Letter Before Claim - VCS

q2uantum

Thanks Both,

I have emailed the court today (thats how I contacted them with regards to the court fee being paid), asking if they have the VCS Witness statement on file.

@Coupon_mad,

If I was to include what may be in their statement and for some (probably wont happen) reason they don't use that, could that go against me?


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q2uantum

Just to advise the court got back to me this morning to advise they have not received a witness statement pack from the claimant yet. They still have 8 days to submit it though.

@Coupon_Mad, my plan is to go to the court on Monday morning next week and submit my WS and Exhibits and Costs etc. This is 16 Days before the court date but unfortunately due to work commitments next week I can't get down there on the Tuesday or Wednesday. If I haven't received anything from the claimant by Monday, then I presume I can do a skeleton when(if) I do receive it, countering all the usual cases they will misquote?

q2uantum

Hi all,

Well its sods law that just when I had finalised my witness pack today for printing at work tomorrow, I get home to find VCS's witness pack through my door.

So.. currently I have only had chance for a quick look through it but these are the things I have picked up on so far:

1) The person that has wrote this has only been with the company for 3 months, so will have no personal knowledge of this case at all.

2) The have included a copy of the agreement with the landlord from October 2011, and it states in this:

"The company will provide a parking control service at the car park for a fixed period of 12 Months from the 10th Day of October 2011 upon the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth"

Can I use this to state that this is an 8 year old contract and they have not supplied a contract from the date of the PCN?


3) The photos of the signage that they have provided are from March 2015 and not at the time of the PCN - January 2015

4) They say that a CARD was left on my windscreen informing of the alleged breach of conditions, and that it had a unique code for https://www.myparkingcharge.co.uk - this is untrue as they left a PCN (with incomplete date on it) which I have a copy of (lost the original when I moved house). Does anyone know a rough date/year that VCS moved to the Fake CARD rather than a PCN? They have not supplied a copy of the PCN as they obviously dont have a copy!

5) They reference Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking with regards to the sign as being the offer.

6) Relying on Vine v Waltham Forest with regards to signage and trespass

7) They state the signage is prominently displayed on entry to the site Google Maps proves this is incorrect as no signage on the 2 x entries

8) They have asked for strict proof that he signs where damaged / covered in foliage and missing. I have my own pictures of foliage covered sign, they have supplied one picture in their evidence of one sign missing! and google maps shows another sign covered in foliage.

I am currently in the process of tearing apart there arguments and adding them to my witness statement but could anyone comment on the 8 points above .

Thanks

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KeithP

Just a small point, but if you are complaining about a two months difference between the incident date and the date of the sign image they have provided (point 3), make sure your Google Maps images evidence is suitably dated. (point 7).

q2uantum

KeithP wrote: »

Just a small point, but if you are complaining about a two months difference between the incident date and the date of the sign image they have provided (point 3), make sure your Google Maps images evidence is suitably dated. (point 7).

Unfortunately google maps only goes back to 2017 and 2018, so I cant actually prove they were like that back in 2015 BUT the signs are still not on the entrance.

KeithP

But the real point I am making is that how can you quibble about a difference of two months with their photo evidence, when, as you now tell us, you are supplying photo evidence that is two years out of date?

q2uantum

Hi Keith,

2 of my photos are from a few weeks after the PCN - which are one covered in ivy and one ripped so you cant see the £100 charge (it actually just says 0 charge).

Unfortunately it is the entrance signs that I do not have proof of existing at the time.

I understand your point though and will bare that in mind.

q2uantum

OK here is my current version of my witness statement with the various points added that they have used in their statement.


In the County Court at XXXXX

Claim No.: XXXXXXX
Between

Vehicle Control Services Ltd
(Claimant)

-v-


OJ Simpson
(Defendant)


Witness statement:

I, OJ of XXXX 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, as I was the driver of the vehicle and was there in person. Where they are not within my own knowledge they 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 XXX Road, XXXX. Upon returning to the vehicle I noticed the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) attached to the windscreen.


4. 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 /1/15, with no record of the actual day recorded on it. Also the location on the PCN is stated as XXXX Road, which is a public Highway (see Exhibit XX02) which means VCS do not have any rights to ticket vehicles on the address shown on the PCN.

5. In the witness statement from VCS (Paragraph 21 - Paragraph 29) they make no mention of a PCN, and advise that a card was left with a unique reference code on it for https://www.myparkingcharge.co.uk, as you can see from Exhibit XX01 this is untrue. I can only think this is due to the fact that the original PCN has been lost by VCS so they are relying on a witness statement from a paralegal that has only worked for VCS for 3 months. As this charge dates back to 2015, the paralegal can have no knowledge of the actual incident, unlike myself that was a physical eye witness.

