claim form from BW legal defence. UPDATE I lost

Coupon-mad

Para 5 - " Several attempts to settle this dispute before a court hearing have been attempted by the Claimant and I."

Don't say this. The Claimant has NOT tried to settle the dispute at all, and any settlement negotiations/offers can't be mentioned in a WS anyway.

scriptkiddie

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Don't say this. The Claimant has NOT tried to settle the dispute at all, and any settlement negotiations/offers can't be mentioned in a WS anyway.

Taken off. In BW Legal's WS however they put pretty much the same thing. Should this be a worry?

Coupon-mad

No, they are trying to make their client sound reasonable but in reality, the PPC has made zero honest attempt to resolve the dispute. It doesn't matter to your case.

Could you please copy & paste the latest draft here again now, how it currently looks? Please don't reply 'it's in post number xx' because for me at least I see page 2 and I skim read & reply quickly on hundreds of threads every week.

I do not see your WS or your list of intended exhibits or costs schedule here on this page as I am viewing it, and have no time to click back to page one.

scriptkiddie

sue thing

n the County Court at XXXX
Claim No. XXXX
Between!
Premier Parking Solutions Ltd (Claimant)
and
XXXX

---

Witness Statement

---

This Witness Statement is in support of my defence as already filed

1. I am XXXX, the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:

2. I am a legitimate visitor of the number XXXX, where my partner and son live. I used the parking permit issued to said residence. Exhibit A

3. On XXXX, I visited the residence, and parked my vehicle registration no XXXX in the car park. Upon leaving I came across the Parking Charge Notice. The permit was not on display and seemed to have fallen or blown off the dashboard

4. I could not appeal the Parking Charge Notice because as stated on the website of Premier Parking Solutions they do not consider appeals where 'the ticket blew off the dashboard.' The goalposts were moved before I had a chance to even dispute the Parking Charge Notice. Exhibit B

5. The Claimant does indeed have a contract with landlord 1. The landlord of residence of is now landlord 2. landlord 2 had no contract at all during that time. The Claimant even refers to landlord 1 only in their response. Exhibit C

6 The contract with landlod 2 does indeed mention that they may appoint a reputable company to operate a parking scheme. However this does not mention anything about requiring a permit specifically. Exhibit D

7. The Claimant states the I used a template based defence with irrelevant information from various online platforms. I dispute this as there is nothing wrong with getting legal help by any means necessary as many of these defences from online platforms have indeed held up in court. Exhibit E

8. The Claimant states the I chose to ignore the Terms and Conditions. This is factually untrue as I was well aware at the time of said Terms and Conditions. To the best of my knowledge a permit was displayed

9. The Claimant may rely on the case of ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 as a binding precedent on the lower court. However, that only assists the Claimant if the facts of the case are the same, or broadly the same. In Beavis, it was common ground between the parties that the terms of a contract had been breached, whereas it is the Defendant's position that no such breach occurred in this case, because there was no valid contract, and also because the 'legitimate interest' in enforcing parking rules for retailers and shoppers in Beavis does not apply to these circumstances. Therefore, this case can be distinguished from Beavis on the facts and circumstances

10. The Claimant is seeking recovery costs or 'contractual costs' to the sum of £60. 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


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

the exhibits are as follows:

exhibit a: the original permit
exhibit b: the screenshot of the appeals page stating this on the pps website
exhibit c: a copy BW legal sent me showing their contract with landlord 1, not landlord 2
exhibit d: an agreement applicable to all their houses as found on their webiste
exhibit e: the page in BW legals WS stating this

Coupon-mad

How is there a contract with landlord 2, I thought you said there wasn't?

6 The contract with landlod 2 does indeed mention that they may appoint a reputable company to operate a parking scheme. However this does not mention anything about requiring a permit specifically. Exhibit D

Typo there anyway.

I'd be tempted to add there:

Further, this Claimant is a notorious ex-clamper firm that has been named and shamed in Parliament more than once by MP Kevin Foster (Torbay) in recent months, so can fairly be described as 'disreputable'. Membership of the BPA or IPC does not change that honest public and MP description of this Claimant firm (exhibit x from Hansard).



...and add this Parliamentary Hansard transcript as evidence:

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-02-02/debates/CC84AF5E-AC6E-4E14-81B1-066E6A892807/Parking%28CodeOfPractice%29Bill

Kevin Foster (Torbay) Given the time, I shall keep my remarks brief to allow for discussion of the next Bill on the Order Paper. I very much welcome this Bill, which follows on from a debate I secured last year in which many right hon. and hon. Members recounted various issues in their constituencies.

In my constituency, I have two parking companies: Premier Parking Solutions of Newton Abbot and Premier Park Ltd of Exeter. They are responsible for the management of one privately owned car park each, yet each of those car parks generates more complaints about enforcement practices than the entirety of Torbay Council’s enforcement operations, which include 39 car parks and all on-street car parking. Various interesting practices and excuses are used for things such as why a barrier cannot be put in place so that people know, before they leave, that they have not paid, and can avoid getting one of these fake fines in the post. As the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said, they are made to look like fines, but they are not—they are invoices.

