Private Parking Fine Court Case

Esiole123

I am currently in the process of Parking Control Management taking me to court for an unpaid parking ticket. Their representation ‘Gladstone Solicitors’ sent me a letter stating they had informed the court of their intent to proceed with their defence and also sent me a copy of their Directions Questionnaire. I called the court a few days later to see what my next steps were as I had no heard from the court directly and they had not received any correspondence from Gladstone about their intent to proceed as states in the letter they sent me nor had they received a Directions Questionnaire as they claimed. So not only did they lie, but sending the letter to me directly is surely not allowed as they should be dealing with me through the court? Is this enough to merit my case being written off? Any advice would be really helpful. Thanks

Quentin

Short answer is no

Everyone is politely asked to read up on this in the newbies FAQ thread near the top of the forum before starting a new threadC

Court proceedings are covered there in #2

Read up there for advice on how to deal with this

Await notification from Court on whether the case is proceeding

Umkomaas

You have to go through the full process.

Clutching at straws is diversionary and wasteful of energy. Concentrate your efforts.

System

What are they claiming the driver did? And how many tickets? Details will be in the box marked "Particulars" in the middle of the left hand side.

What actually happened? And what was the defence you put in as you are at the DQ stage?

Esiole123

Hi everyone thanks for your replies
This sounds way too good to be true but unfortunately it is. I received the ticket sometime in February this year but I am unaware of what I actually did or when I did it because I lived on a student village and many pranksters pulled tickets off cars and I was one of them. I didn’t receive any communication from PCM who gave me the ticket until I was inevitably given a court order to either pay up or defend. I offered to pay in part if they would send me evidence of my offence but they haven’t. All I know of my offence is that it happened in February and on the student village I lived on and nothing else. So at this current point in time I have virtually no physical evidence to defend myself with. I am at the DQ stage and just the one ticket

The_Deep

This is most unlikely to be a hoax and we have no silver bullets. At the very least, you will have to put in several hours work to bat them off. The alternative is to pay, but read on before you do.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week, hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. It has even been suggested that some of these companies have links with organised ccrime.

Watch the video of the Second Reading and committee stage in the House of Commons recently. MPs have a very low opinion of this industry.

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-07-19/debates/2b90805c-bff8-4707-8bdc-b0bfae5a7ad5/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill(FirstSitting)

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by early in the New Year.

System

To get the information you need to defend, you send a Subject Access Request (SAR) to PCM and a second one to the DVLA. There will be information in the Newbies thread about how to do this.

There will also be information about how to fill in the DQ form. It's not too difficult as long as you keep to the court process and get the information.

There is a slight issue though with the earlier statement " I offered to pay in part if they would send me evidence of my offence" but we can deal with that when you get the information.

Any hearing is likely to be in Feb 2019 so plenty of time to get the details but don't miss any court timings.

Is this Salisbury Village?

Esiole123

Okay thanks for your advice I will look into this. Yes it was on Salisbury Village, it must have a reputation

System

Yes it was on Salisbury Village, it must have a reputation

It does. It is also the normal PCM poor signage and signs high up - its the way they make their money.

If you do a forum search for Salisbury Village, there will be information and pics you can use to sort this one out.