CEL sent two different Witness Statements!!

Rouge1

Hi

I have thoroughly read through all the relevant threads (incl Newbies) and had obtained such helpful information that aided me through each stage of my claim against CEL.

However, I have noticed that nobody else has experienced CEL sending them two different witness statements. My main defence was keeper liability, inadequate signange as well as the usual sparse POC. CEL had sent their usual generic WS in August (the one that i have seen on some threads) they had not relied on POFA and failed to enclose their exhibits.

Once i had sent my served WS over to them (a day before the 14th day before trial). They had then sent me their served revised witness statement two days after, breaching the terms of the order (I have only just received it today and collected it from the post office). This witness statement is more in relation to my claim and addresses my defence. The exhibits are complete (pics of signage, POFA, PCN etc) and there are not any discrepencies like the first one. The issue now is, with this revised witness statement, they mention POFA and address keeper liability- a defence that i was strongly relying on as I was not the driver and did not receive a PCN nor a reminder! Surely they cannot send me two different witness statements? Is this something I can address to the Judge as well as the late service of their evidence?

As my hearing date is tomorrow afternoon, I do not know if I can rely on keepers liability as a defence. I would really appreciate your assistance in this matter. I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you for this wonderful forum, it really is helping many people out here who are subject to an unfair parking charge.

Many Thanks!

Redx

not sure how you do this but you object to their late WS and ask the judge to strike it out due to its lateness and the fact they waited to see yours before revising theirs

KeithP

If you only received their revised witness statement the day before the hearing, that is totally unacceptable.

You must point this out to the judge at the start of the hearing.

How long ago did RM tell you the package was available for your collection?
That may well be of interest to the judge too.

Rouge1

I was planning on doing just that! CEL made a very cheeky move! However, I have read that it is at the Judges discretion to accept late evidence/documents, although I can't imagine the Judge being too pleased with late submissions... I just hope I have a nice Judge!

Rouge1

KeithP Apologies I may have not clarified my reasoning in my initial post but what i mean is that I had sent my evidence on 19th Dec. 20th was the 14 day cut off point to serve, they had sent their revised WS on 21st (so a day late) but as it was signed for I had missed the delivery and saw the slip in my post this morning, that's when I went to RM. To be honest, I did not expect them to send any evidence post 20th as that was the cut off point. It is highly unprofessional of them seeing as though they are involved in so many cases and have been in this position many times! It is very unusual for them to do this.

KeithP

Yes, I that's what I read from your earlier post.
I have no idea how the judge may react to you having left the package for well over a week at best.

You can be sure that the Claimant will insist it is only a day or so late, and judges often will accept that has caused you no harm.

It will be difficult, but you must object.

Rouge1

KeithP the judge was in the favour of the Claimant and accepted their revised witness statement despite my constant efforts of telling him to strike it out on the basis that it was late and also there were two different witness statements. It was really unfair as the claimant clearly took advantage of me sending my witness statement earlier than them! I felt as if he was leaning more towards the Claimant.

When I told the judge that I had only just received the WS yesterday, he asked if I wanted extra time. I explained that you cannot expect the defendant to receive evidence from the claimant AFTER the deadline, it’s just simply unfair. The judge adjourned the hearing on that basis.
He then went on to address that the adjourned hearing will deal the issue of Keeper Liability. He stated that the PCN states POFA therefore the procedure was correct. I confirmed that I didn’t even receive the PCN that they had exhibited nor the reminder that they state in their WS. The court will establish whether the PCN was received or not on the next hearing (not sure how they’re going to go about doing that). The judge advised me to settle but why should I pay a single penny to the claimant if I was not the driver? And frankly cannot even remember who may have drove my car as it was over a year ago!

I am not in the best of moods, I just want this issue out of the way and I’m not sure whether I should settle by paying the claimant?

