County Court Claim by SCS Law/UKPC Ltd

JakeG

redrabbit17,

My advice, it's not legal advice, but just my thoughts.
1) Make sure you get your Defence in on time, follow the advice from the Parking Prankster and this site to do so. If they can get you on a technicality they will, so don't let them.
2) The DVLA has suspended UKPC this week for some inappropriate behavior. It's worth letting them know you are aware of that fact it might make them more reluctant to chase you.
3) It's important you get a copy of the Tenancy agreement, there is a lot of case law that your circumstances are different to the Beavis case since it's a residential case. It's also one of the examples MPs made a point of discussing in their debate over the Parking Bill they should be passing into law soon. Reasonable judges seem to agree going after a tenant is poor form.
4) Make it clear that the pass was visible and on display in the car, the fact that it was on a seat makes no difference to that fact. You informed them of that fact and they are still pursuing this against a tenant which is extremely unreasonable. It's also unreasonable for them to punish you for your vehicle being unable to park in your parking spot when it was occupied.
5) There is case law on the meaning of parking and stopping to unload is arguably not parking it's a point you'll have to argue. It appears obvious to me that on two of the occasions you were loading your car and that you weren't gone from your vehicle long enough for them to claim you were parked, this seems unfair.
6) Check for any mistakes in their paperwork and require them to provide you with proof that they have any contract that allows them to take you to court and to prove each infraction. Often when challenged UKPC can't even provide the contract they want to rely on and they have got into trouble in the past with fraudulently manipulating evidence so make them provide proof. They are also notorious for being sloppy in their paperwork.
7) Make it clear that you do not admit to being the driver and that you require them to prove that you were. If they have made any mistakes on the PCNs regarding information that were required to include by POFA then they will have to prove you were the driver to establish keeper's liability against you since you do not admit to being the driver.
8) Let them know you are aware that they were named as one of the companies acting in bad faith during the Parliamentary debate for doing exactly what they are doing in this case. Do contact your MP since all parties agree on this issue and your MP is very likely to want to help you and will likely be willing to act on your behalf.
9) Be aware that UKPC and SCS Law read these forums and will have no issues with misconstruing what you are saying on these forums so be careful with how you word things.
10) Get help now so that you're prepared.

Coupon-mad

Interesting first post from a person posting late at night like me.

JakeG wrote: »

inappropriate behavior.

I've seen communications before from someone who spelt 'behavior' that way.

redrabbit17

Hi guys, I still can't get a copy of the lease agreement. I have obtained the owners details from land registry, sent them a letter asking for a call back or email and also asked the letting agent to contact them. Neither of us have managed to get a reply and I have less than a month til' the court date. If they lived any closer I would drive down and knock on the door but its at the other side of the country.

Any advice as to how I should proceed? I've seen SAR banded about but I have no idea how to do that.

All help is greatly appreciated.

Coupon-mad

I've seen SAR banded about but I have no idea how to do that.

But you do. Search the forum each time you want to learn more.

Simply search SAR yours faithfully and you will find example letters.

redrabbit17

Hi guys, this is turning into a bit of a shambles on my part. I have only just realised that I needed to submit a witness statement and the court case is less than 14 days away. I am in the process of writing one up anyway but how will this impact my case? I have read of judges dismissing claims when the claimant's witness statement was not submitted on time...

Regarding the lease agreement, I have SAR'd the owner but only today realised that I have been sending letters to the wrong address and the correct address is actually in the tenancy agreement. I never noticed it until now. I will send an urgent letter for a copy of the lease agreement out as soon as I can with the hope that it will get to the property owner.

I also have a copy of the claimant's WS which was submitted in time, that I am currently dissecting. I hope my disorganisation won't hinder my case. Thanks for all your help thus far!

System

I am in the process of writing one up anyway but how will this impact my case?

A WS is only the narrative of what happened on the day and is a substitute for an oral explanation. What a judge can disallow is the evidence element of it but send it any ASAP as the judge may allow it to speed up the process.

As a backstop (a popular word these bays) you can use their WS which you will get as your defence by picking it apart and sending in a Skeleton Argument no more than 3 days prior to any hearing but get the WS in.

The WS are the facts on the day and only you have them so don't come back here as it will delay it.

redrabbit17

Thanks. I managed to get the WS in today and sent it to court by hand. I used the parking company’s WS and picked it apart as best I could. A lot of the evidence I used was copied from their WS such as unclear photos of the car, unclear signage and also lack of signage. So hopefully I can refer to them in court if mine is not acknowledged.

I’ll now get onto the skeleton argument and cost sheet and hopefully submit by the end of the week in preparation for court.

Thanks again for all replies and input, it is much appreciated!

redrabbit17

I am now on the final stages of my skeleton argument and schedule of costs. Is there anything that the judge will deem unreasonable? The claimant is asking for £600+ in costs.

