Waitrose, BW Legal, Britannia Parking, John Lewis Legal team

BS_Newbie

We have a situation with BW legal sending a RK five unpaid PCNS from one waitrose car park. The RK is being assisted with this and in the last few week on this forum many defences entered about BW have been studied as well as reading the BPA code of practice, SAR’s, Part 18’s etc .

So there is a good understanding of what potentially can be done and how to put together a defence and before any correspondence is sent to BW, Brittania and John Lewis, some advice or guidance would be hugely appreciated from the experienced people in this forum.

There is a plan in place and the RK would like to know if this is the correct approach or is there a better way to go about this . The RK has drafted the history which is below and the up to date events at the end .

Pictures and letters will be posted in a separate reply so no to make this first post too long

So the history
Back in 2014 the RK received a PCN from Britannia parking in a waitrose car park, The RK to put a letter together with help from someone from another forum. The letter was sent to the director of legal services at John Lewis and a reply was received approx three weeks later from the principal layer stating they were looking into this matter and would hope to revert back as soon as possible. – no further correspondence was ever received from Lewis

As well as writing to the legal people at John Lewis the RK also wrote to Brittania parking with a very similar letter and this was ignored so the RK sent it again and then a third time. Each time Brittania refused to answer it but instead sent final reminder letters. The RK then decided to not do anything else and they have not heard anymore from Brittania since then.

The RK also sent pics of the signs as they were clearly non compliant with the BPA code of practice and had also been tampered with by Waitrose – pics included

in Dec 2016 the RK had a different car 2 PCNS were received in same car park but the PCNS were both for exactly the same time period one one day with an 18 second difference in the observed from time (10:40:00 & 10:40:18) and 1min 19secs difference on the observed to time (12:35:41 & 12:37:00). The car had not been moved. The RK was not the driver on this day

The RK wrote same letter as back in 2014 and again Brittania just sent final reminders. So again the RK ignored this. The signs were still exactly the same as in 2014. Waitrose erected new signs in 2017 which seem to be still non compliant with the BPA code of practice – (confirmation of this here would be much appreciated). The

Last year the same car received a PCN in January and 2 further ones in November and again the RK was not the driver and the driver was the same person for all PCN’s from 2016 and 2018. This time the RK did not send any replies to any of these PCN’s.

the RK received a letter from Brittania in 2nd week of march stating their account had been passed to their legal team and there was also a Letter of Claim from BW Legal giving a balance of £320 due stating they had been instructed to commence legal proceedings in the county court. The Rk has till the 11th April to respond.

From the many posts that have been read the RK are not intending to fill in any of the forms BW included with their letter of claim and will certainly not be providing any of their financial details.

So the potential strategy is as follows and this is where the RK would really appreciate some guidance .

Possible strategy
1) Send a SAR to Britannia and make a formal complaint about the previous correspondence that has been ignored
2) Send a part 18 request to BW (which the RK is fully aware BW probably would ignore but it would add strength to a defence if they did refuse to respond. the RK is aware that BW have in the past tried to give a defendant a S18 response at the court as they are going in to the hearing!!!!)
3) Write directly the solicitor at John Lewis who originally replied to RK's first letter stating they would come back to them. the RK is considering asking them to instruct BE and Brittania to back off and cancel all actions against the RK and that if they refuse to do this the RK would then be making a complaint to the SRA for their negligence in failing to respond any further when they had confirmed they would do this .
ALSO
the RK wasn't the driver for the 2016 & 2018 PCN's so if the RK writes to BW/Brittania and states they were not the driver and names the driver would this then reset the clock and would Brittania / BW then have to write to the driver and start the process thereby taking the RK out of this process?

is there a better option than naming the driver who is happy to be named as it was the same driver on all occasions.

This is the correspondence receved from BW & Britannia

Redx

I cannot answer all the questions , but

1) is definitely a good idea in every case - regardless
email it direct to the DPO on the BRIT privacy page

2) went over my head

3) yes , although I do not know what JL has to do with this if its about a Waitrose car park , unless JL own said car park ? (or own Waitys ? you didnt specify)

if the RK was never the driver and says so, then as its likely that BRIT failed POFA and had poor signage then they should win as they are not responsible UNLESS POFA was complied with - so yes, they should clearly state that on no occasion whatsoever were they the driver

I doubt that naming the driver would "restart the process" but naming the driver BEFORE ANY COURT PAPERS ARRIVE is certainly a good idea because once this is done the RK has protected themselves from any court cases and can say so in any defences

you CAN post links to pictures etc , but not LIVE links , so post DEAD links (how ? - by changing http to hxxp , its that simple , lol)

hope that helps ?

