BW Legal LOC for NCP parking

Le_Kirk

Here is your link made live: -
https://imgur.com/a/iTDZu6s

Olly123

Thank Le_kirk,

Happy new year! I'm back now and ready to start drafting the defence for our case, I've read through some of the ones on the newbies thread and will get a draft attached over the next week or so.

Quick question before I start as just trying to find the most relevant defence listed in the newbies thread to use as a guide, unless I'm being stupid I can't see one relating just a basic ANPR caught us leaving late. In my case it was only 22 minutes over from when the ticket was purchased but 32 minutes on the ANPR.

Thanks in advance!

Le_Kirk

Your Go To place is the NEWBIE sticky post # 2, where you will find concise defences written by Bargepole and links to several different scenarios.

Olly123

Hi everyone, apologies for the delay in getting this draft across. Bit a horrible start to the year with multiple trips to a&e with wife and child so I've struggled to get the time to draft this up. Nearly decided to pay the charge and move on but couldn't bring myself to let these companies win!

Here's the first draft I've done. Thank you in advance for any help/advice.

In The County Court
Claim No: XXXXXXX
Between
National Car Parks Limited

-and-

XXXXXXX (Defendant)

____________
DEFENCE
____________


1. The Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of vehicle registration number XXXXXXX on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle. These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

3. The allegation appears to be based on images by the claimants ANPR camera at the entrance and exit to the car park. This is merely an image of the vehicle in transit, entering and leaving the car park and as such is not evidence of the registered keeper not purchasing the appropriate parking time.

4. The ANPR only shows that the car entered the carpark and then exited 1 hour and 34 minutes later.

5. What an ANPR fails to show and the defendant has received no evidence of; (even with repeated contact to the various companies that have harassed them) is the time it took to find a suitable parking space, to unload a buggy, to see to an ill child and also to find the parking machines and purchase a ticket. There has also been no evidence given of a ticket not being purchased for the allotted time.

6. The defendant believes that without the relevant evidence of the ticket being bought and overstaying that they would have still been within the grace period allowed.

7. It is also to be noted that the parking site where the apparent infringement took place uses a pay and display system that collects the vehicle registration. As such the need to utilise ANPR on top of a paying ticket machine doesn’t make any sense and certainly seems like a route to use one against the other, against the rights and interests of thousands of unsuspecting visitors to the claimant’s site.

8. 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. OR The claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is renumerated and the particulars of the claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £60 “legal costs” (or even admin) were incurred.

9. In summary, the defendant has received no actual evidence of any breach, the only information it’s gathered is that the vehicle in question used a car park and has pictures of it entering and exiting. It is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.


I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

Coupon-mad

Looks good. I would remove:

doesn’t make any sense

and add extra defence points about:

- the Claimant is not the landowner and has no standing, etc. (see other defences for this one)

- the sign beside the PDT machine failed to mention the £100 penalty at all. The Defendant was not the driver (NB - only if true!!) but has local knowledge and having inspected the sparse signs the list of tariffs does not include the parking charge claimed.

- further, UKCPS' few other signs at that location are badly placed - indeed hidden behind foliage or in corners set back and high - and appear to be gobbledegook, overly wordy, with no clear information about any 'contract' and with all terms in small print with a lack of white space. Vitally, the £100 is not in the largest lettering, setting it at odds with the clear and prominent £85 parking charge that was upheld based on the unusually clear and brief signs in Beavis.

Olly123

Thanks Coupon-mad, I’ll update the draft tomorrow and send it over.

One quick question regarding point 8, I’ve put two options in there, not sure which is better?

Coupon-mad

I'd replace #8 with this more robust version, changing the £sum to suit:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75304578#Comment_75304578

That's the sort of argument to remember when costs are mentioned.

Olly123

Hi again and thank you, updated draft below... With a bit of digging I actually think NCP are the land owners of the car park in question, nothing concrete but found a few articles about auctions and NCP being the land owner so I've left that bit out. I'm also going to take a trip back to the site tomorrow before submitting the defence just to make sure the signage is as poor as I've made it out to be!