I know it is £19/hour for my time taken and its probably taken me at least 5-10 hours to research, draft and submit the defence, witness statements and skeleton argument etc being a complete newbie to these things.

Due to the nature of my job and being self employed, it is costing me £400+ in lost salary and hiring someone to cover me. Will claiming that much be seen as excessive by the judge? I don't want him to think I'm a "money grabber" like the claimants. One of the posts on a sticky thread states "max £95 for lost earnings, return mileage to court at 45p per mile, and parking". Is that a maximum of £95 in total or not including the mileage and parking?

Thanks

redrabbit17

I thought I’d post my experience in court in the hope it may help someone. These forums have been very helpful to me in winning this case and I would like to sincerely thank all the contributors. I could never have done it without you. Apologies if it is quite long. If anyone
needs any help with similar cases, I’d gladly try my best.

Background – 6 tickets issued over 4 years ago. 5 for parking in my own designated parking spot in the underground car park without my permit on the dashboard (it was on the passenger seat) and 1 for parking in a loading area that wasn’t marked as a loading area nor had any signage whatsoever. I revisited the site a few days before court and now there are plenty of signs by the loading bay. I didn’t put this in my defence or WS as I discovered it later but mentioned it in my skeleton argument and later in the court room, verbally.

My defence – fob-controlled car park with designated space so no reason to park unlawfully, no mention of fines in tenancy agreement, unclear signs in car park, no mention of displaying permit exclusively on dashboard, unclear photographs (literally all black squares) with no proof that I wasn’t displaying a permit.

Pre- court – ignored all mail from various companies until the claim letter. Responded with a good defence that I devised solely from these forums. Forgot to do the witness statement in the allocated time so sent it 7 days before court in the hope it would be accepted. I have no idea if it was or not. 3 days before – submitted skeleton argument, which was loosely based on my WS but without the multitude of photographs/evidence I had taken. Emailed schedule of costs a day before.

On the day – slight nerves, but quietly confident. Stopped at a shop to get change for parking beforehand as the last thing you want on the day is to forage for change and then have to run off and find a shop. Peanut Butter Kit Kat Chunky and an Aero Mint on offer – 2 for £1, was that a sign that it would be a good day? I had all my documents ready in a file, in order and labelled with coloured tabs so I could switch between them quickly. I also took all the documents the Claimant had submitted – including their 90 odd page witness statement which would turn out to be the key document in the court room.

Checked in around 30mins before my court time. UKPC hadn’t turned up yet. Couldn’t be bothered reading my notes as I just wanted it to be over and knew all my arguments quite well. Moments later, a lady was at the desk and they called my name – she came and introduced herself and was generally being very friendly, stated some obvious facts and asked if I had any questions. I wasn’t to be fooled. She was my enemy at this moment, so I wasn’t letting the smile and friendly demeanour fool me. A few minutes later, she approached me again with some general chit chat about my car and that she had the same model – I found this very strange that she’s trying to leach £1500 from me yet also trying to be my friend at the same time? I wasn’t having any of it but kept composed until she realised I didn’t really want to talk to her.

In the court room – the judge invited us in and asked us to sit down. It was like the board room in The Apprentice. I sat directly opposite the judge. He came across quite quickly as a very nice man. Began with questioning how it had taken 4 years to get to court. We immediately started talking about my side of the case.

We initially talked about how I had a permit like all residents, that it was a gated car park with access by fob only and how the permit was a small piece of card without adhesive. I mentioned that I would put it on the passenger seat whilst driving as it moved around on the dashboard and would put it on the dashboard once I parked up but being human – I or anyone else driving the car could occasionally forget. The judge was fine with this. He mentioned the shocking photographs in the claimants WS of the front of my car. The opposition agreed the photographs were terrible. She also agreed that I had a permit like all residents of the car park. The judge was clearly struggling to see why I had received so many penalties. The claimant said there was no permit visible. I said it was always visible and the parking attendant didn’t see it, or even CHOSE not to see it. From the look in her eyes and the change from friendliness to scorn – she knew I was talking about the doctoring of images by UKPC by which they were found guilty of a few years ago.