Redx

POFA2012 assigns the liability to the keeper, the will of Parliament over 6 years ago , so not being the driver is no defence to any POFA compliant invoice

your vehicle , your responsibility , unless you name the driver, which you didnt (I know you say you had no paperwork)

to win, you win on a technicality , which is always the way of these issues

how much are they claiming ? what is their charges breakdown ?

chances are they have added debt fees onto the figure, which is double recovery. a typical loss is £100 for a pcn and £75 or so in legal fees , so any settlement should be that figure, OR LESS

ONE QUESTION IS WHY NO INITIAL PCN OR NTK ?

maybe you moved and didnt update the V5C ? (a common occurrence) , this can carry a "fine" of up to £1000 imposed on the keeper for being tardy

many issues are unresolved because we dont know all the background, or what checks you have done about any technical issues that would have won this for you

clearly it is up to the PPC to prove to the judge that they fully complied with POFA2012 , seeing as how that seems to be your current issue

what you have to remember is that you lose as keeper if the PPC have all their ducks in a row , doesnt matter if you were in Timbuctoo or a Dubai hotel at the time

Rouge1

Redx I understand however prior to the claimant’s late revised WS they had not relied on POFA. Since I had never come across the PCN and NTK, I had no idea what was written in it and whether they quoted POFA. How can the claimant possibly prove they sent it if they didn’t deliver it by a signed for service? In that case anyone can falsely claim they’ve sent a document over without any proof of postage? I had only received correspondence from the debt collectors and that’s is how I found out about this claim.

What’s funny is that the claimant claimed to have sent me so many notices, yet only exhibited the PCN. I asked why the reminder wasn’t exhibited and the claimant had nothing to say! She then told the judge that that the PCN was the only document that they had on file, completely contradictory to her former statement! I’m so surprised that the judge failed to pick up on that!
I haven’t moved house so I should have received the letters!

They are claiming £300+ and have indeed over inflated their figures which I have addressed in my defence and witness statement. I’m surprised the judge didn’t have anything to say with regards to that, or on the inadequate, divulged, templated POC. They have offered to settle for £100 on a few occasions.

Poor signage is also a defence that I am bringing forward. They had taken pics of signs but had not established the matter data of each picture. Can I not argue that the signs could have been put up after the alleged contravention because when I had assessed the area a few months after the alleged contravention, the signs were not there? Therefore the pics were taken after I had visited the area?

Would you suggest that I write to the claimant to strike out in the basis of signage? Or do you think I should pay £100 and settle?

Thank you for your response, much appreciated

Redx

I appreciate you are a rookie or naive in this legal matter, but your research should have led to you knowing that these legal things are not done by "signed for" service

all they have to do is prove they issued and sent it by royal mail and the legal precedent is that it is deemed to have been delivered to the recipient 2 days later

try googling it, like this one using CPR

http://www.aboutsmallclaims.co.uk/serving-court-papers-documents.html


no signed for and no special delivery required (not just for this issue but all these legal documents) , even the ones you received were by first class post or similar, I doubt they were "signed for" or any special service

so now you know that you wont win on that technicality, concentrate on the legal matters of POFA2012, no landowner contract , poor , inadequate or missing signage etc

make them prove all of their case , especially with POFA, its been around since 2012 so its no surprise that they woulkd bring up a law (any law) in their claim, or any legal precedents like BEAVIS

did you do a costs order ? if not, then you havent done your homework, its all detailed in our NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread , post #2

send the claimant a SAR asap and get all they have, docs , pics , evidence, contracts, ntk,s pcn,s , everything

send it to their DPO asap

as for legal advice, you wont get that from me or most people on here because we have no legal qualifications or experience, this isnt a legal forum (read my signature below my posts where it already told you this)

I leave the actual legal advice to those qualified in it, which is the way it should be

but what I do is read hundreds or thousands of threads, posts, comments, links etc and from what I have read I have told you the gist of what I know, but you could easily search for the same info yourself

I doubt that there is anything new to discuss on here, its all been said and done before, all you have to do is narrow down the question and buzz words to find the info you need

Fruitcake

With regard to not receiving the original PCN/NTK, I think it is still worth asking for their proof of postage.
Without it they can't prove they sent anything.
If they've got it, fair enough, move on. If they can't produce it, and it's so easy to get and free that it is unreasonable to expect they didn't ask for it, then you state they didn't send it. Your word against theirs so 50:50.

It's amazing how much PPC mail seems to get lost in the UK; much more than any other industry.