6. 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, so that they would communicate with myself and not the lease company.


7. I received a letter from BW Legal, who claimed to be acting on behalf of VCS with regards to this alleged offence, which I duly replied to appealing that the signage wasn’t clear, was damaged and with some signs missing, so it was hard to tell which spaces if any that VCS controlled. I received communication back from them saying that my appeal was unsuccessful and that they were going to continue to chase for payment.

8. I then asked for proof of the signage on the day in question, which they eventually sent me through some pictures which were dated 2 months (March 20XX) after the date in question. These pictures show brand new signs and not the signs that were present in January 20XX.

9. For some unknown reason BWLegal then started the entire process again, sending me their original letter, but this time with a different reference on it. I contacted them back asking them to resolve this ASAP, and that one of their departments needed to speak to the other department. After a gap of about 2 years, VCS then sent me a Letter Before Claim from their own company, rather than BWLegal.

10. I re-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 (IPC Code of Practice Part E Schedule 1). The claimant states in Paragraph 33 of their witness statement that the signs are prominently displayed and visible from on entry to site but the only signage on the entries to the car park are out of date signs warning of CLAMPING (Exhibit XX04). These signs are still there today, nearly 5 years after the alleged offence.

11. The car park itself is a shared car park for some Flats, more than half the car park does not have any signage from VCS on it (Exhibit XX05). There is no clear signage to distinguish which spaces are controlled by the VCS signs and which ones are not, so how could anyone know where they can or can not park.

12. As stated earlier 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 (a few weeks later, rather than the 2 months later that VCS revisited to send me pictures of the new signs that they had just put up). The signage was either damaged, missing or covered in Ivy (See Exhibits XX06 and XX07). Using google maps street view from 2018 then you can see that the upkeep of the signs has not improved (Exhibit XX08)

You can also see from one of the photos supplied by VCS that signage was missing in the area the car was parked (Exhibit XX09), the two wooden poles should have had a sign attached according to the layout supplied by VCS in there witness statement.

13. The wording on the signage is also not very clear as to who can or can not park there. It only states VALID PERMIT HOLDERS have to display a permit, nowhere does it state that you cannot park there if you do NOT have a permit, nor does it state where to get a permit from. I would say that the parking licence and obligations were only offered to 'valid permit holders'.

Pace v Lengyel (Claim Number C7GF6E3R) in the County Court of Manchester was struck out for similar reasons, with District Judge Iyer stating: “It must have been obvious to the claimant that if it erected a sign proving that it was a term of the contract that the driver of any parked vehicle displays a permit, it must have known in advance that many drivers would simply be unable to do this. Therefore, insofar as there was any contract between the parties, it was invalid under the doctrine of impossibility of performance.” (Exhibit NT10)

14. The Claimant wishes to rely on Thornton vs Shoe Lane Parking [1971] 2 QB 163 to
attempt to try and prove individuals may enter into contracts with a sign. That case is fully
distinguished from this case in question as that relates to a car park with a barrier on entry.
The sign is clearly visible to motorists entering the car park and they are able to read the
sign and decide whether they want to enter the car park while they take a ticket and wait
for the barrier to open. In this case, there is no barrier so the case above has no relevance
on this case.

15. In Paragraph 32 of the Claimants Witness Statement, the Claimant refers to ‘Vine v
Waltham Forest’. The Court of Appeal on this case ruled in favour of the Defendant on the
basis that a person cannot be presumed bound by terms and conditions on signage that
they haven’t seen. It would appear that the Claimant is attempting to wrongfully persuade
the court by mis-quoting Roch L.J. The full quote is this;

“Alternatively, and this is the ground principally urged upon us by Mr. Mott, the question
whether a person voluntarily assumes a risk or consents to trespass to his or her property is
to be judged objectively and not subjectively. Once it is established that sufficient and
adequate warning notices were in place, a car driver cannot be heard to say that he or she
did not see the notice. Were that to be the law, it would be too easy for car drivers who
trespass with their cars to evade the only method landowners have of stopping the
unauthorised parking of cars in parking spaces or parking areas on their property.”

16. As you can see, Lord Justice Roch was simply reading one side of the argument. Roch L.J. found in favour of the motorist in this case. Therefore, this case can be immediately dismissed as it has no bearing on this case in question.

