Vehicle Control Services - myparkingcharge.co.uk

dan0292

Hi All,

I am now in the process of writing up my witness statement and gathering evidence ready to send to the claimant and the court.

I have already received the claimants witness statement and evidence and they have stated under several points they are not chasing the claim under POFA 2012 but in fact under agency of law.
What does this mean?

Thanks in advance
Dan

KeithP

Read it again. Did they perhaps say "law of agency"?

If so, stick those words, including the quotation marks, into google for a full explanation.

dan0292

Apologies, I meant Law of agency, i was rushing my post yesterday!

Also, I i didn't mean to ask what it is - what I really mean is do i need to alter the angle i approach my case with based on this information. Is it normal for them to say they are chasing the claim under the law of agency?

THX-1-1-3-8

Out of interest dan did you ever make a SAR with VCS?

Mrs.Anon

Hi KeithP,

I too have a VCS claim and I am expecting their witness statement shortly. I suspect they will also state 'law of agency' however when reading about it I am struggling to make the link between law of agency and POFA.... is the law of agency referring to VCS' authority to act on behalf of the Land owner? or is it that VCS have apparent authority to designate rules and the driver is the third party which is bound by those rules?

Thanks!

KeithP

By mentioning 'law of agency' - do they also mention the case of CPS Ltd v AJH Films Ltd? - they are suggesting that the driver was acting as an 'agent' of the keeper.

In other words they are suggesting that the keeper is responsible for the actions of the driver.

In most circumstances that is clearly ridiculous.

By searching the forum for law of agency you will find several Defence points that challenge that. Here is just one:

4. Should the Claimant attempt to rely yet again on the irrelevant case of CPS Ltd v AJH Films Ltd, in an attempt to suggest to a Court that a driver 'acts on behalf of' an individual consumer registered keeper, using their well-documented and twisted interpretation of the law of agency, the Defendant points out that that there can be no agent/principal relationship between individual drivers and keepers in a family.

dan0292

Hi all, please see my first pass at a witness statement, if anyone has got a chance for a look over and could point out any obvious points I shouldn't be mentioning or anything major I should include.

Thanks again.


IN THE COUNTY COURT AT DERBY

CLAIM No. *********

Between:
Vehicle Control Services Limited (Claimant)
-and-
********** (Defendant)

____________

WITNESS STATEMENT
____________

I am *********************************************************************, the defendant in this matter. I am unrepresented with no legal background or training and have had no previous experience of county court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the correct way, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience. I will say as follows:

INTRODUCTION

1. I make this statement in readiness for the hearing scheduled for the *********r 2019.

2. Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents marked Exhibit *** to *** to which I will refer to for evidence.

3. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. Where they are not within my knowledge, they are true to the best of my information and belief.

4. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle registration *******.

5. I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defence already filed.

6. It is not denied that my vehicle was parked in the Southgate Retail park on the day of question being the **********, the evidence from the claimant are clear that this is the case.

NOTICE TO KEEPER

7. It is factual that the Notice to Keeper (NTK) was delivered to my parents’ house at *******************, this was dated the 5th September 2018. This was 88 days after the alleged offence.

8. As I had not lived at ****** for nearly 2 years at the arrival date of the NTK I didn’t see it straight away. It was over 4 weeks later when I opened it thus making it too late to initially appeal to the alleged offence.

9. There are at least 5 other people who have access to and drive my vehicle, either insured directly on my insurance or who are insured through their own insurance company.

10. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 9(4) states that the NOTICE TO KEEPER (NTK) must be delivered to the current address for service for the keeper within the relevant period. Section 9(5) states this period is 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended. With the date of ***** the NTK should have been received by the Defendant by ****** (this is considering the NTK is delivered on the second working day after being posted – stated in Section 9(6)). The NTK was issued (as stated on the NTK) on *******, this is 88 days after the contravention date, therefore the Claimant cannot establish keeper liability under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

11. To add to the points from paragraph 8 regarding POFA 2012, 88 days was too far in the past to remember who was driving my vehicle. It is denied that the registered keeper can be held liable for this charge, given the lack of adequate notice of the parking charge itself and given the Claimant's own failure to comply with the only applicable law that can allow them to transfer liability to a registered keeper.


UNCLEAR SIGNAGE

12. I would like to refer to YC-1 SITE INFORMATION, more specifically the site boundary plans. The single entrance board (shown as yellow circle black cross) can only be seen if accessed by turning right into Southgate Retail Park, this is not clearly visible if accessing by turning left into the retail park. Please see *** which shows the sign in question while exiting the retail park. Please also refer to video *** which shows how the entrance board is not clearly visible on entrance to the retail park.

13. Please refer to photos in ***. These images were taken on Friday 13th September 2019. I would argue that these signs are not clear to a driver when in a moving vehicle entering the retail park. The signs are not clearly signs for terms and conditions and could easily be dismissed by anyone passing. Please also refer to my video *** which was taken as a passenger in a vehicle entering Southgate Retail Park on 13th September 2019, this video emphasizes the points made above that the signage is not clear to a moving vehicle.

14. It is worth noting that the images discussed above, if looked at carefully, show that the time allowed to park at Southgate Retail Park has now increased from 2 hours to 2 ½ hours. This is longer than the time that my vehicle was parked there on the *********.

15. The claimant has not made any reference to the terms and conditions changing since the alleged offence.

16. The claimant hasn’t stated when the images in YC1 were taken, from the evidence provided I cannot be sure what the terms and conditions were at Southgate Retail Park on the *******. I also cannot be sure when they changed from 2 hours to 2 ½ hours.


