Help please there taking me to court

Cuppel69

thanks the deep in my initial defence i point out an additional 60 pound fee so will have no problem incorperating into my witness statement.Glad its being recognised. I feel totally fine with personal witness statement but will struggle with a skeleton one, ill post on here when done and see what people think.

KeithP

Cuppel69 wrote: »

i am putting together a witness statement and have a few questions. First is as i'm posting my copy to court do i send printed photos or not. If not what do i do.

It is usually suggested the you hand deliver your Witness Statement and evidence to the court - it is your local county court isn't it? - all neatly filed and indexed in a binder.

Cuppel69

Here is a draft of my witness statement anything constructive to add please advise

In the County Court at Leeds, The Courthouse, 1 Oxford Row, Leeds, LS1 3BG

Claim No. xxxxxxxxxx

Between

JD Parking Consultants Limited (Claimant)

and

xxxxxxxxx (Defendant)



WITNESS STATEMENT I, xxxxxxxxxxx, will say as follows:

I am the Defendant in this matter. Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents to which i will refer marked (P 1 to P 17) to which I will refer.

I confirm that the essence of my defence to this claim is that:


a. I did not breach the terms and conditions of parking.


b. The Claimant does not have authority to issue charges on this land that they do not own, in their own name.


c. Even if the terms were breached the Claimant is obliged by the compulsory Code of Practice of its own Accredited Trade Association to provide ample and clear signage which it does not.



1: It is admitted that on 19/04/2018 my vehicle, registration number xxxxxxxx was parked on Vernon Street, as this was a long time ago, I do not recall who was driving. This is a regular parking spot for both myself and my partner, we have been parking here for over three years

2: First I received a parking charge notice from a company called Parking Collection Services (p1), then some letters from a company called Debt Recovery Plus (p2 p3 p4) about a parking charge but they were quite alarmist and for a street (Cookridge Street) which I know to be council owned land so I ignored them putting it down to a scam.

3: I then received letters from Zenith collections along the same lines (p5), before receiving a letter before court from Gladstone’s Solicitors. Obviously at this point I looked into the matter with some urgency.

4: I had to request a Subject Access Request from Debt Recovery Plus as no evidence of the parking infringement had been presented, photo’s that I received from this show my vehicle parked correctly in a space with no sign to say anything to the contrary (p6 p7 p8 p9). Two of the photographs had a sign on them. The sign in question is mounted 12 feet high on a wall in very tiny font, on a different part of the road.





5: I have visited Vernon Street to take some pictures of the area and the sign in the picture I received (p10). Driving into Vernon Street from Percival Street and then to the final destination there is no gate sign to tell you that your entering private land (p11). There are no readable signs of any kind from JD parking to tell a driver not to park on this area of the street. I have provided a google map marked from entrance to final destination (p12). In order to be an accredited member of the British Parking Association, which J D Parking claims to be, compliance with the Code Of Practice (p13) is compulsory, and a copy of paragraphs 4.1 and 6 of the Code Of Practice is at point 4, page 6. British Parking Association Code Of Practice clearly states on page 19 point 28 what signage is needed, further to this on page 28 is an example of a mandatory entrance sign

6: There are some sign’s in some bays from another private parking company on this street claiming to enforce parking on this area, a picture of this is included (p14). Which is another confusing factor. Point 7 on page 7 of the British Parking Association Code Of Practice defines the mandatory requirements and I put this operator to strict proof of full compliance:

7.2 If the operator wishes to take legal action on any outstanding parking charges, they must ensure that they have the written authority of the landowner (or their appointed agent) prior to legal action being taken.

7.3 The written authorisation must also set out:

a the definition of the land on which you may operate, so that the boundaries of the land can be clearly defined

b any conditions or restrictions on parking control and enforcement operations, including any restrictions on hours of operation

c any conditions or restrictions on the types of vehicles that may, or may not, be subject to parking control and enforcement

d who has the responsibility for putting up and maintaining signs

e the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement

7: On the original P C N I got from Parking Collection Services there is no length of time the vehicle was parked for, therefor it is possible the vehicle was only parked a short period falling into grace periods allowed. I received a document along with the pictures which seems to confirm this it only shows an exit time which I believe is the issue time (p15). I have considered the British Parking Association Code of Practice of the British Parking Association, of which the Claimant is an accredited member. A copy of paragraph 13 of the Code Of Practice, which relates to grace periods, is at point 9, page 9.
Paragraph 13 of the Code Of Practice clearly states that a grace period is to be applied to parking. The Code Of Practice makes clear that such grace periods are to be applied both at the start of any parking period and also at the end of any parking period. The whole point of these grace periods is to allow drivers time to find a parking space, to read the signage, and to exit the car park once they have finished parking. Grace periods are not defined, but the Code Of Practice requires them to be "a minimum of 10 minutes" either side of the actual parking (paragraphs 13.2 and 13.4).







8: On the first letter received from Debt Recovery Plus they point to a court case which they say is why I should pay this case is completely different from mine and is not relevant I do however include a photograph of the signage from that case (p16) to show how clear it was.



9: I believe there has been an abuse of process in this matter 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 (p17) not with reference to the judgement in parking eye 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. A recent court case where this was found to be the case is Claim number is F0DP201T District Judge Taylor
Southampton Court, 10th June 2019.

10: I invite the Court to dismiss this claim in its entirety, and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.

thanks for all help up too now

Cuppel69

Coupon-mad please is there any chance you can look at my witness statement please it's got to be in by end of month and I'm going on holiday soon so not much time to work on it many thanks.

Le_Kirk

You may notice that Coupon-mad is away from the forum at the moment. There are others also away (it is holiday season) so a little patience and it might get reviewed before you need to submit it.

You might want to remove your VRM from the post!

At first reading I would say that you don't need to repeat your defence, you just state "this is my witness statement (WS) in support of my defence already filed." You can then remove anything that is a defence point, then your WS is just a narrative, i.e. the story of what happened on the day and subsequently and including any evidence that you want to submit to which you refer in your WS and in your already filed defence. You also want to say something like "attached to this Statement is a paginated bundle of documents marked C69_001 to C69_099 to which I will refer." You then give each of your evidence points a reference, for example C69_001 where C69 could be your real initials. Example WSs can be found in the NEWBIE thread post # 2.

Just noticed a post by C-m today, so she might be back!

Cuppel69

I have made some minor changes to above witness statement is this good to go or would more be needed or removed thanks.

Coupon-mad

Bump for comments as this thread slipped to page 2.

Cuppel69

Bump thanks

Cuppel69

Ok so thanks people, as no further suggestions to edit I'll go ahead and print off my witness statement and documents for court and email gladstones. One further question should I email gladstones at the 14 day limit to give them less time to look at it or just do it tomorrow, again thanks

Coupon-mad

What's the latest WS draft like (with Le_Kirk's comments incorporated) and what is your list of evidence you will be appending to the WS?

Have you read recent threads and seen we now recommend that a high hundreds costs schedule is appended at this stage, too (see NEWBIES thread for how to argue for your 'standard' costs for attending the hearing, then separately list how the Claimant has been wholly unreasonable in its conduct, and try to claim a further £19 per hour on the indemnity basis.