5 claims to avoid taking time off work and the stress of a hearing five times, and a waste of the court's time. Say that under the doctrine of res judicata, you ask for one hearing on all matters by this vexatious claimant.

GolfR12

Hi guys. I’ve received witness statements for all claims over the last few weeks and my hearing is set for next week. Unfortunately, due to a bereavement in the family a couple of weeks ago I put these letters to the side and have only just remembered that my hearing is next week and I have prepared nothing!

They also sent me a separate letter advising they are discontinuing one of the claims; however, no reason was provided for this. Gladstones also sent me an email offering a full and final settlement which of course I have rejected.

I do not believe I have received any letters advising me to submit my witness statement by any deadline but I will double check this in the morning.

KeithP

GolfR12 wrote: »

I do not believe I have received any letters advising me to submit my witness statement by any deadline but I will double check this in the morning.

Look again at the Court letter advising you of your hearing date.

Coupon-mad

GolfR12 wrote: »

Hi guys. I’ve received witness statements for all claims over the last few weeks and my hearing is set for next week. Unfortunately, due to a bereavement in the family a couple of weeks ago I put these letters to the side and have only just remembered that my hearing is next week and I have prepared nothing!

They also sent me a separate letter advising they are discontinuing one of the claims; however, no reason was provided for this. Gladstones also sent me an email offering a full and final settlement which of course I have rejected.

I do not believe I have received any letters advising me to submit my witness statement by any deadline but I will double check this in the morning.

Yes you have or you wouldn't know the hearing date (same letter).

Search the forum for LATE WITNESS STATEMENT, saves us typing and you will see to get your finger out and what to do, from the results, and that cases are still won with a late WS! Just!

But DO NOT leave it any longer, tomorrow is FRIDAY - so, get a (VERY EASY TO COMPOSE) WS and evidence to the court and claimant before 2pm tomorrow, by and to the court, in a ring binder or file, with a contents p[age.

This is not done by email, except to the other side, their copy can be. You want a nice readable file with numbered pages and numbered evidence exhibits for the Judge.

URGENT. Right now you have zero evidence and cannot ambush them with it at the hearing.

GolfR12

Thank you for your reply.

My hearing is on 8th Nov 2018. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to submit the WS until tomorrow as I’m at work until 5. So I will start drafting this evening.

I have got the Witness Statements from Gladstones. I have noticed on all of them it says the tickets displayed were not valid but on one of them it says the ticket is valid but the receptionist is unsure how the driver obtained the ticket. Can I use this contradiction as a defence point in my WS?

Furthermore, the properly in question is gated and requires entrance via a key fob. Therefore, the only way the driver could have got in is if a resident opened the gate for the driver. Can this also be used as defence?

Coupon-mad

You can't submit it to your local Court tomorrow (Saturday), except the email to the other side, that can go when you are ready but you may as well work on it till Sunday with our help, now. No advantage to emailing a half-done effort on Saturday, and the court version is not sent that way (and don't post it, we are not talking one bit of paper or so and you want to know they have it in their hands).

Someone will have to take the ring binder file to the court - with all evidence, WS and contents page - and your costs schedule as well - on Monday morning.

I have got the Witness Statements from Gladstones. I have noticed on all of them it says the tickets displayed were not valid but on one of them it says the ticket is valid but the receptionist is unsure how the driver obtained the ticket. Can I use this contradiction as a defence point in my WS?

Furthermore, the properly in question is gated and requires entrance via a key fob. Therefore, the only way the driver could have got in is if a resident opened the gate for the driver. Can this also be used as defence?

Of course, yes, have both in your WS!

Search this forum now, for 'de facto key fob' and you will find that argument in defences and WS. Do that search!

Remember you are not now writing a defence, just the easy first person 'story' and in it, just say what you see and know!

Clearly you will be relying on the rights and primacy of contract of the resident, so we assume you have got a copy of their lease or permit information to show what it says about parking rights with a key fob? And you've read the Jopson transcript and are including that?

GolfR12

Ok I will drop this off to the courts on Monday morning as I don’t work too far from there.