INFLATED PARKING CHARGE

17. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

18. In addition to the 'parking charge', the Claimant has artificially inflated the value of the Claim by adding costs of £60 which has not actually been incurred by the Claimant, and which are artificially invented figures in an attempt to circumvent the Small Claims costs rules using double recovery. It is an abuse of process from the claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover.

CLAIMANT’S WITNESS STATEMENT

19. I will refer to the claimant’s witness statement by numbering of paragraphs within it.

20. Reference paragraph 12, the claimant states that the ANPR system used will capture vehicles if they use the same entry and exit point or not. I would assume that there is more than one entry or exit to Southgate Retail Park, however there is only one. This leads me to believe that this point is copied and pasted from another case, hoping to abuse the process to claim unjustified money from the public.

21. Reference paragraph 14 – the claimant hasn’t stated when the photos were taken, and as stated previously the signs have changed since these were taken, I cannot be sure when they changed.

22. I disagree with paragraphs 15 and 16 based on my points 12-16 along with the evidence referenced in them.

23. Paragraph 42 is denied, based on the evidence I have already given, the signage is not clear, and the driver would not have clearly seen the warning.

24. Paragraph 47 is denied. Liability cannot be transferred to the keeper.

SUMMARY

25. The late delivery of the NTK makes it impossible to transfer liability to the keeper as the time elapsed was too long to establish who the driver was on this occasion.

26. The signage was not clear to a moving vehicle, neither on the entrance or any of the signs within Southgate Retail Park. This made it impossible for the driver to enter any contract with the Claimant.

27. The claim of £160 is an attempt at double recovery and is an abuse of process to make profit.










Statement of Truth

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

……………………………………………
Name


……………………………………………
Signature


……………………………………………
Date

Coupon-mad

You need Excel v Smith as an Exhibit.

And to see VCS's template WS rubbished already on this forum, just search for one of the case surnames they blather on about. Then copy what someone else did earlier as a longer WS, demolishing this, blow by blow.

Search for a case surname...this is so simple. I say this on every VCS thread, arrgggh!

dan0292

Hi everyone,

Thought I would give a quick account of my time in court 2 weeks ago (18th October), not had chance to do it up until now.

First of all thanks to everyone who has put help on this board and also replied to my posts to offer their help, without this resource I wouldn't be able to even consider fighting this case.

My time at court was 10:00 at Derby Combined Court Centre, there was 4 cases in the hearing room for the same time and mine was 4th in that list - the 3rd was also another VCS case but the defendant didn't turn up. I did notice that another hearing room had another 3 or 4 VCS cases, so a very busy day for them!
First case looked abit messy as 2 couples were arguing in the waiting area afterwards!
I finally got called into the hearing room at 11:20.
The judge introduced everyone into the room as the hearing was being recorded, I think VCS was represented by an external party but I didn't get chance to challenge the right of audience as the judge started very quickly.
The judge had clearly read through all the documentation and quickly jumped onto my point about the notice to keeper arriving 88 days late, and asked the rep what his thoughts were on this matter to which he replied ' the notice came within 2 weeks' , the judge asked the rep if he was sure about this to which he checked his own documentation and quickly realised that the NTK stated contravention date of 12th June 2018 and issue date in September 2018. The judge asked him his thoughts and stated that if POFA 2012 which I had quoted was correct that the case would be doomed to fail. The rep said ' If that's the case then I suppose that's it' , the judge then asked him if he would like 10 minutes to get direction, to which he agreed and we collected our stuff and went back out the room.

After 15 minutes of waiting and the rep making multiple calls the rep told the usher that he was ready and we went back into the hearing room.

Once back in the hearing room the rep claimed that they had never received my witness statement and only my defence, and asked for the case to be adjourned so they had chance to see my witness statement.
The judge asked me if I had sent it and when - to which I told him and he then asked for evidence of this ( the one thing i forgot to bring with me was the receipt for the recorded delivery - typical!) I thought this was going to go against me but the judge weighed up the options and decided on the balance of probability that I probably did send the witness statement to them as the court received it, and this was probably an excuse y the claimant to delay proceedings, but for the size of the claim he was not going to entertain adjourning it.

The judge moved on to talk about his judgement and spoke about the circumstances a little bit and eventually came to his conclusion that he was dismissing the case!!

He asked if either of us had anything else to add, so I asked if i could claim costs. The judge asked if I had the detail or a document which shown them, obviously I had my schedule of costs ready to hand over to them both.
The judge put the ball into the reps court to ask him what I could claim for, he said I could claim a capped £95 for lost wages/annual leave, and also for the mileage and parking (twice, 1x for dropping evidence pack to court and 1x for court day), the rep stated I couldn't claim the 4x hours @£19 per hour for drafting documents or for the stationary etc.
The judge looked at me so I responded that due to the lack of preparation on the day and the fact the case had even made it to court that I believed the claimant had acted unreasonably and that I was able to claim these. I told him I couldn't remember under what act this was so the judge told me (I mentioned I had no experience in law and the judge actually complimented me on how well prepared I was!!!!)
The judge agreed with me that the claimant had acted unreasonably and awarded me the costs for the time spent drafting documents but told me I was being silly trying to claim for stationary and took them off.
The judge added up the figures and told the rep they had 2 weeks to pay.

As we left the rep asked for my bank details to transfer the money across, I refused as I didn't want to give these details to the claimant and requested a cheque and confirmed my address to him


So all in all a good day!!

Letter has arrived today from the court confirming the outcome and amount owed to me by the claimant. It will be interesting to see whether this gets paid on time or not!

Anybody know what steps I will need to take if it doesn't get paid on time??

Thanks again everyone.

Ralph-y

letter before claim .........:)




oh and well done






ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST.

Ralph:cool: