County court claim form from excel parking services

Caspar13

Thanks! I shall make these last couple of changes and then get it printed and emailed across.

What will happen next once the defence has been filed?

Le_Kirk

Caspar13 wrote: »

What will happen next once the defence has been filed?

The CCBC will send your defence to the claimant who will then have time (28 days I believe) to decide whether or not to proceed, in which case you will receive a DQ. All the process is explained in the NEWBIE post # 2, "what happens when."

Caspar13

Is there any examples of witness statements I can read where the driver paid for a ticket and overstayed by 10 minutes? Rad through the witness statements that Bargepole has outlined but don't want to miss anything that could be relevant.

The defendant will be 38 weeks pregnant on the day of the court hearing. Is it best to write to the courts outlining that it may not be possible to attend if the baby arrives early?

Le_Kirk

Did you put down any dates you would not be available when you completed your DQ?

Coupon-mad

I would have crossed out the month before and the month after, or more!

Too late now.

Anyway search the forum for IPC grace periods witness statement

Caspar13

thanks, I have read through a few threads and not too sure the driver has much of an argument here. From the photos that have come back the driver has been photographed 11 minutes past the time of the ticket they bought. The driver received a document on the windscreen stating that it was not a parking charge notice and therefore did nothing as thought that this was a fake ticket of sorts. Nothing came through in the post thereafter and the driver moved house from their family home. After a period of time by chance the drivers brother passed on a letter that was stating that things were going to court so driver had no choice at this point but to defend as hadn't received any other correspondence.

Not too sure what the drivers angle is here as looking at some of the other threads the grace period is 10 minutes however the photos were taken at 11 minutes.

sorry for the long message, the driver has total baby brain and is trying to get organised.

Redx

If the driver drove in , found a space and parked , read the signs and paid the tariff required , that is grace period number one , typically up to ten minutes but check what the IPC CoP says

When the driver got back to the vehicle , started it and drove to the exit , that is the departure time , grace period two , typically ten or more minutes , but check the IPC CoP

These two grace periods more than cover the alleged overstay period

The BPA Cop has similar accepted clauses in section 13

Hence a driver can argue grace periods , tariff paid in full , no deception or bilking , just an honest and reasonable set of events and timings , the parking time was paid for , entry and exit do not count as parking , courts have said the parking time starts when the paid for ticket is dispensed , not from entry

Write to the judge or court stating the medical issue and ask for a later date to be granted and the current date vacated

Caspar13

So this is what I have so far. Hopefully this makes sense as not sure what else I can add.

Witness Statement of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

1. I am the defendant in this case and the facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. I am an unrepresented consumer who has never attended the county court before.

2. I parked at the xxxxxx Street Car Park on xxxx-2018 whereby I paid for a pay and display ticket at 17.56.

3. At 17.56 I paid £2.50, as seen in image 1.

4. When I returned to my vehicle there was an envelope attached to the windscreen. In the envelope was a black and red piece of card that stated on it that “THIS IS NOT A PARKING CHARGE NOTICE” on the front, as seen in image 2. On the back it had a serial number, the date and information stating that “A parking charge notice may be issued to the registered keeper through the post” as seen in image 3. At first glance I thought this was fraudulent as wasn’t like any parking fine/notice that I had ever seen before. Due to this I ignored the card.

5. Based on the time on the card, 20.07, I also assumed that as per the British parking association and the International parking community code of pracitce that I had paid for the correct amount of time in the carpark. My ticket expired at 19.56 and the card was attached to my car at 20.07. This would have only allowed me 11 minutes grace period to read all of the relevant signs upon paying and also after my visit exiting the carpark. Assuming that there is a grace period of 10 minutes to read all signs and 10 minutes to exit the carpark I was still within what I deemed a reasonable time to be leaving the carpark.

6. I did not receive a notice to keeper in the post or any further follow up so assumed my initial suspicion around the black and white card possibly being fraudulent was accurate.

7. I subsequently moved home due to the breakdown of my mother and step-fathers marriage and was no longer living at XXXXXXXX where the car was registered at the time the card was issued.

8. By chance/luck my half brother passed on a letter to me which was dated the 05/04/2019 from the county court business centre stating that I owed £160. Had I received any correspondence prior to this I would have dealt with it and tried to appeal the charge.I dealt with this as soon as I was in possession of the letter and followed the relevant processes.

