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Coupon-mad

You REALLY need to leave the complaint until after you've drafted a defence.

In the two weeks you've delayed, there have been maybe half a dozen NEW defences on the forum every single day that you could have copied from. This is soooo much easier than you think and could have been emailed to the CCBC by now.

You only need to search for Gladstones defence, or click on any claim threads.

machang

Ok thank you, this is what I’ve prepared so far.

1) It is admitted that the defendant, Mr residing at xxxxxxxx is the registered keeper of the vehicle.

2) It is denied that any indemnity costs are owed, and any debt is denied in its entirety.

3) The claimant presents a completely unsubstantiated and inflated sum on account for costs, vaguely and incoherently adduced by the claimant's solicitors in their claim. The Particulars are not clear and concise, and the claimant has not provided enough information to file a full defence. In particular, the full details of the contract, which it is alleged was broken, have not been provided.
1. The Claimant has disclosed no cause of action to give rise to any debt.
2. The Claimant has stated that a parking charge was incurred.
3. The Claimant has given no indication of the nature of the alleged charge in the Particulars of Claim. The Claimant has therefore disclosed no cause of action.


5. On the 20th September 2016 another relevant poorly pleaded private parking charge claim by Gladstone’s was struck out by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court without a hearing due to their ‘roboclaim’ particulars being incoherent, failing to comply with CPR. 16.4 and ‘providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law.’
f) On the 27thJuly 2016 DJ Anson sitting at Preston County Court ruled that the very similar parking charge particulars of claim were efficient and failing to meet CPR 16.4 and PD 16 paragraphs 7.3 – 7.6. He ordered the Claimant in that case to file new particulars which they failed to do and so the court confirmed that the claim be struck out.

6) This claim merely states: “ £640 parking charges and indemnity costs if applicable” which does not give an accurate indication of on what basis the claim is brought. For example whether this charge is founded upon an allegation of trespass or 'breach of contract' or contractual 'unpaid fees'. Nor are any clear times/dates or coherent grounds for any lawful claim particularised, nor were any details provided to evidence any contract created nor any copy of this neither contract, nor explanation for the vague description 'parking charges' and 'indemnity costs'. As stated above, evidence that was produced by the claimant was the data of another registered keeper and therefore, a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.

7) Despite the requests for documentation and evidence by the defendant, the claimant has not produced valid documents to date. It is reasonable for the defendant to request sight of documents and evidence as there is doubt as to the whether the claimant invoked Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012 with fully compliant documents. As stated within a letter sent by the defendant to Gladstone’s solicitors, it is the belief of the defendant that the letter of claim does not comply with the requirements of the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct and Protocols. The defendant requested a fully compliant Letter Before Claim from the claimant in order to asses the facts and produce a more detailed response to their correspondence.

8) The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor checking for a true cause of action. HMCS has identified over 1000 similar poorly produced claims and the solicitor's conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the SRA.

9) The term for such conduct is ‘robo-claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. The defendant has reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to the significant detriment of the unrepresented Defendant.

10) It is suggested by the defendant that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.

11) It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim. The proper Claimant (if any debt exists, which is denied) would be the landowner.

12) The alleged debt as described in the claim is an unenforceable penalty, being just the sort of unconscionable charges exposed as offending against the penalty rule, in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

13) The claimant may try to rely upon ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67, ('the Beavis case') yet ParkingEye would not have been able to recover any sum at all without 'agreement on the charge'. In the Beavis case, the £85 charge was held to be allowable to act as a disincentive in that case only, based upon very specific and unique facts in a 'complex' case involving the existence of a specific legitimate interest from the landowners regarding turnover of parking spaces and very clear, brief and prominent signs. In fact, the Supreme Court Judges observed that it would be unfair if drivers were to be penalised for parking slightly out of bay lines when causing no obstruction (this was specifically mentioned at the hearing and was clearly not something they would have allowed). Further, it was held at the Court of Appeal that a parking charge sum of £135 would fail the penalty rule. The authority for this is 'Parkingeye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 1338 (17 October 2012)'.