We then went on to discuss the final ticket – parking in a loading area. The underground car park had no lift to the ground floor. I had to go up a flight of metal stairs, across a courtyard that was decked with wood so could get slippery when wet, then into the building via the main entrance and up the lift to my apartment. Beside the main entrance – there was an embankment that had enough room for a car to park and enough room for a car to drive past at the same time. When carrying heavy items such as shopping bags, furniture etc, I would park in the embankment by the main entrance, unload the car and take the goods up to my apartment and then proceed to move the car back into the underground car park. It would be very difficult as well as a health and safety risk if I was to walk up the metal stairs and across the slippery, wet decking with large shopping bags. My child had only just learnt to walk at that time too so if she wanted picking up it would leave me with all sorts of problems. The sensible thing to do would be to park next to the entrance temporarily. The photos of the car are quite clear and show no parking signs. There is a parking sign on its own in the photographs, but it could be taken from anywhere. The claimant said, “the brick-work in the background is the same” with the judge replying, “it is the same throughout the whole building”. She then said the sign has a symbol of a lorry and that only lorries could park there to unload. I couldn’t even believe what she was saying. The timing between the first and last photo was only 8 minutes and I argued it would take me longer than 8 minutes to unload, take the contents up to my top floor apartment and come back down. Especially with a wandering child. By this point, myself and the judge were picking apart the claimant’s shambolic WS at will. Ultimately, they were the cause of their own downfall as all their “evidence” suggested I was in the right. I can’t believe such weak claims were submitted.

When it was the claimant’s turn to speak – she asked why I hadn’t responded to any mail or tickets attached to the windscreen. My response was brutally honest – “Like any legally untrained person would do, I Googled it and was told that I didn’t have to reply to such constant and harassing mail from fraudulent companies that I am not legally obliged to reply to”. I also didn’t feel the need to as the letters said I committed an offence, yet when I looked in the top corner of the letter for evidence (the photograph), all I could see was a black box. She then moved onto the actual ticket and how it said I had ‘parked in a designated parking space without a permit’ and that was the evidence telling me I had done something wrong and that I should have appealed to them and/or to POPLA. I responded by telling her the statement was false, so I didn’t feel obliged to reply as I always had a permit.

She then went on to grill me about the sign. My argument was the signs were unclear in a dark car park. One of the photographs showed a picture of my car from behind with a sign around 2 metres away. I said I can barely read the sign, especially the part about a fine. If it clearly stated a figure like in Parking Eye Vs Beavis I’d understand but this was a joke. She then had the cheek to ask me to read a fire safety sign that was 1m away from me in the room. At this point I was getting attacked from every angle she could muster, and she wouldn’t give me a split second to get a word in. Most of it was rubbish to be fair. The judge then asked her to stop and proceeded to give judgement.

Regarding the first 5 tickets – the judge deemed that even if the signs were kind of clear, if the permit was on the dashboard, passenger seat or anywhere else in the vehicle – the fact that it was fob-controlled entry and I alongside all cars in the car park had a permit, it is up to the claimant to prove it wasn’t on display – and on this occasion, there is no proof of that so the claims were dismissed.

Regarding the final ticket - the judge said that even if the signage was clear and the loading bay was clearly defined – it would still make sense for me to park there to unload, hence the claim is also dismissed.

I asked if I could claim any costs. I had put £190 (10 hours) for researching and drafting all my paperwork as it did take me a very long time, and £15 for stationary/postage but the judge was frank and refused. For loss of earnings he asked my occupation and deemed the full £95 was adequate. I initially put £5 for parking but told the judge that it only cost me £4 and that mileage was negligible as I live near the court, thus a total of £99 in costs was awarded.

In the corridor, the claimant shook my hand and congratulated me. This time I did smile back. We discussed methods of payment and that was it, I could finally go back to the car and enjoy my chocolate! I was a little gutted when I realised I had picked up a plain Kit Kat Chunky by mistake instead of the Peanut Butter version, but it was nice nonetheless. Overall, a very good day which put me in a great mood after hours of stress and headache.

An interesting point I noticed was I saw the same woman talking to another defendant in the waiting room and overheard her saying she’s representing Parking Eye. It looks like all these bogus companies hire the same person to defend their cases in court.

I also noticed that none of my documents were referred to in court at all. I don't even know if the judge had received them as I sent most of them to courts/claimant via email without any reply of acknowledgement.

Prior to the case, forum users were stressing about how important the lease agreement of the apartment was due to primacy of contract. I tried everything to get in touch with the owner but to no avail and walked into court without the lease agreement. The judge dismissed the claims on common sense grounds more than any legal arguments I had.

beamerguy

Well done as said in your other post :beer:

"An interesting point I noticed was I saw the same woman talking to another defendant in the waiting room and overheard her saying she’s representing Parking Eye. It looks like all these bogus companies hire the same person to defend their cases in court."

The point everyone should understand is that these companies bring to court low amount trivial cases and even if they win, they work on pennies as a profit.

REAL SOLICITORS would not get involved. These so called legals could not even afford a REAL solicitor so they opt for a low cost rent-a-legals who are still cutting their teeth in court
The judge who at one time was probably a REAL solicitor, must get very embarrassed to watch the behaviour of these cheapo rent-a-legals