Help with defence for court claim

robby29

I have amended points 14-15 before I file this to the court and BW is there anything else I should add or amend?

Any help much appreciated.

robby29

Could anyone confirm if this witness statement looks good enough, looking to file this by tomorrow.

Coupon-mad

Please re-post the WS as a reply. I don't see it and rarely scroll back to other pages!

robby29

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Please re-post the WS as a reply. I don't see it and rarely scroll back to other pages!

I have read various statements and the newbies thread and come up with this so far any input if this is good or bad would be much appreciated.

I have read a recent case from Britannia Parking that was due to be heard at southampton magistrates where Judge Giddins threw this out, coupon-mad sorry if i have copied some of your input on this thread.




WITNESS STATEMENT
____________________________


The Particulars of Claim give no hint as to the allegation, making the position as Defendant keeper who was not driving, almost impossible.

1. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. Where they are not within my own knowledge there are true to the best of my information and belief.

2. I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defense as already filed.

3. The claimant has produced no evidence of who was driving and is put to strict proof.

4. I have no recollection of this occurrence, and as the vehicle in question is a vehicle used for work purposes with other contractors using it, time has passed and its impossible to confirm who was driving on the contravention date and time.

5. The claimant is not relying on the Protection Of Freedom Act 2012 (POFA) and therefore cannot hold a registered keeper liable, this has been mentioned on the letter from the claimant dated 06th February 2019 exhibit number ………

6. The Claimant claims no right to pursue myself the Defendant as the registered keeper as they have failed to meet the conditions of PoFA 2012. I the keeper could only be held liable if the claimant had fully complied with the strict requirements of POFA 2012 which the claimant BW LEGAL has noted they do not intend to rely upon. (Exhibit PoFA Schedule 4)

7. The claimant has said the windscreen PCN 'offered the Defendant the chance to appeal'. This is highly misleading. The PCN did nothing of the sort. It was a Notice to Driver only, and offered the driver a chance to appeal, and the Claimant knows from the defence - had they bothered to read it properly - that the driver was not the Defendant. Further, a driver is under NO obligation whatsoever to appeal to an invoice from this industry, so there was no 'acquiescence' to the charge at all.

8. I assert under ‘statement of truth’ that I was not the driver on this occasion, and was not working in this area on the contravention date or time. This will be repeated in court should this claim proceed to a hearing.

9. With no route in law to transfer liability for any alleged contravention, by a driver - to the RK, this claim is null and void. There is no case to answer. The claimant must prove who was driving then take the matter up separately with that person.

10. Furthermore the claimant has since produced a letter dated 20th April 2018 from Britannia Parking exhibit……… showing this was delivered to ............... this is the incorrect address of where the defendant resided and the defendants previous address, A clear statement that the defendant was not aware of any PCN notice. The defendant moved to the current address on 10th April 2018 ..................... this was before the contravention date, and the defendants V5 document was then sent to the DVLA and updated with the correct address v5 attached exhibit…… exhibit….. shows the date the v5 was printed and this can take the DVLA 6-8 weeks to update this and sent it back to the defendant.

11. The first the defendant heard about the matter was a letter from BW LEGAL at the defendants current address ..............., The claimant “BW LEGAL” must of tracked the defendant to the current address by other means.

12. The claimant has still failed to supply sufficient evidence to support this claim. with only letters produced as evidence from “Britannia Parking” for the pcn notice, These are irrelevant as the defendant never received these notices as the claimant did not send these to the defendants current address. This claim lacks sufficient evidence for the defendant to defend. The claimant has still failed to provide necessary authorization from the landowner to issue parking charge notices on this land, or the transaction logs from the machine on the contravention date, a incorrectly entered VRN could of happened and we are only relying on the claimants “Word of Mouth”.


Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous

13. CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

14. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

15. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

16. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

17. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

18. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

19. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:

20. ''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

21. n summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

22. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

23. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

24. Attached is a copy of POFA exhibit…., and the Claimant's postal Notice to Keeper (NTK) is clearly not compliant and makes no attempt to tell the keeper (as per para 8 - especially 8(2)f) that liability can be passed to them.

25. Issuing two claims for matters that turn on exact same facts is certainly an abuse of process and no Claimant should have to face two duplicate hearings with all the disadvantage that will cause, in terms of loss of salary/leave and time taken across two days to have the same facts heard, with double costs at stake, and the chance of one case being found against him and one for, making a mockery of the court system and wasting the Court staff and Judge's time, too.

26. There is no crime or 'breach' of any law, by being the registered keeper of a car, and ignoring demands for money that bear all the hallmarks of a scam, relating to parking events where no tariff actually went unpaid, where there is no 'legitimate interest' excuse to disengage the penalty rule and where the keeper was not the driver and the Claimant has failed the legal requirements for keeper liability.

27..The claimant cannot “presume” that I the defendant and RK was the driver at the time of the alleged contravention. Barrister and parking law expert Henry Greenslade was the ‘Parking on Private Land Appeals’ (“POPLA”) Lead Adjudicator from 2012 – 2015. This is an independent appeals service offered by the British Parking Assosciation (“BPA”) and Excel was under that Trade Body at the time of the alleged contravention. I adduce as evidence (exhibit XXX) Mr Greenslade’s opinion in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 which confirms that there is no presumption in law that a keeper was the driver and that keepers do not have any legal obligation whatsoever, to name drivers to private parking companies. (Exhibit Popla 2015)

28. I refer to the case of Excel v Ian Lamoureux, C3DP56Q5 at Skipton 17/11/2016. The Judge was critical of the claimant’s attempts to hold the keeper liable. The judge suggested that the only way Mr Lamoureux could be held liable was if he was the driver and Excel could prove he was (which they could not). The judge stated “I think the claim against Mr Lamoureux is totally misconceived because it has no evidence that he is the driver and it seems to be relying on some assumption that the registered keeper is the driver because it is not seeking to rely on the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012”. (Exhibit Excel Vs Lamoureux )

29. I the defendant has recently visited the site in question for the purposes of gathering evidence for this case.

30. Even if I was the driver on the date in question, the signage on and around the site does not meet the British Parking Association (BPA) which the claimaint is a member of.

31. I have reasonable belief that the claimant does not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name as they failed to supply the relevant information when requested. .

I believe the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.

Le_Kirk

11. Furthermore the claimant has since produced a letter dated 20th April 2018 from Britannia Parking exhibit……… showing this was delivered to ............... this is the incorrect address of where the defendant coincided and the defendants previous address

Did you mean: -

11. Furthermore the claimant has since produced a letter dated 20th April 2018 from Britannia Parking exhibit……… showing this was delivered to ............... this is the incorrect address of where the defendant [strike]coincided[/strike] resided and the defendants previous address

robby29

Thank you LE_kIRK amended this.

1505grandad

Para 8 - the usual - should be "defence" (no "s")

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robby29

1505grandad wrote: »

Para 8 - the usual - should be "defence" (no "s")

.

Thank you done.

robby29

Going to hand this into Southampton magistrates Monday now if anyone has any more help or advise if the WS needs any further points added or amended I would be grateful.

nosferatu1001

If youre handing it to the magistrates you're in the wrong building!

Rememebr your requirement to serve it on the CLAIMANT as well. You *cannot* omit this.
I presume yo uare sending more than the WS alone? You have evidence to submit?