Letter Before Claim - VCS

q2uantum

Any further advice from anyone on my witness statement?

Also I've seen alot about waiting for VCS to send their statement before submitting mine, is that correct or is it better to submit early and then deal with theirs via the skeleton?

Thanks

Q2

1505grandad

Don't forget statement of truth at the end.

q2uantum

1505grandad wrote: »

Don't forget statement of truth at the end.

Yeh I have that on my original, I just forgot to copy and paste that part *Doh*

q2uantum

Just a polite bump with regards to my questions quoted below from a few days ago, as the the forum seems really busy at the moment and it had fell back 5 pages.

Thanks

q2

q2uantum wrote: »

Any further advice from anyone on my witness statement?

Also I've seen alot about waiting for VCS to send their statement before submitting mine, is that correct or is it better to submit early and then deal with theirs via the skeleton?

Thanks

Q2

Le_Kirk

If you have time to wait without missing your submission date, I would but do NOT miss the deadline.

q2uantum

Le_Kirk wrote: »

If you have time to wait without missing your submission date, I would but do NOT miss the deadline.

My Court date is not until early November, so I will will wait until at least the end of September then.

1505grandad

As per recent post by Redx:-

"..................... each party serving on the other and the court , with a deadline day at least 2 weeks prior to the hearing".

Please check your Court papers re submission of docs deadline - your comments (Court date early Nov. / submission end of Sept) suggest otherwise.

1505grandad

EDIT

Sorry just dawned on me OCTOBER in between

q2uantum

Hi All,

So I am about 4 weeks away from the deadline of submitting my Witness Statement to the Court and to the SCAMMERS.

I was wondering if I should place more emphasis on the PCN not being POFA Compliant and the fact they have not followed the correct procedure for chasing the keeper rather than the driver. I believe the signage (or lack of) is a big part of my defence though. Maybe include more POFA2012 stuff after #5 of my witness statement?

For instance these are pictures of the entrance to the car park (These are the Exhibits from #7 on my witness statement.

https://ibb.co/HTfPchz
https://ibb.co/n00FnNN

So there are no VCS signs to be seen on the entrance

What is peoples thoughts on this?

I have copied my latest revision of my witness statement below to ease viewing of it.

Witness statement:

I, ************ of **************************************** am the defendant in this case. I am unrepresented, with no experience of Court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the way that the Claimant may do, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience.

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 defence as already filed.

3. The vehicle was parked in a car park that is located at the end of xxxxxxx Road, xxxxxx. Upon returning to the vehicle the driver noticed the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) attached to the windscreen.

4. Whilst I was the day to day Keeper of the vehicle concerned , there is no evidence of the driver and, as the vehicle was a company car, any other person employed by the company could have driven the vehicle at the time, who I have no obligation to name to a private parking firm.

5. Due to being the day to day keeper, and the car being a lease car then I contacted Vehicle Control Services Ltd (VCS) to advise of this, giving them my name and address as the keeper of the vehicle, once I was aware of the charge notice.

6. Upon looking at the PCN, I noticed that it had been incorrectly and not fully completed - (See Exhibit XX01). The date of the alleged offence was recorded just as /x/xx, with no record of the actual day recorded on it. Also The location on the PCN is stated as xxxxx Road, which is a public Highway (see Exhibit XX02) which means VCS do not have any rights to ticket vehicles on the address shown.

7. I visited the location of the car park and noticed that there is no signage on either entry to the car park (Exhibit XX03) that complies with the parking standards that VCS should comply with. The only signage on the entries to the car park are out of date signs warning of CLAMPING (Exhibit XX04)

8. The car park itself looks to be a shared car park for some Flats as more than half the car park does not have any signage from VCS on it (Exhibit XX5). There is no clear signage to distinguish which spaces are controlled by the VCS signs

9. The VCS signage on the car park at the time of the alleged infringement of contract, was certainly not in the best of states, which can be seen from the pictures that I took shortly after the alleged contravention. The signage was either damaged, missing or covered in Ivy (See Exhibits XX06, XX07). You can also see from one of the photos supplied by VCS that signage was missing in the area I parked (Exhibit XX08).


10. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) (Exhibit XX09) 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.

11. 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 and here I quote from the cases cited above:
'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…

12. Vehicle Control Services Ltd is not the lawful occupier of the land. I have reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no rights to bring this case.

13. The Claimant is not the landowner and is merely an agent acting on behalf of the landowner and has failed to demonstrate their legal standing to form a contract.

14. The Claimant is put to proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge. I have reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no right to bring action regarding this claim.

15. I would like to point out that according to their parking sign this parking area does not offer a free parking period, so the ParkingEye v Beavis does not apply in this case.

16. The Claimant is stating that they had a legitimate interest to set the charge. However, the time of the alleged contravention was on a Saturday as is shown from the pictures provided to me by the Claimant. There is no legitimate interest that is being protected as there are no businesses operating at the parking area at that time, so it is unclear what legitimate interest is being protected at that time.

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

Thanks

q2

Redx

decide if you are better stating facts as the driver (if you were the driver) or better hiding as keeper behind POFA, its difficult to do both

as for the abuse of process, add in the recent win in Caenarfon which I believe was struck out