NeilCr

Did the driver actually use the Waitrose store when parked there?

BS_Newbie

Redx wrote: »

I cannot answer all the questions , but

1) is definitely a good idea in every case - regardless
email it direct to the DPO on the BRIT privacy page - Thats exctly what the RK is going to do - I realise I didnt specify how the correspondnce would happen but it will be by email not snail mail

2) went over my head - Thats Ok as the RK has studied this extensively and lots of people in same situation have been advised to do this as part of the process

3) yes , although I do not know what JL has to do with this if its about a Waitrose car park , unless JL own said car park ? (or own Waitys ? you didnt specify)
Waitrose are part of the JL group and the manager of the waitrose store was approached originally to ask if they could cancel the PCN. They stated they did not have authority to do this so the RK wrote to the dirctor of legal services .

if the RK was never the driver and says so, then as its likely that BRIT failed POFA and had poor signage then they should win as they are not responsible UNLESS POFA was complied with - so yes, they should clearly state that on no occasion whatsoever were they the driver - I would love to post up the picturs of the original signs as they were garbage and had been tampered with by Waitrose to cover up the word penalty

I doubt that naming the driver would "restart the process" but naming the driver BEFORE ANY COURT PAPERS ARRIVE is certainly a good idea because once this is done the RK has protected themselves from any court cases and can say so in any defences



you CAN post links to pictures etc , but not LIVE links , so post DEAD links (how ? - by changing http to hxxp , its that simple , lol)

Ah - thats very helpful - I will try that then you can see just how bad the signs are .

hope that helps ?

Thanks for such a swift reply Redx - Ive answered in red text directly in the body of your response

BS_Newbie

On every occassion the RK did shop at the store .

On the first occssion in 2014 They spoke to he manager as soon as they saw the PCN atached to the windscreen but was told the manager did not have the authority to cancel and PCNS and suggested they write to the head office at John Lewis .

BS_Newbie

Redx wrote: »

you CAN post links to pictures etc , but not LIVE links , so post DEAD links (how ? - by changing http to hxxp , its that simple , lol)

hope that helps ?

t

Hi red X - Ive just tried what you suggested for one page of a letter where the image is stored on photobucket but its not showing the letter - any advice as to how to get the actual image in a reply?

NeilCr

BS_Newbie wrote: »

On every occassion the RK did shop at the store .

On the first occssion in 2014 They spoke to he manager as soon as they saw the PCN atached to the windscreen but was told the manager did not have the authority to cancel and PCNS and suggested they write to the head office at John Lewis .

Might be worth trying again? It would be the easiest solution. It sounds as if the manager might have been doing a bit of fobbing off!

Five years is quite a long time - new manager etc

I assume the tickets were, mostly, for overstaying?

BS_Newbie

NeilCr wrote: »

Might be worth trying again? It would be the easiest solution. It sounds as if the manager might have been doing a bit of fobbing off!

Five years is quite a long time - new manager etc

I assume the tickets were, mostly, for overstaying?

The car park gives 90 mins free psrking so yes the PCNS are all for overstaying .

I am really struggling to post the pics from Photobucket - have you any idea of the correct way to do this - I've tried Redx siggestion but thats only giving the actual URL and not the image itself

Redx

do not use photobucket, not since it requires a subscription

use tinypic or a similar uploading site (we always recommend tinypic but there are others available) - you want a free site where people dont have to login etc (we used to recommedn photobucket until they changed tack)

so tinypic is my recommendation

and yes it may be a broken url in your reply, which wont display in your post , but we will make it a live link to be clicked on

twhitehousescat

I use https://imgbb.com/ copy as viewer links and change http to hxxp or similar , do not attempt to use box for insert image

just copy sand paste like this hXXps://ibb.co/mXJVTYZ

then press close in to right corner of imgbb and do next

KeithP

I'm not sure a Part 18 Request is appropriate in the Small Claims Track. Please check.