Defence for court action

Undisputed3001

Just to keep everyone updated.
Gladstones have sent their Directions Questionnaire. I'm just waiting to receive mine and will respond as per the newbies thread.

Undisputed3001

Is this OK for a witness statement? I've reduced it already, as I was getting very angry at the injustice of it all as I was typing it!

In the County Court at XXX, XXX, XXX XXX
Claim No.
Between

HX Car Park Management LTD (Claimant)

and

MS XXXXXX (Defendant)

WITNESS STATEMENT

I am, XXXX, defendant in this matter and deny liability for the entirety of the claim.

1. The matter relates to a pay & display car park and on the material day, xx/xx/xxxx, I purchased a ticket for 12 hours in good faith. Document XX1 shows the parking ticket.

2. On the xx/xx/xxxx I drove to xxxxxx to attend a colleague’s leaving party. Up to that point, I was unaware of the road layout, and indeed the car park layout. This was in the early evening when it was dark.

3. It took time to park, find change, and as the payment machine required entry of the car’s number plate, it took a few minutes to get the details as the car had been recently purchased, and then enter the information into the payment machine, as well as queuing. At no time was there any indication that the ticket must be purchased in a timely fashion.

4. The Claimant’s signage did not make clear that the ticket had to be purchased within a specified time:

a. I refer to the document marked XX2 which clearly shows the sign next to the payment machine that states under what circumstances a parking charge notice will be issued. The sign is under a shadow, difficult to read and there is no mention of a grace period. The sign states that a PCN will be issued for:

• Failure to purchase and/or clearly display a valid ticket/permit
• Failure to park wholly within an authorised marked bay
• Exceed maximum weight and/or height restrictions
• Over staying the time you had paid for
• Failure to correctly enter your vehicle registration number

I refute the Claimant’s assertion that the grace period has been clearly bought to the attention of the driver.

b. Referring to the document marked XX3, I again refute the Claimant’s assertion that the grace period has been clearly bought to the attention of the driver by the signs ‘in and around the site’. The notice is placed too high, and the font too small.

c. Referring to document marked XX4, the payment machine itself is in poor light and is difficult to read. There was nothing that told me that the time stated on the ticket wasn’t actually true at all.

5. The IPC Code of Practice (document XX5), of which the Claimant adheres to, states: “Drivers should be allowed a sufficient amount of time to park and read any signs so they may make an informed decision as to whether or not to remain on the site.” The Code of Practice does not state an upper time limit, nor does it state that all signs must be read. The sign I read (mentioned in point 4a), did not state grace periods. It is reasonable to assume the signs closest to the payment machine are the ones that would be read foremost, and thus should be made prominent with the correct charges.

6. The ICO CCTV code of practise (document XX6) states that signs should “contain details of the organisation operating the system, the purpose for using the surveillance system and who to contact about the scheme (where these things are not obvious to those being monitored)”. The signs did not state how the data from the ANPR would be used with the payment machine to illicit a fine, nor what my rights are.

7. Section 14.1 of the IPC Code of Practice Predatory Tactics (document XX5), states “You must not use predatory or misleading tactics to lure drivers into incurring parking charges. Such instances will be viewed as a serious instance of non-compliance and will be dealt with under the sanctions system as defined in schedule 2 to the Code.” I firmly believe that the behaviour of the Claimant is predatory through deliberate obfuscation of both the grace period and by the Claimant’s communication and that they are in breach of the IPC Code of Practice.

8. The information from the Claimant has not been forthcoming and I believe this has been done to deliberately confuse me:

a. The initial letter (document XX7) only stated: entry time, exit time, and duration. At no point did it mention the grace period time

b. The subsequent letters (document XX8 and XX9) mentioned the incident time of 21:02 which was puzzling to me, as document XX1 clearly shows I was covered at that time.

c. The parking ticket is issued by O&C Car Parks Ltd, whereas the Claimant is HX Car Parks Management Ltd. This led me to believe that the communication from the Claimant maybe part of some elaborate scam.

d. Even the Particulars of Claim issued by the Claimant didn’t refer to specifics, leading to more confusion.

The Court is invited to dismiss the claim and to award my costs of dealing with this claim and attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.

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


Signature of Defendant:


Name: XXXXXXX
Date: 24/09/2018

Coupon-mad

Change this wording, you need to say you DID buy the PDT in a timely fashion!

[STRIKE]At no time was there any indication that the ticket must be[/STRIKE] In any case, given the facts and prevailing conditions/size of the site and placement of the Pay & Display Ticket (PDT) machine, the PDT was purchased in a timely fashion.

illicit

should be

elicit

The ICO CCTV code of practise

should be

Code of Practice

Undisputed3001

Oops, thanks Coupon-mad
Those changes have been made to my master document

Undisputed3001

Hi, can I check something:

a sign saying "images are obtained on entry and exit of the car park to calculate the length of time the vehicle remained on land" can't be used to justify the use of ANPR with the ticket machine?

Coupon-mad

No, they've added those words to pay lip service to data privacy requirements, but it can't 'justify' a charge if the signs are silent and don't create any obligation to pay within a certain time, for an all day ticket that costs the same, regardless.

Undisputed3001

Less than 14 days to go, and the other side haven't sent through any documents on which they are going to rely on in court.

Can I ask the Judge to strike out the claim based on that? I've submitted all my documentation in accordance with the deadline date.

Coupon-mad

You could ring the court to find out if they've paid the hearing fee or not and whether the court has received their WS from the Claimant.

Then depending on the answer, you can write to the Judge and ask for the hearing to be vacated, and enclose your costs schedule NOW and ask for your costs to be summarily assessed and awarded in an indemnity basis, given the Claimant's wholly unreasonable conduct.

Search this forum for Denton as your keyword, to see good wording used before.

System

Then depending on the answer, you can write to the Judge and ask for the hearing to be vacated, and enclose your costs schedule NOW and ask for your costs to be summarily assessed and awarded in an indemnity basis, given the Claimant's wholly unreasonable conduct.

I'd keep that for any hearing. It is unlikely to see a judge prior and would go into the pack for the day. It may send the wrong message as all the judge wants is the facts and not a rant.

Undisputed3001

So hearing fee has been paid, and the court has received their WS.

I haven't received their WS, so do I now send a stern letter to them, and send a copy to the court?