Claim Form for UK Car Park Management / Gladstones

wilsonf1 · 7 January 2020 at 12:17PM

I won!

I was called in 15 minutes after the planned start time and then realised Gladstones hadn't sent anyone.

The Judge asked me if I knew why Gladstones hadn't shown up and I said No, other than the fact on the front of their W.S. they said that may be the case.

He asked if I had a copy of their W.S., which I had so I passed it to him. He said he hadn't seen a copy of theirs OR mine. So me emailing mine to them was not sufficient. This was my biggest mistake of the whole saga. So don't let Christmas get in the way of a good court case. Send your documents or hand them in in person like others on here say! But the Judge was ok with this.

The Judge now had both W.S.'s and I informed him that mine was sent on time and theirs was only received 4 days before the case.

He read everything, room in silence for about 10-12 minutes before he asked me if there was anything I'd like to say about my case.

The points I made from the top of my head were:

1) I rejected Gladstones point that my defence was a stock Internet defence. I said as a person untrained in law, it was my right to use the internet to research the best way to defend myself on this matter.

2) I rejected and found it extraordinary that Gladstones had labelled me "confused" about who manages the estate and who they had a contract with. I made the point I had spoken with the property estate manager and that was now a new company compared with who UKCPM had a contract with. And this point added to the fact that the Witness Statement was not written by someone truly in the know with the workings of the estate AND the Jack Chapman signature confuses the matter even more.

He asked me about a new entrance sign I had referred to in my evidence which is the "PRIVATE LAND - 10mph" sign that was recently erected. I said that had only been erected in the last 1-2 months as proved by the fact it's not in the Google Street View photo I had submitted in my first W.S. We agreed the new sign is sufficient to catch a drivers attention.

He summed up by saying the original entrance sign as well as other signs on the estate would not get a drivers attention, font too small and especially at night which is when I had entered the estate.

Case won. :beer:

Costs:

Not so good here. He was happy to award my £6.80 for parking and mileage, but not for my research on the matter as he didn't think Gladstones had acted improperly (for want of a better word). He said they had a genuine point to bring to the court, however they had fallen short in how they operate the signage and have gone about their evidence and witness statements. So no costs awarded there.

He asked me if I could quantify my costs for taking half a day off work. I said it's very difficult - I'm a company Director for an eCommerce business and did not bring anything that quantifies a loss to my business.

So £6.80 and a big F.U. to Gladstones and UKCPM. That's plenty for me!

Would love to say that was my 'B' in A-Level law shining through today but actually it was the incompetence of Gladstones/UKCPM, and the preparation I made thanks to each and everyone of you on this thread (and the others I've read through I guess).

I wonder if scanning every document I took in with me today would be useful to show the work put in start to end.