County Court Claim by SCS and UKPC

FutureTrunks

KeithP wrote: »

Yes of course.

And if the Security Manager doesn't attend court, you can suggest that his WS is hearsay - pointing out that you would've liked to ask him for some proof beyond the Security Manager's assertion, that UKPC are authorised by the landowner to issue PCNs.

I'd love to say this, the only thing is I have a WS from a friend who cannot attend court with me detailing the events on the day. If I say that their WS is hearsay, they could potentially say the same thing to me no?

Umkomaas

FutureTrunks wrote: »

I'd love to say this, the only thing is I have a WS from a friend who cannot attend court with me detailing the events on the day. If I say that their WS is hearsay, they could potentially say the same thing to me no?

It’s a bit like chess, do you sacrifice your Bishop in order to take the Queen?

I’d have thought questioning the validity of the landowner contract is much more fundamental than an account of what happened on the day.

FutureTrunks

So I'm burning the midnight oil right now getting everything ready for court tomorrow. Currently printing 3 separate copies of my documents to put in folders for the hearing tomorrow. I've printed out the RoA documents, my proof of wages, and just re-reading the UKPC Pack which I will hopefully be able to pick apart tomorrow. Wish me luck everyone!

beamerguy

FutureTrunks wrote: »

So I'm burning the midnight oil right now getting everything ready for court tomorrow. Currently printing 3 separate copies of my documents to put in folders for the hearing tomorrow. I've printed out the RoA documents, my proof of wages, and just re-reading the UKPC Pack which I will hopefully be able to pick apart tomorrow. Wish me luck everyone!

Good luck, zap them

FutureTrunks

So I'm here alongside the SCS Law rep, I've asked them whether they're directly employed by SCS and they've stated that they're self employed, so hopefully I can raise this point with the judge

FutureTrunks

Soooo I lost, I'm heading home now so will provide a full recount soon

bargepole

Coupon-mad wrote: »

That's exactly right - Judges will try to brush it away thinking you are being a bit dim, but of you have the case law & Law Gazette with you, then push it a little and say you believe they DO NOT have RoA and you consider this a vital preliminary matter if the Judge will give five minutes to it please.

Whether they have seen the rep in their court before or not is not relevant, all that mean is no Defendant has brought the case law with them before.

Obviously do not pee the Judge off...be very aware and very polite.

Take a wage slip as proof of your loss of leave/salary as well.

I don't know if any of the above was connected to the OP losing the case, but I'm going to completely disagree with C-M here.

For a Litigant in Person to go into a court hearing, probably the first time they've ever been in court, and expect them to make arguments about lack of RoA of the opposing advocate, is expecting far too much.

I've appeared in well over 100 Small Claims hearings (not just parking cases), which is well over 100 more than C-M has. I see the same self-employed advocates regularly at various courts, and they are not just appearing for PPCs, they are doing Possession claims, Family Law cases, Return of Goods, Debt claims and so on.

They are well known to the Court staff and most of the Judges, and to expect a Judge to admit that he's been getting it wrong on all previous occasions when he has heard them, is unrealistic.

On one occasion when I did successfully challenge RoA, the Judge simply adjourned the case, and said that the Claimant must send a properly qualified advocate. Which they did, and we lost.

Just don't go there.

FutureTrunks

bargepole wrote: »

I don't know if any of the above was connected to the OP losing the case, but I'm going to completely disagree with C-M here.

For a Litigant in Person to go into a court hearing, probably the first time they've ever been in court, and expect them to make arguments about lack of RoA of the opposing advocate, is expecting far too much.

I've appeared in well over 100 Small Claims hearings (not just parking cases), which is well over 100 more than C-M has. I see the same self-employed advocates regularly at various courts, and they are not just appearing for PPCs, they are doing Possession claims, Family Law cases, Return of Goods, Debt claims and so on.

They are well known to the Court staff and most of the Judges, and to expect a Judge to admit that he's been getting it wrong on all previous occasions when he has heard them, is unrealistic.

On one occasion when I did successfully challenge RoA, the Judge simply adjourned the case, and said that the Claimant must send a properly qualified advocate. Which they did, and we lost.

Just don't go there.

And that is pretty much what happened. I presented the RoA documents to the judge, and to his defence he did read it and seem quite interested in what I had to show him. However he was fine with the opposing side to continue because he had seen him many times before (just as you said) and said "he has always acted in a good manner" so was happy that he had RoA.

I tried to push it a bit further and say that as the rep was self-employed and was only under the instruction of SCS Law (and not under their direct supervision) I really believed he did not have RoA. However the Judge said he had made his decision and that was it, I didn't want to push it further and risk getting on his bad side.

Coupon-mad

OK, so the Judge allowed him to be heard.

So sad you lost - can you manage to face typing up what happened, now or later?

FutureTrunks

So here is basically what happened today:

I went in with Mr Taylor on the opposing side. He was a self-employed legal advocate representing SCS Law, this meant he had no RoA but my comment above to bargepole shows the Judge didn't really care about this. The Judge was District Deputy Judge Parker (I think that was his name).