In The County Court
Claim No: XXXXXXX
Between
National Car Parks Limited

-and-

XXXXXXX (Defendant)

____________
DEFENCE
____________


1. The Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of vehicle registration number XXXXXXX on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle. These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

3. The allegation appears to be based on images by the claimants ANPR camera at the entrance and exit to the car park. This is merely an image of the vehicle in transit, entering and leaving the car park and as such is not evidence of the registered keeper not purchasing the appropriate parking time.

4. The ANPR only shows that the car entered the carpark and then exited 1 hour and 34 minutes later.

5. What an ANPR fails to show and the defendant has received no evidence of; (even with repeated contact to the various companies that have harassed them) is the time it took to find a suitable parking space, to unload a buggy, to see to an ill child and to find the parking machines to purchase a ticket. There has also been no evidence given of a ticket not being purchased for the allotted time.

6. The defendant believes that without the relevant evidence of the ticket being bought and overstaying that they would have still been within the grace period allowed.

7. It is also to be noted that the parking site where the apparent infringement took place uses a pay and display system that collects the vehicle registration. As such the need to utilise ANPR on top of a paying ticket machine certainly seems like a route to use one against the other, against the rights and interests of thousands of unsuspecting visitors to the claimant’s site.



8. The sign beside the PDT machine failed to mention the £100 penalty at all. The Defendant has local knowledge and having inspected the sparse signs the list of tariffs does not include the parking charge claimed.

9. Further, NCP’s few other signs at that location are badly placed - indeed hidden behind foliage or in corners set back and high - and appear to be gobbledegook, overly wordy, with no clear information about any 'contract' and with all terms in small print with a lack of white space. Vitally, the £100 is not in the largest lettering, setting it at odds with the clear and prominent £85 parking charge that was upheld based on the unusually clear and brief signs in Beavis.

10. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (the POFA) 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 the PCN states a maximum of £100 depending on the Claimant's full compliance with the POFA and establishing a breach of a 'relevant obligation' and/or 'relevant contract' from adequately prominent, large lettering terms on copious and clear signage.

10.1.This claim inflates the total to an eye-watering £241.72 in a clear attempt at double recovery. The Defendant trusts that the presiding Judge will recognise this wholly unreasonable conduct as a gross abuse of process and may consider using the court's case management powers to strike the claim out of the court's own volition. The acid test is whether the conduct permits of a reasonable explanation, but the Defendant avers it cannot.

10.2.It was held in the Supreme Court in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage of profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. It is also a fact that debt collection agencies act on a no-win-no-fee basis for parking operators, so no such costs have been incurred in truth. Thus, there can be no 'damages' to pile on top of any parking charge claim, nor 'indemnity costs if applicable', whatever that cut&paste phrase may mean. The Claimant knows this, as do their solicitors who charge little or no fee to IPC members, given the connection between BW Legal and the IPC Trade Body, and the Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this repeated abuse of consumers rights and remedies, caused by IPC/BW Legal clients artificially inflating their robo-claims.

11. In summary, the defendant has received no actual evidence of any breach, the only information it’s gathered is that the vehicle in question used a car park and has pictures of it entering and exiting. It is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.


I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

12.
Name
Signature
Date

Olly123

Further to the above I've revisited today and seen that the signage is actually quite prominent... Upon entering there is a big sign that details everything and in smaller writing but not tiny it states the £100 charge...

Then there are signs dotted all over stating about the terms and conditions of parking there... By the pay machines the sign listed the £100 but that was extremely small

I've posted a few in a dead link below with details redacted and noted where each one was... Based on this info do you think I should remove or reword points 8&9?

hxxps://imgur.com/a/74jrZAp

And final thing, i know I'd said about the landowner being NCP but on one of the signs in those links it says it's managed by NCP with the authority of the landowner, so does this mean NCP don't own the land? If so I'll add in the ommitted sentence!

Once again thank you for all of your help!

Le_Kirk

Your link made live: -
https://imgur.com/a/74jrZAp