Gladstones [Link Parking] - Visitor Parking County Court Claim

Coupon-mad

Take a wage slip to prove your loss of income/leave when you win.

Take PROOF that you posted or emailed your WS & evidence, as reps like to say they didn't get it, and blame the D, who then hasn't brought their proof of posting/copy of sent email/Gladstones receipt.

Get there half an hour early to get through security calmly and read your notes.

Politely refuse to engage when the Elms Legal girly (probably, but maybe a chap...certainly not from Gladstones) rocks up. Don't discuss your case in a side room beforehand, or get drawn on her suggesting you settle outside the court room!

VSOP

Appreciate the last minute tips.

I am here with my Lay Rep.. the court usher was unfamiliar with what a Lay Rep was and asked if my rep was a Mackenzie’s friend. I said no and handed her The Lay Representatives (Rights of Audience) order 1999 which she checked with the judge who approved the Lay Rep.

A Rep with Gladstones documentation is here in the waiting rooms. Blonde lady, does not look one bit interested in the case, been on her phone the whole time. Hopefully that is her not giving a damn rather than overconfidence!!

The aim is to contest the right of audience as soon as soon as we get in!

VSOP

Apologies for the spelling errors, nerves are creeping in and I can’t edit my post!

VSOP

Interesting update: I have posed my argument to the judge regarding the rights of audience. The Claimant’s Rep then panicked and started discussing how she has multiple years experience and is a recent law graduate... and even started Googling rights of audience whilst in the hearing.

We have been given 20 mins break with the following:-

We have been offered 2 options:
- Ignore rights of audience and proceed under Judge’s discretion.
- Proceed to explore rights of audience argument but we will have to adjourn the actual hearing.

The ball has been put in the Claimant Rep’s court. Looks like she is frantically calling the firm who sent her to no avail.

Umkomaas

Popcorn being over-stuffed into my mouth!

Keep us in the loop.

VSOP

Called back into court and the DJ has adjourned the case until after lunch as she said she needs more time to read into the particulars of the case. The DJ then said hopefully we will have time to dig into the actual parking claim today too once the rights of audience point has been addressed.

Not sure where this puts us in terms of probability now. All I know is this has rattled the Claimant’s rep.

nosferatu1001

Its also cost them a load more time whcih is money. ITs gone from a half days rate to a full days rate.

VSOP

Case adjourned on the basis that the DJ felt there was insufficient time to determine rights of audience and the outcome of the case.

Not sure how I feel about this, another full day off work required by me and the lay rep.

The only positive to come out of the day is they have merged the hearing with another similar hearing - same site and the claimant is Link Parking but this claim was sent through BW Legal rather than Gladstone’s.

Coupon-mad

That is certainly a positive - and will cause BW Legal and Gladstones some issues to fight over which rep rocks up!!

Were costs for this hearing 'reserved'? i.e. can you bring today's costs forward and claim both hearing costs back when you win?

VSOP

Coupon-mad wrote: »

That is certainly a positive - and will cause BW Legal and Gladstones some issues to fight over which rep rocks up!!

Were costs for this hearing 'reserved'? i.e. can you bring today's costs forward and claim both hearing costs back when you win?

Thanks!

Hopefully it will cause a lot of confusion. The DJ did say she was likely to use her discretion to assume the Claimant rep has right of audience, it got quite technical at this point. In summary it sounds like the Claimant’s Rep is on the cusp of the requirements to have right of audience.

Nothing was explicitly said about costs being ‘reserved’ but the DJ mentioned additional costs of another hearing several times. There was some confusion as to why the Claimant had issued a claim for a single ticket in mid 2019 and then subsequently issued another claim in September for tickets issued in 2018.

The DJ assumed I had some form of prior legal experience (thanks to you guys), so I corrected her and told her I didn’t. Which actually went in my favour when the Claimant’s Rep raised argument as to why I didn’t mention right of audience prior to the hearing, to which the DJ used our lack of experience as an excuse.

Hopefully all goes well, there was a small sense of blame at the end. Where the DJ implied that the reason for adjournment was because we decided to pursue Rights of Audience. Do you guys think I was right to push this? Would have liked to have the weight lifted off my shoulders today.