9. Following on from this I immediately emailed Excel parking to ensure that they had the correct address for me for any future correspondence and also to make them aware that I was no longer registered keeper of the vehicle. I requested an SAR of the following -
- All photos taken.
- all letters/emails sent and received, including any appeal correspondence earlier
- a PDT machine record from that day, of payments made.
- all data held, all evidence they you are relying on, and a full copy of the parking charge notice and also the notice to keeper.
- and a list of all Parking charge notices you consider are outstanding against me.!

10. following on from my SAR request of the above I only received the photos taken of my car and a copy of notice to keeper and final reminder notice to keeper. I was not provided with the PDT machine record from the day or a list of parking charge notices considered outstanding against me. I was told via email that they were awaiting documentation from the debt recovery before they could complete the SAR which was then sent to me on the 30/05/19. See attached PDF. In this PDF there is no correspondence from any debt recovery companies and therefore I can only assume that these were not sent in the first place otherwise Excel would have included them in their response to my SAR.

11. I would like to point out that as this car park does not offer a free parking period the Parking Eye v Beavis case does not apply.

12. It is my intention to challenge this claim for payment under the following grounds and in no particular order

(I) Grace Periods – I overstayed 11 mins. The industry standard British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Conduct states

15. Grace Periods
* 15.1 !Drivers should be allowed a sufficient amount of time to park and read any signs so they may make an informed decision as to whether or not to remain on the site. 

* 15.2 !Drivers should be allowed a sufficient amount of time to leave a site after a pre-paid or permitted period of parking has expired. 



13. I believe the facts stated in this witness statement to be true.

Coupon-mad

From the photos that have come back the driver has been photographed 11 minutes past the time of the ticket they bought. The driver received a document on the windscreen stating that it was not a parking charge notice and therefore did nothing as thought that this was a fake ticket of sorts.

And how do you (and the Judge) know that the time claimed on the 'not a parking charge' was synchronised with the ticket machine? Even if it was a mere 1 - 2 minutes out, then the car was parked within the mandatory 10 min grace period.

So as an early point, state that you wish to cross examine the witness for that evidence and to also, as a second point, you wish to ask why the DVLA has banned the use of these 'not a parking charge' fake tickets now, as shown in other VCS cases where they have admitted they have had to stop. VCS being a sister company of this Claimant, both owned by Simon Renshaw-Smith an you would like to ask Excel's Director in person to explain these two points, at the hearing.

State that the confusion and ambiguity of the ticket was bad enough but the lack of any proof that the person who issued it even once checked the time against the issuing ticket machine (given that there is no single 'system' or clock here) meant you considered the matter a scam and that, on the balance of probabilities and based on the lack of synchronisation of timing evidence, there was no contravention shown here at all.

Add that if this was a Council car park, CEOs are required to synchronise their watches with each machine as they arrive on site, and adjudicators routinely find against Councils if they are unable to show this occurred. In the interests of fairness, transparency and open dealing with consumers, as required in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 you would expect a similar level of proof from a AOS member private parking firm if they are to rely on this argument at a court hearing. This is the Claimant's claim to prove.

So put right things like this:

My ticket expired at 19.56 and the card was attached to my car at 20.07.

No, it wasn't, you do not know that!

Alleged to have been 20:07pm...very conveniently 11 mins...and UNPROVEN.

I overstayed 11 mins.

Absolutely NOT! Remove that. See what I mean?

You are falling into the trap of believing their convenient timing. In fact you should be making them evidence it and saying that when you returned to the car, you do not believe this was more than 10 mins past the expiry of the ticket. However, the red card PCN saying 'this is not a PCN' confused you so much, that you didn't think to actually start comparing timings to protect yourself from an unexpected later court claim.

And you need the usual points about the abuse of process in Excel trying to ad unrecoverable sums to the parking charge. Find that wording already written by me in post #14 of beamerguy's ABUSE OF PROCESS thread.

You also need to file evidence, such as the IPC CoP about the mandatory MINIMUM (not a maximum!) 10 min grace period. And the Caernarfon Court judgment mentioned in that thread you need to search for.

Redx

Give your images and pdf docs unique numbers , as exhibits , so for example

Exhibit abc1 , image of pdt ticket from the payment machine

Exhibit abc2 , pdf document

Refer to those titles in the WS at the correct place , not image or pdf

Do not mention the 11 minutes , stick to two separate grace periods and the fact that the parking time was fully paid for , see exhibit abc1 ,pdf ticket for £2.50p or whatever was paid

It's the claimants job to prove their case , time started at the payment machine , don't help the claimant , stick to the two grace periods as separate exhibits , plus the paid for ticket which covered the time the vehicle was parked

As above , there is no evidence as to the actual time the CN was affixed to the vehicle