Help with defence please against VCS

beverleyt

Thank you. Is there anything else I need to be including in the bundle?

Le_Kirk

beverleyt wrote: »

Thank you. Is there anything else I need to be including in the bundle?

You should include a costs schedule - there are examples in the NEWBIE sticky post # 2.

KeithP

beverleyt wrote: »

I took it off a template that I saw on another thread as I’m unsure what I need to be putting.

You need to understand your Defence.

The question Le_Kirk asked - Why are you claiming promissory estoppel? - could quite easily be asked of you by the Judge.

beverleyt

I’ll take it out. I’m struggling to understand a lot of the law terminology and getting very stressed out by it all.

beverleyt

In the County Court at Wakefield
Claim No. xxxxxx
Between
Vehicle Control Services (Claimant)
and
xxxxxxxxx
(Defendant)

---

Witness Statement

---

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

2. On xxx/01/19, I was working onxxxxand parked my vehicle, registration no. xxxxxin the customers’ car park.

3. Because the signage was small it was not apparent to me that customers are only permitted to park there for 90 minutes maximum. Please see photo I have included in the file of the distance from my vehicle to the signage and the size of the font.
4. The signage has since been changed to a larger, more obvious font, which suggests other drivers have also fallen foul of this.
5. Upon arriving at my vehicle I was left a notice on my car stating “This is not a parking charge notice”. See included photo of this. However, 6 days later I was sent a Parking Charge Notice demanding £100. This has since been increased to £185 to take into account “debt collection costs”.

6. I invite the Court to dismiss this claim in its entirety, and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.

Statement of Truth

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

Signature
Date


Can anyone advise if this is ok to use please?

nosferatu1001

If you were working there, were you told by anyone suitable that you could park? YUou werent a customer - you were working.

"Promissory estoppel" would be - someone prmised me I could park there, and so they are estopped (stopped) from claiming I breached another contract

Yo uneed to include Vine v Waltham Forest - from memory this case showed that only IF the signs are large enough are they considered to be binding

Coupon-mad

You need to read this thread, which has a decent VCS WS and he won in court:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5994014/letter-before-claim-vcs&page=3

And read AdamBuzz14's thread to argue the red card 'not a PCN' issue properly.

And you need to read CEC16's thread and add the supplementary WS about the fake costs and the Consumer Rights Act about hidden terms on signs being unfair and unrecoverable.

beverleyt

Well I’ve handed in my bundle as well as posting vcs theirs. I’ve also received the bundle vcs are using. I’m sure it’s just a standard one they send out but it’s pretty chunky

Coupon-mad

OK then - but SURELY you didn't leave the WS like post #16? It's far too light and we pointed you to what to copy from. You need more to support your case on the day.

So the only way now to get the Consumer Rights Act into it (as per CEC16's thread) is to put it in a skeleton argument a week before the hearing, along with your costs schedule if you didn't yet send that in either?

Also, please search the forum for:

VCS Witness Statement demolished and

VCS Witness statement Vine Roch

...to see how to take their useless scam template apart in your skeleton argument.

beverleyt

I sent the WS as above and with my costs schedule as I was aware the time limit of when it needed to be in. I have however drafted a skeleton argument as you advised. can you let me know how this reads please:




Skeleton Argument:



1. The Claimant has provided photographic evidence of signs in the car park in question. These photographs, aside from being taken 3 years ago, show no evidence of there being a sign at the entrance of the car park.

2. 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.

3. In Paragraph 28 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.”

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 31st December 2007 and was for a fixed period of 12 months. There is no current proof that this contract is still valid with the landowner, as although the contract does state it is a rolling contract, there is no proof that this is still on-going.

7. 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.


8. 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.


9. All three points below were robustly upheld by District Judge Grand, sitting at the Southampton Court, who agreed that:
(a) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was in breach of POFA, due to paras 4(5) and 4(6).
(b) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was unconscionable, due to the Beavis case paras 98, 193, 198 and 287.
(c) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge where the additional 'recovery' sum was in small print, hidden or not there at all, is void for uncertainty and in breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2 paragraphs 6, 10 and 14.


10. 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.