NTK for PCN - Access Road at Retail Park in Pontefract.

nosferatu1001

Fab! Hopefully you got costs as well?

Redx

Well done , another win , we are on a roll this year , over 10 wins I believe in only 2 weeks

Several have been VCS

Another one bites the dust !!

2_Foot_of_Head

As Churchill says, "ohhh yes!"

Coupon-mad

Brilliant news! Do tell us which court and what happened. WELL DONE!

ANOTHER VCS ONE BITES THE DUST!

2_Foot_of_Head

Sorry for not responding earlier, but this is the first opportunity I've had to get on my PC.

The claim was heard at Wakefield, and I had put together a skeleton argument, copies of which were given to the Judge and the Claimants solicitor on the day. This threw up an issue, as one of the points I used concerned The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The Judge said he was unaware of any previous cases where this has been argued, and after discussion with the Claimants solicitor (who was unwilling to proceed on the day if this was to be discussed) I decided to omit this from my skeleton.

The remaining 4 points in my skeleton were as follows:

The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
The signage does not offer a contract with the motorist.
The claimant has no standing to bring a case,
The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and is therefore an unenforceable penalty.

My skeleton also brought up PCN v Bull, H. Greenslade's statement regarding keeper liability in the 2015 POPLA Annual report and the IPC/BPA CoP's with regards to grace periods.

The Judge found in my favour and dismissed the case as, in his opinion, it was not possible to read all of the information on the 'Entrance Sign' to the access road - I had included still images from dash cam footage which gave a 'drivers eye' view of the sign. He agreed with my admission that whilst it would be possible to read the "Restricted Zone" and "No Stopping" part of the sign, it was unreasonable to expect a motorist to see the part about charges. The Judge found in favour of the Claimant with the other points, citing POFA, Idle/Ward, Beavis and Crutchley as the reasons.

I must say, the whole process was not what I had expected - whilst I appreciate that previous cases set a legal precedent, sometimes there are striking differences that I thought would have been taken into account. For instance, the signage in Idle/Ward was much more concise and better displayed than the signage in my claim, but this never really got discussed in my opinion (although this is the reason the claim was ultimately dismissed).