We started off going over my defence one by one. The first point was around the BPA Code of Practice around predatory ticketing and my interaction with the UKPC agent. I stated how I believed I was ghost ticketed and that on one ticket, the UKPC agent had told me PCN would be cancelled. Mr Taylor stated that there was no information on their end that this had happened, and that I should have appealed with them directly to explain this (lol). I then responded by informing the Judge that there was no avenue for appeal at all for this ticket as the 28 day period had passed, and the UKPC website would not allow me to appeal. That was pretty much it, any event around this part of my defence was basically ignored.

The next point I raised was around loading and unloading of goods, and how my vehicle was stopped to remove goods and such from my car. Mr Taylor responded by saying that there was no evidence that my car was stopped to load/unload as all of the doors were closed, and the bootlid was also closed. I responded by saying that I lived near the top floor of my university apartment building, with a room that would give me no view of my car, so UKPCs standing that I should leave my car doors wide open was moot, a point that the Judge agreed with me on.

The next part of my defence was on the signage, and how I disagreed that it set about the conditions of parking in a clear manner. Also in this point (jointly) was how the signage did not provide an offer of parking, and that I believed it was a forbidding offer. However, the Judge agreed with the outcome of UKPC v. Peenith, against the cases I had brought along with me (UKPC v. Masterson, PCM v. Bull, PACE v. Lengyel) that the signage was a valid contractual offer. At this point I started to get quite worried.

I then brought up the point about how I believed there was no landowner authority, this was pretty much laughed away by the Judge. I tried to say how all of the contracts for self-ticketing services was signed by a security manager, and nothing leading to the landowner directly, but the Judge basically said that he would not believe the landowner would allow UKPC to operate on the university site without wanting UKPC to be there, so that point was struck out before it gained any traction.

Finally I brought up the £60 costs added on to each PCN. The Judge fully agreed with me the second I bought this up. He said that they were invalid and allowed Mr. Taylor to comment on this. Mr. Taylor did make a few comments (as he was instructed to do so by SCS Law or UKPC), but the Judge dismissed those comments. Mr. Taylor then added for the record that even he believed that the £60 costs shouldn't be added on, but he had to try and get them added as he was instructed to do so!

At this point I was feeling defeated, I thought the judge would have awarded them everything however, there is a twist...

3 of the tickets I had stated I was stopped to load and unload as I was outside of my halls of residence, the Judge then stated on the degree of probabilities, he believed I was being polite & genuine in my conduct, and that he believed I truly was stopped to load and unload as I had stated. He then cancelled two of the PCNs in its entirety! The third PCN was where I was stopped in a disabled bay, this one was put through as he said the signage stated "Disabled badge holders in disabled bays". This gave him the belief that even for stopping to load and unload, there is no stopping in disabled bays at any point, which I'm absolutely fine with and actually do agree with.

The 4th PCN, I wasn't stopped to load and unload, I had admitted I had parked as this location was far from my halls of residence, my argument for this was that the signage was inadequate and would not be seen as there are only one or two signs there to show any parking conditions. The Judge said that if a driver parked there they could easily get out and read the signage for and agreement to the conditions stated. I argued that the signs should be visible from a distance, and tried to show the Beavis sign as an example, however he prevented me from doing so as he said I'm bringing up a completely different sign. In the end he allowed this PCN to go through too.

However, for each charge he reduced the cost from £100, down to £80 as UKPC had included in their evidence pack a sign from 2012 which should a charge of £80, as Abdullah Yaqub (UKPC Legal Advisor) stated in his witness statement that all the signs are currently present on the university campus, however this one was not actually present and contradicted all the other signage present in the case evidence pack, the Judge was not happy with this and put both tickets down to £80.

All in all, Judge Parker then awarded the claimant £160 plus their fixed costs of £210. So £350 altogether.

I personally count this is a major win. The initial charges had them wanting me to pay £770 plus their costs. Looking at their schedule of costs, this would amount to almost £1300. The fact that I have to pay a quarter of that instead really makes me think of this loss, as a win. Especially now that I never have to deal with this nonsense again.

On the way out I thanked the Judge, and both the Judge & Mr. Taylor even complimented me on the work I had put into this case and the way I conducted myself. Mr. Taylor even said he was impressed to see how well I did, I thanked him too and shook his hand, even though he was on the opposing side he was pretty nice and we got on well outside the courtroom before the hearing started.

So yeah, that was basically how things went. Even though I'm £350 out of pocket, it's still better than what potentially could have happened. Also me taking 3 extra copies of all my documents was a GODSEND. Even though I had dropped my bundle off to the court 2 weeks prior, they had lost it and they only had my defence, but no witness statement or evidence pack. Same for Mr. Taylor, he only had my WS and Evidence, but not my Defence!

I'd like to thank everyone on this forum for their help over the last few years, I've learnt a lot and now I would like to try and give back!