County Court Claim - Gladstones

Coupon-mad

I'm looking in another thread that has a 'skeleton argument'. Is this something attached at the same time? Do I need to provide evidence here?

Skeleton arguments are not mandatory, whereas a WS is.

See the NEWBIES thread again. The difference between the two is explained.

Crabman

Threads have been merged

beanparking

Thanks for all of your help and guidance. I have revisited the WS with your feedback, I hope you can let me know if this is in the right direction?

I am the Defendant in this matter, I am unrepresented, with no experience of Court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the way that the Claimant may do, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience.!Needless to say, I deny liability for the entirety of the claim.


In this Witness statement, the facts and matters stated are true and within my own knowledge, except where indicated otherwise.!

1. This matter relates to a car park outside of a local Tesco Express store, where there are bays allocated to both the store customers and residents (with those for the store being free to use). On XX/XX/2017 I had parked in what I believed to be a bay allocated to store customers.


2. Having received no indication at the time from the claimant of my alleged wrongdoing (no ticket at the time, with the first correspondence being received by myself on XX/XX/2018 - nearly 3 months after the alleged claim), my recollection of events is based on general visits to the store. That being said, the time parked in the bay would most likely be for no more than 10 minutes.


3. As set out in my defence, there were no markings at the time to differentiate the bays allocated to Tesco’s customer and those allocated to residents. This can be seen clearly in both the photos provided by the claimant (Exhibit B/C/D) and in photos ascertained through Google Street View taken from the nearest date prior to the date of the claim (Exhibit H/K –XXX 2017/XXX 2016).


4. Furthermore, it is clear that the claimant was aware of the lack of markings, as they have since made an effort to mark bays to indicate which parking bays are allocated to whom (Exhibit G/L/I – from XXX 2018/XXX 2018)


5. As per my defence, I maintain that there was no signage to indicate that I was entering a restricted parking area. This can be seen by the photos from Google Street view taken on XXX (the street from which I entered). This can be seen in Exhibit E/F(March 2018/May 2018), where the only visible signage is to advise drivers of noise and speed limits.


6. Furthermore, you can see that by XXX 2018, the claimant has added a notice to the sign warning of CCTV monitoring for parking (Exhibit J), indicating that they were aware of the previous lack of signage.


7. I would also maintain that the signage that was there did not clearly set out to which parking bays were restricted. In fact, the photo of the signage provided by the claimant (Exhibit M) was attached to a completely different set of parking bays in the middle of the road. The signage was also very low to the ground, in a small font and not illuminated (as you can see in the photo, it was dark at the time).

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.

bergkamp

Get your WS to how you are happy with it, but do not send it until you have received and read the Claimant's WS.
It will no doubt be full of errors that can be added to your WS to help your case.

Obviously don't miss the deadline to send yours to the Claimant and the Court.

Coupon-mad

beanparking wrote: »

My first letter was from debt collectors, several weeks after my alleged offence, with no ticket given at the time.

Check UKCPM's evidence when they send you the WS, as they needed to send you a PCN by post first, and I expect they will show they did (but check).

I am not sure why you are doing the WS as admitted driver? I did tell you how to write it as keeper, given that you told us that no PCN was served, thus they can't hold a keeper liable unless they put one in evidence:

If defending as keeper (not driver) then you can still tell the story, such as that you have visited the site to look at the signs and they are hidden in a corner by the bins (or whatever) and are far from prominent by the bays, where no terms are visible...

Now, it might be easier to defend as driver, but wait to see their evidence first to see if they include a NTK copy.

Don't miss YOUR WS & evidence deadline...but wait till the last day possible before that deadline, so you can get their WS first & tear it apart, as seen on lots of other similar threads.

Read some to see how to demolish a WS, while you are waiting.

beanparking

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Check UKCPM's evidence when they send you the WS, as they needed to send you a PCN by post first, and I expect they will show they did (but check).

I am not sure why you are doing the WS as admitted driver? I did tell you how to write it as keeper, given that you told us that no PCN was served, thus they can't hold a keeper liable unless they put one in evidence:

Now, it might be easier to defend as driver, but wait to see their evidence first to see if they include a NTK copy.

I misunderstood your previous post. Yes, the PCN that they claimed they had been sent via post has come through in their evidence (attached to the WS). I'm guessing the fact that I didn't get this at the time doesn't matter?

Considering this, would it be better to defend as the driver?

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Don't miss YOUR WS & evidence deadline...but wait till the last day possible before that deadline, so you can get their WS first & tear it apart, as seen on lots of other similar threads.

My deadline is tomorrow! I thought I might be able to submit my WS by email, but it doesn't look like that's possible? Otherwise, I could deliver it by hand to the court on my lunch break. I'm guessing that would be preferable to being late by post?

Umkomaas

I misunderstood your previous post. Yes, the PCN that they claimed they had been sent via post has come through in their evidence (attached to the WS). I'm guessing the fact that I didn't get this at the time doesn't matter?

The more important point is does the NtK fully comply with PoFA to hold the keeper liable? If it does, then defending as the keeper has no particular advantage over defending as the driver.

Given the time, if you can't determine whether it is PoFA compliant, scan a copy of both sides and let us have a look at it.

NEWBIES - HOW TO UPLOAD LINKS TO PHOTOS/SCANS TO MSE

To upload a photo/scan link, you first need to host it on a free photo hosting site (like Dropbox or Imgur), copy the URL, paste it here, but change the http to hxxp and we'll do the conversion. Newbies can't directly upload links to photos/scans until they've a few posts under their belt.

beanparking

Umkomaas wrote: »

Given the time, if you can't determine whether it is PoFA compliant, scan a copy of both sides and let us have a look at it.

Thank you so much, here it is:

hxxps://www.dropbox.com/s/d76svsyp6mjybrt/PCN1.jpg?dl=0
hxxps://www.dropbox.com/s/xvykzdq9bo6ilvn/PCN2.jpg?dl=0

Umkomaas

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d76svsyp6mjybrt/PCN1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvykzdq9bo6ilvn/PCN2.jpg?dl=0

They have the wording from PoFA - many of them have now sharpened up their act (eventually, after almost 7 years after its enactment).

Just one final shot - please tell us the date of the parking event and the 'Date Issued' shown on the NtK (which has been redacted on your scan).

beanparking

Umkomaas wrote: »

Just one final shot - please tell us the date of the parking event and the 'Date Issued' shown on the NtK (which has been redacted on your scan).

Incident Date is 26/11/17, the issued date is 8/12/17. So I'm guessing that's a no go?