14) It is submitted that (apart from properly incurred court fees) any added legal fees/costs are simply numbers made up out of thin air, and are an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which would not be recoverable in the small claims court. The lack of diligence in this claim demonstrates admirably that at best a ‘copy and paste' is the closest a human, legally trained or not, came to the information transmitted from claimant to the Money Claims Online system. There are no real costs and POFA prevents claims exceeding the sum on the original parking notice.

15)It is denied that there was any 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' relating to any single parking event.

16 )The defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts claimed due to the aforementioned reasons. It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant is wholly unreasonable; proof of this can be seen from the significant time lapse between receipt of my letters and their thinly produced responses, and their urgency to submit an application to the court without providing relevant information in the first instance. As such, I am keeping a note of my wasted time/costs in dealing with this matter.

17) The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
1. No Letter of Claim was sent to the Defendant and no initial information was sent to the Defendant, the defendant requested this information however, it was not disclosed by the claimant.
2. I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and I'd also point out that there could be no reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the Pre-action Conduct process, especially bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by their own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before issuing proceedings.

18) It is requested by the defendant that the court strike out this claim for the reasons stated above, and for similar reasons cited by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 where a similar claim was struck out without a hearing, due to Gladstone’s' template particulars for a private parking firm being 'incoherent', failing to comply with CPR16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''.

Statement of Truth: I confirm that the contents of this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

The_Deep

I’m not sure if I should contact the fuel garage to ask them to cancel the claim?

Of course you should, that should be your top priority. However, you have trespassed on their land several times, so you should perhaps offer them compensation and profuse apologies.

Coupon-mad

Your draft defence doesn't tell the Judge what the case is about, what the facts are that the Defendant knows, or what your actual defence even is.

Look at any recent defence here and you will see 'the facts are' near the top.

machang

Ok, back to the drawing board. I’m been going through all these different defences since late night on the forum and my mind is boggled right now. They keep linking to different defences and it’s confusing for me.

Il keep reading for a few hours as I have an afternoon off, hopefully come back with something that doesn’t look look like a mish mash of blended copy and paste’s.

I’m not sure if I even mentioned I’m pretty sure I bought petrol on some of the occasions I parked there. And I genuinely did speak to the manager of the garage at the time about parking there while I was volunteering across the road. I’m guessing this is irrelevant now and should not mention it in my case. Just stick to technicalities like the gentleman mentioned above.

Coupon-mad

I’m pretty sure I bought petrol on some of the occasions I parked there. And I genuinely did speak to the manager of the garage at the time about parking there while I was volunteering across the road. I’m guessing this is irrelevant

Not irrelevant and those are the sort of facts I told you to start any defence with!

Defences don't ever link to different defences.

Read actual defence POSTS, not entire threads.

ADVANCED SEARCH the forum for defence promissory estoppel true & change to 'show results as posts' in the bottom left search menu.

Then you see what we see. I've just done that exact search to check what comes up.

Look at the defence in your search results, by FTB_Peter. I'm NOT linking it! I want you to find it because it helps you soooo much more during this process if your first thought is NOT to ask us as if it's all new, but to search the forum and be confident at what to read. NEVER search for threads! POSTS.

machang

Ok. Thank you. This is like being back at school but twice as terrifying.

Coupon-mad

Ha, it's not that bad.

Easy peasy to find that defence, and I want you to be confident with this forum. It will help you, honestly. So go and do the Advanced Search I told you to and look for the result I mentioned.

machang

Wow. That is an impressive defence, and somewhat similar to mine.

So “promissory estoppel true” was the verbal agreement that that the manager at the time said I was fine to park there, and is enforceable by law.

I will put something together now based around FTB’s defence. I’m 100% positive I can get confirmation from the charity that I was working for them on those dates, they’re all bar one Friday evenings after work and also a bank holiday Monday. I also have the reference they gave me after my 12 month stint. I don’t think I still have the receipts from those dates, I will have to ask my accountant.

Coupon-mad

See how easy it now seems, now you know how to use the forum best? Suddenly your defence task is much simpler.

So “promissory estoppel true” was the verbal agreement that that the manager at the time said I was fine to park there, and is enforceable by law.

No, just promissory estoppel.

I told you to include the word TRUE in your search, so you ONLY found defences and witness statements as results. The word 'true' only appears in actual documentary statement replies, and stops your search finding people talking in general terms about promissory estoppel. I wanted to make your search results easier to pick through.