When I secured my debate last year, one of the companies pleaded with me not to name them as part of a cowboy industry, saying, “We haven’t had any complaints over the past month or two,” and I said, “Yeah, that’s because you had a massive fire in your car park and it’s ​been closed for the past couple of months, so you haven’t been trapping people.” Companies in this industry are like bloodsuckers in many cases. The reality is that the current system of regulation is absolutely hopeless. It is like putting Dracula in charge down at the blood bank.

There are two different sets of regulations and companies can choose which they use, so there is an incentive to dismiss as many appeals as possible. To be fair, I do not want to impugn either set of regulations, but it is clear that the system does not have any rigour or structure and it desperately needs to change...''

Le_Kirk

There are more details about the abuse of process if you search the forum for beamerguy's thread and Coupon-mad's comments at post # 14 on that thread, you could at least add the recent case at Caernarfon.

scriptkiddie

ok final draft i hope


In the County Court at XXXX
Claim No. XXXX
Between!
Premier Parking Solutions Ltd (Claimant)
and
XXXX

---

Witness Statement

---

This Witness Statement is in support of my defence as already filed

1. I am XXXX the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:

2. I am a legitimate visitor of the numbe rXXXX where my partner and son live. I used the parking permit issued to said residence. Exhibit A

3. On 31/05/2016, I visited the residence, and parked my vehicle registration no XXXXin the car park. Upon leaving I came across the Parking Charge Notice. The permit was not on display and seemed to have fallen or blown off the dashboard

4. I could not appeal the Parking Charge Notice because as stated on the website of Premier Parking Solutions they do not consider appeals where 'the ticket blew off the dashboard.' The goalposts were moved before I had a chance to even dispute the Parking Charge Notice. Exhibit B

5. The Claimant does indeed have a contract with landlord 1. The landlord of residence of XXXX is now landlord 2. landlord 2 had no contract at all during that time. The Claimant even refers to Landlord 1. Exhibit C

6 The contract with landlord 2 does indeed mention that they may appoint a reputable company to operate a parking scheme. However this does not mention anything about requiring a permit specifically. Exhibit D

7. The Claimant states the I used a template based defence with irrelevant information from various online platforms. I dispute this as there is nothing wrong with getting legal help by any means necessary as many of these defences from online platforms have indeed held up in court. Exhibit E

8. The Claimant states the I chose to ignore the Terms and Conditions. This is factually untrue as I was well aware at the time of said Terms and Conditions. To the best of my knowledge a permit was displayed

9. The Claimant may rely on the case of ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 as a binding precedent on the lower court. However, that only assists the Claimant if the facts of the case are the same, or broadly the same. In Beavis, it was common ground between the parties that the terms of a contract had been breached, whereas it is the Defendant's position that no such breach occurred in this case, because there was no valid contract, and also because the 'legitimate interest' in enforcing parking rules for retailers and shoppers in Beavis does not apply to these circumstances. Therefore, this case can be distinguished from Beavis on the facts and circumstances

10. The Claimant is seeking recovery costs or 'contractual costs' to the sum of £60. 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

11. Further, this Claimant is a notorious ex-clamper firm that has been named and shamed in Parliament more than once by MP Kevin Foster (Torbay) in recent months, so can fairly be described as 'disreputable.' Membership of the BPA or IPC does not change that honest public and MP description of this Claimant firm. Exhibit F



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

Coupon-mad

11. Further, this Claimant is a notorious ex-clamper firm that has been named and shamed in Parliament more than once by MP Kevin Foster (Torbay) in recent months, so can fairly be described as 'disreputable.' Membership of the BPA or IPC does not change that honest public and MP description of this Claimant firm. Exhibit F

The above just looks like an out of context rant plonked at the end, which was never my intention. It was meant to follow in the point about the word 'reputable' that you told us.

You have also not added what Le_Kirk advised you to add (as a supplementary sheet is a neat way to do it and stop the WS becoming too long in itself) objecting to their fake costs and attaching the IOW and Caernarfon judgments, which are precisely where Le_Kirk told you they were.

scriptkiddie

UPDATE

I lost. £200. £100 original fine and £25 for court fees plus £75 solicitors fees

This is how it went down. A legal rep from Cornwall was sent in who didn't actually work for BW Legal who spoke to me beforehand that they'd take an offer of £175. I declined. Court time came around and the judge asked if I was ok with the signage and the terms and conditions. He seemed satisfied that I always displayed my permit but told me I slipped up at this point.

I asked about the contract changes between the landowners and who PPS were working for. This almost triggered a big argument from the judge and legal rep but in the end seemed satisfied that they working on behalf of the new landowner. I
genuinely thought I had this at this point.

I did say how their appeals process was unreasonable because the PPS site did say they won't consider appeals if the ticket blew off the dashboard. He didn't seem to care

 In the end the judge said that while I was usually good with displaying my permit it's up to me to make sure it's still displayed when I leave the car and awarded them their money. The legal rep did ask about contractual costs and interest but the judge said 'No.'

What can I do now? I want to write to my MP, is there anyone else I can write to?

Redx

Just your MP , which should have been done earlier anyway , regardless

You gave it a go ,you lost , it happens