17. VCS 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.

18. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has a current contract with the landowner, as the contract supplied in their witness statement is from 10th October 2011 and was for a fixed period of 12 months. There is no current proof that this contract is still valid with the landowner.


19. 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.


20. 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.

21. 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.


Abuse of Process

22. In addition to the 'parking charge', the Claimant has artificially inflated the value of the Claim by adding costs of £60 which has not actually been incurred by the Claimant, and
which are artificially invented figures in an attempt to circumvent the Small Claims costs
rules using double recovery.

23. CPR 44.3 (2) states: “Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are
disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or
necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and
proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the
paying party.”

24. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny.

25. The standard wording for parking charge/debt recovery contracts is on the Debt
Recovery Plus website - ''no recovery/no fee'', thus establishing an argument that the
Claimant is breaching the indemnity principle - claiming reimbursement for a cost which has
never, in fact, been incurred. This is true, whether or not they used a third-party debt
collector during the process.

26. In fact, it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low-cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself and there has been no legal advice or personal involvement by any solicitor in churning out this template claim.



27. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages.

28. Unlike this mendacious and greedy Claimant, ParkingEye themselves took on board the Beavis case outcome and they never add fake costs on top of the parking charge. It is
indisputable that an alleged 'parking charge' penalty is a sum which the Supreme Court
found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover all costs. The case provides a
finding of fact by way of precedent, that the £85 (or up to a Trade Body ceiling of £100
depending upon the parking firm) covers the costs of the letters, and all parking firms are
very familiar with this case. The Defendant refers to the following paragraphs given in the
judgement on the 4th of November 2015 in ParkingEye v Beavis:

at para 98. {re ...The desirability of running that parking scheme at no cost, or ideally some profit, to themselves} ''Against this background, it can be seen that the £85 charge had two main objects. One was to manage the efficient use of parking space in the interests of the retail outlets, and of the users of those outlets who wish to find spaces in which to park their cars [...] The other purpose was to provide an income stream to enable ParkingEye to meet the costs of operating the scheme and make a profit from its services...''

at para 193. ''Judging by ParkingEye’s accounts, and unless the Chelmsford car park was out of the ordinary, the scheme also covered ParkingEye's costs of operation and gave their
shareholders a healthy annual profit.''
at para 198. ''The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to
recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling ParkingEye
to make a profit.''

29. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that roboclaim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

30. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

31. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) 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 that their artificially inflated
claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

32. 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 earlier General Judgment or Orders of DJ Grand, who (when sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court in 2018 and 2019) has struck out several parking firms claims. These include a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Orders have been identical in striking out both claims without a hearing, with the Judge stating: ''It is ordered that The claim is struck out as an abuse of process (Exhibit HC21). 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...''

33. That is not an isolated judgment striking a parking claim out for repeatedly adding sums they are not entitled to recover. In the Caernarfon Court in Case number FTQZ4W28
(Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies Exhibit HC22) on 4th September 2019, District Judge
Jones-Evans stated:
''Upon it being recorded that Distract Judge Jones-Evans has over a very significant period of
time warned advocates [...] in many cases of this nature before this court that their claim for
£60 is unenforceable in law and is an abuse of process and is nothing more than a poor
attempt to go behind the decision of the Supreme Court v Beavis which inter alia decided
that a figure of £160 as a global sum claimed in this case would be a penalty and not a
genuine pre-estimate of loss and therefore unenforceable in law and if the practice
continued he would treat all cases as a claim for £160 and therefore a penalty and
unenforceable in law it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be
wholly without merit and an abuse of process.''

34. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and its the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed untrue in terms of the added costs alleged and the statements made, in trying to justify the unjustifiable.

35. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to
prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view
that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

36. The Claimant is also trying to claim Interest at 8% for the time that this has been ongoing. I object strongly to this due to the claimant trying and failing with BW Legal, and then only resurrecting this nearly 5 years later, its is themselves and not myself that has dragged this out over this length of time.



The Court is invited to dismiss the claim and to award my costs of dealing with this claim
and attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.




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




I am aiming to print this out at work tomorrow around 12.30 so I could get any further comments on it I will be eternally grateful


Thanks

q2

q2uantum

Final call for any comments if anyone would be so kind, before I print and get it ready for posting and handing in to the court on Monday morning.

** I may be able to amend before I actually take to the court on Monday morning if any comments come in this weekend **

Regards

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Coupon-mad

I would remove #7 and #9 about what BW Legal did, as they add nothing to the case and you being to lose the reader at that point - you need to stay on point about VCS.

You also have some paragraphs not numbered. You need to number every paragraph indented.