I will also give the de facto key fob a read this evening.

Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of any lease or permit agreements and the driver is also unable to obtain this as mentioned in previous posts.

So just to confirm, my witness statement will essentially be based on the driver requiring a key fob or resident to let them into the property, the contradiction in their witness statements on whether the displayed permits were valid or not and poor signage? Do I also mention the fact that Gladstones discontinued one of the claims without reason?

Just to add, Gladstones emailed me with a settlement offer a few weeks ago; however, was rejected. I replied with a counter offer to pay for the original tickets 60 x 5) however I did not receive a reply. I did state in my email that this was not an admission of liability l, rather to save time and costs as they had stated. I called Gladstones as no reply was received; however, they stated they could not accept my counter offer. Does this need to be mentioned,

Apologies for all the last minute questions/posts. It has been a bit of a manic period for me with the bereavement of a family member and wedding planning for a sibling, on top of the fact that I am really not good with this kind of stuff at all. However, ultimately I accept that it my responsibility to deal with this on time.

I really do appreciate all the help that I he received on this forum as I could not do it without you guys and probably would have ended up paying! So many thanks everyone

Coupon-mad

So just to confirm, my witness statement will essentially be based on the driver requiring a key fob or resident to let them into the property, the contradiction in their witness statements on whether the displayed permits were valid or not and poor signage? Do I also mention the fact that Gladstones discontinued one of the claims without reason?

Yes, all of the above.

Just to add, Gladstones emailed me with a settlement offer a few weeks ago; however, was rejected. I replied with a counter offer to pay for the original tickets 60 x 5) however I did not receive a reply.

Good, because if you don't win the case, you can then whip out, from your court bundle, copies of that Without Prejudice (WP) correspondence and say the Claimant had a WP offer from you of £60 per PCN and as such, they should not be entitled to more and nor should you pay their costs, etc.

But you cannot refer to those offers in your WS. Offers on a 'WP basis' are for costs time, once the claim is decided at a hearing.

GolfR12

The below is all that I have managed to conjure up for my WS. I am not sure if this will be enough to win the case but I have given it my best shot. Any advice would be much appreciated:

In the County Court at XXXXX
Claim No. XXX, XXX, XXX and XXX
Between
Euro Parking Services Ltd (Claimant)
and
XXXXX (Defendant)

---

Witness Statement

---

1. I am XXX, of ADDRESS, POSTCODE, the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:

2. It is admitted that at all material times I, XXXi was the registered keeper of vehicle registration mark XXXX XXX which is the subject of these proceedings. The vehicle was insured with XXX Insurance with two named drivers permitted to use it. Furthermore, several drivers had access to this vehicle via their own Comprehensive insurance policies which allowed them to drive other vehicles with the consent of myself. At no point in time of the alleged offences was I the driver of the vehicle.

3. During the period of 1st July 2017 – 1st March 2018, I was living with my girlfriend due to personal reasons; therefore, any correspondence sent to my address would have been returned as gone away.

4. The property in question, XXX XXX is securely gated and there is no way to enter the car park without a key fob or being granted access by a resident. It is therefore my assumption that the driver of the vehicle at the time of all the alleged offences was visiting a resident of the property and would have been granted access to the car park by the resident.

5. In the Claimant’s witness statements, it is stated that the permits displayed by the driver of the vehicle were photocopies, invalid and fraudulent. However, I refer you to the Claimant’s witness statement for Claim No: XXX in which notes from the parking ticket issuer state ‘there is a valid temporary permit displayed on the dashboard, concierge said he never issued any permit to this vehicle. Issued PCN based on the concierge words that they don’t know where these people got a permit’. I would like to point out this huge contradiction in this witness statement which confirms the permits displayed were indeed valid. It is my assumption that the resident may have provided the driver of the vehicle at the time with the temporary parking permits to display.

6. Furthermore, I would like to highlight that the claimant has discontinued Claim No: XXX without providing any reasoning. This further highlights the fact that the Claimant believes there are no reasonable grounds for these claims.

7. 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.

Signature
Date