Britannia Parking - BW Legal and letters sent to wrong address

Cemesis

I have been thinking about it and there is an additional piece of information that was not relevant at the time but would be to countering the validity of their evidence. My sister was with me in a separate car at the same time and also bought a ticket. Her's lasted until the following day and her car does not appear on their list. The results (their whitelist) are for a single day where the entry and exit dates fall within the same timeframe. If my ticket ended the following day then I would not appear on their list. I had asked in my letter of October 2018 to provide payment details for the car in question but they still have not done it.

Regarding the claimant being wrong in my defence, no I did not update it and have submitted a defence with the wrong Claimant. Stupid now but what are my options? Can I submit an amendment and explain the error? The court date is 10th January.

No, writing and submitting the WS does not mean I have stayed up to date with this forum, CEC16's thread or any changes. To be blunt, I have other things going on and this incident is becoming a pain. I have had to rearrange flights to see a supplier at work, have had to request the court move the date because my wife is due with our child, have a huge garden project that I am doing myself and is now 6 months in and consumes every spare moment I have and the cost of the day off work for me is more than the cost just to pay them off, let alone my time on top. But I keep fighting because I'm so angry about the whole thing and I think they are scam artists and don't want to pay them a penny.

I didn't add a supplementary WS about the £60, nor a cost schedule and have submitted nothing since the defence to the court and BW.

I have never done this before (like many others coming here I suspect) and whilst i have read a lot of posts on here for hours that got me as far as the defence but I'm now coming up (potentially very) short.

Appreciate any further guidance/advice you can give.

Coupon-mad

Cemesis wrote: »

I have been thinking about it and there is an additional piece of information that was not relevant at the time but would be to countering the validity of their evidence. My sister was with me in a separate car at the same time and also bought a ticket. Her's lasted until the following day and her car does not appear on their list. The results (their whitelist) are for a single day where the entry and exit dates fall within the same timeframe. If my ticket ended the following day then I would not appear on their list. I had asked in my letter of October 2018 to provide payment details for the car in question but they still have not done it.

REALLY IMPORTANT EVIDENCE!

I know it's a pain but see if you can do a quick WS tonight with that attached (i.e. a signd WS from her, saying that she parked and her VRN is xxxx xxxx and that's not on their list either, and she didn't get a PCN but her VRN 'should' be on the list if this is a complete copy and she believes they have not included the VRNs of those who paid until the following day, as you and she both did)

I didn't add a supplementary WS about the £60, nor a cost schedule and have submitted nothing since the defence to the court and BW.

I have never done this before (like many others coming here I suspect) and whilst i have read a lot of posts on here for hours that got me as far as the defence but I'm now coming up (potentially very) short.

Appreciate any further guidance/advice you can give.

You can do a search for:

supplementary witness statement Consumer Rights Act

and

costs schedule £300

...and subject to printing you will have this all done, plus the CRA 2015, the Beavis case 3 quotes on a sheet of A4, and other attachments (like pics of signs if you are putting them in) and you could have someone dropping this into the court postbox tomorrow, and breath a sign of relief then post one to the other side's solicitor 2nd class and have done with it.

You need this to be done - you can do it quickly, it really is a case of copying stuff already written and could be done tonight in a couple of hours max!

Cemesis

Just come back from court. I won.

I submitted the supplementary statement as suggested. I posted a copy into the court's document box a week ago and sent BW Legal a copy. BW Legal did get theirs but the court did not have it. Not a great start but I had a copy printed so gave him mine and used my laptop to read from.

In my statement I argued against 5 points of their witness statement, providing additional information on each but the main two were 1) My sisters car not being on the list and 2) the list not appearing complete because when I analysed it, it showed the car part being only 8% full at 11am and only one car's ticket had expired (and therefore had left) by 1pm.

The balance of probability swung in my favour and that was that. All done in about 15 minutes.

I raised my cost schedule at the end but the judge said he could only award costs if the claimant had acted unreasonably in the circumstances which I could tell from the way he was asking he did not believe they had. I could claim up to £95 for a day's leave if I was not paid by my employer for the leave (which I am). So I got nothing but I was happy to be done less than an hour after the case was due to be heard (we started 30 minutes late).

The BW legal representative was very green, was not totally versed in the case and was not the solicitor who prepared the witness statement. Their office is also about 2.5 hours from me vs my journey to court of 5 minutes so they have definitely lost more..

My advice to anyone else reading this thread in the future would be - In small claims court, it is for the claimant to prove that in the balance of probability, their description of events is what happened. The defence need prove nothing. Therefore all a defendant need do is provide factual statements that pushes that balance in your favour.

In my case, it was unlikely that I did not buy a ticket for a 5 hour stay, nor that I would say I bought two tickets before the claimants evidence was submitted to say I bought none. Shooting holes in their crucial piece of evidence (the list they claimed was complete was clearly not) didn't hurt either.

Thanks for everyone's assistance, especially Coupon-mad.

nosferatu1001

Incorrect - loss of leave IS covered. it doesnt matter if your leave is paid or unpaid.

Did someone from BW actually turn up? Usuually they use Elms or similar.

Cemesis

Actually they didn't say, I just assumed they were from BW Legal but thinking now they only said they were representing the Claimant.

Regarding the leave, I presumed the judge was correct. I presume there is no action I can take now though.

Redx

Well done anyway

Yet Another one bites the dust !!

Ps , just noticed your defence said claimant was B W Legal

It should have said Brittannia

Sounds like you got a jobbing Newbie legal eagle gun for hire
They won't be from b w legal

nosferatu1001

Not a lot you can do. But its why the newbies thread ref. the CPRs and makes it clear it is loss of pay * or loss of leave.

Cemesis

The defence did list the wrong claimant but it was never mentioned.

I did say to the judge that I understood that I could claim for my loss of leave but he said I could not if I was paid for the leave by my company. I wasn't prepared to argue as the judge sided with me throughout.

Coupon-mad

Yay, well done!

ANOTHER BRITANNIA ONE BITES THE DUST!