Gladstone Solicitor's Parking Claim - Court case

SuperBala

Hello,

My wife received a Court Claim Form from Gladstone Solicitors (UK Car Park Management Limited is the claimant).

The Particulars of Claim stated:

The Driver of the vehicle registrations XXX (the 'vehicle') incurred the parking charge(s) on 09/09/2017 for breaching the terms of parking on the land at XXX (address).
The Defendant was driving the vehicle and/or is the Keeper of the vehicle.
AND HT CLAIMANT CLAIMS
£160 for parking charges / Damages and indemnity costs if applicable, together with interest of £12.60 pursuant to s69 of the Courts Act 1984 at 8% pa, continuing to Judgement at £0.04 per day.

This is the first we heard about this "ticket"!

The defence was sent online within the deadline as follows:

Dear County Court Business Centre

Prior to receiving this claim form, I have had no correspondence /
conversations with UK Car Park Management (The Claimant). No one
from their company has made any attempt to contact me.

Furthermore, the claimant has alleged this parking breach and has
not provided any evidence or description of what the alleged
breach was.

Upon investigation, I have discovered that the address of the
alleged parking breach in Guildford is where some friends of mine
live. It is possible that I visited them at their home in
September 2017 as they had just had a baby so I could have been
meeting their newborn. However, I have always parked within the
designated visitors parking bays. There are limited visitor bays
so I always look carefully to ensure parking in the correct
designated space. I am therefore unclear what the alleged parking
breach is.

The claimant has made this claim for an alleged parking breach
that was more than 1 year ago. They have not provided any evidence
or had any communication with myself prior to issuing this claim.

I would therefore kindly ask the claimant to clarify what
exactly is the alleged parking breach and please provide
evidence. I believe this should have been done and a dialogue with
myself regarding this issue before what should be the final step
of issuing a claim against me and taking this to a court
proceeding.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours Sincerely

She has now received a letter from the HM Courts and Tribunals Service acknowledging the receipt of defence and saying that the Claimant may contact her directly to attempt to resolve any dispute.

Gladstone Solicitors already sent an email saying that they have notified the Court of their clients intention to proceed with the claim. They sent the Directions Questionnaire, which will be filed with the court upon their request. They are requesting a special direction that the case be dealt with on the papers and without the need for an oral hearing, stating this request is sought simply because the matter is in our Client’s opinion relatively straightforward and the costs incurred by both parties for attending an oral hearing would be disproportionate. They have also elected not to mediate and that Notwithstanding this, our Client would be happy to listen to any genuine payment proposals that you wish to put forward

After reading loads in this forum and others, here is my understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong!):

1- The defence should have been more substantiated.
2- We should not agree to papers only
3- We should write back to Gladstones (copying the Court) denying any fault or payment proposal as we believe to not have been at fault.
4- Wait for the next steps

Questions:
A- Can we send a more sound, substantial defence at this stage? i.e. quoting ParkingEye v Beavis, for instance? If so, should I send this to Gladstones?
B- How do I know what their claim refers to if we have never received any documentation/proof about this?
C- Don't they have the burden of proof as the claimant? Can I request any pertaining documentation/proof from Gladstones at this stage?
D- My wife was 8+ months pregnant at the time of said infraction, and also had our 3yo with her on that day. Would this count as extenuating circumstances in case a genuine mistake would have happened?
E- Gladstone requests that the hearing would take place at the Claimant's location. Can this be refuted?
F- Are these charges claimed even fair?
G- What is the best course of action here? Please help!

Thank you very much everyone. I truly appreciate your assistance.

Quentin

Not necessary to get confirmation of what you have gleaned in the FAQ. They are up to date!


Too late to write a rebuttal to the Claimant/amend your defence etc

KeithP

You need to be reading post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread.
All your questions are answered there.

To answer your questions:

A) you can, but it will cost £255 to do so - probably not worth it.

Write and ask them. This really should've been done as soon as you became aware of the issue.

C) Yes,

D) Possibly, although the Claimant will ignore it.

E) Yes - at Directions Questionnaire time.

F) No.

G) As stated above - You need to be reading post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread - in particular look for the link to Bargepole's 'what happens when' post.

bargepole

Dear County Court Business Centre

Prior to receiving this claim form, I have had no correspondence /
conversations with UK Car Park Management (The Claimant). No one
from their company has made any attempt to contact me.

Furthermore, the claimant has alleged this parking breach and has
not provided any evidence or description of what the alleged
breach was.

Upon investigation, I have discovered that the address of the
alleged parking breach in Guildford is where some friends of mine
live. It is possible that I visited them at their home in
September 2017 as they had just had a baby so I could have been
meeting their newborn. However, I have always parked within the
designated visitors parking bays. There are limited visitor bays
so I always look carefully to ensure parking in the correct
designated space. I am therefore unclear what the alleged parking
breach is.

The claimant has made this claim for an alleged parking breach
that was more than 1 year ago. They have not provided any evidence
or had any communication with myself prior to issuing this claim.

I would therefore kindly ask the claimant to clarify what
exactly is the alleged parking breach and please provide
evidence. I believe this should have been done and a dialogue with
myself regarding this issue before what should be the final step
of issuing a claim against me and taking this to a court
proceeding.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours Sincerely

Oh dear.

It remains a mystery why people write stuff like this, without first researching what a Defence should look like.

This reads like a letter to Tescos complaining about stale bread.

It should be put in the stickies as an example of how NOT to write a Defence.

Coupon-mad

Oh dear indeed, this will be a hard one to rescue at Witness Statement/evidence stage but we are up for the attempt, as ever!