Claim Form - Failing to display Blue Badge

RoyalBlue82

In terms of an update VCS have offered to settle at a reduced amount which I'm not going to accept.
They have until mid November to pay their £25 Court cost, but assume they will so I'm cracking on!

I'd really appreciate some feedback on the below.....................

In The County Court at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Claim No: xxxxxxxx

Between

Vehicle Control Services Ltd (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxx

____________

WITNESS STATEMENT

____________

I, XXXXX, of XXXXXXXXX, will say as follows:

I am the Defendant in this matter. Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents marked Exhibit 1- Exhibit 13 to which I will refer.

1. Before I describe what happened on the day I parked in xxxxxxxxxxxx (“the car park”), I confirm that the essence of my defence to this claim is that:
a) I did not breach the terms and conditions of parking.
b) It was absolutely unclear that the parking bay in question was reserved for disabled badge holders.
c) Even if the Claimant can demonstrate a clearly marked disabled bay, I was the carer of a baby who was a passenger in the car, which had a condition which met the definition of disability.
d) The defendant has shown a blatant abuse of process and has not tried to constructively resolve the matter, leaving me with little choice other than defend myself in Court.

2. On the day in question (xx/xx/xx) I was pregnant with my second child and had my baby son as passenger, who had a disability called Hip Dysplasia [See Exhibit 1]

3. For the Information of the Court, Hip Dysplasia is a long term condition that certainly meets the definition of a disability as a protected characteristic within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010. Hip Dysplasia can impact children in varying degrees of mobility. My son was one of the more serious cases, his legs had to be in a permanently abducted position for 6 months following surgery and contained in a bulk half body cast. The extent of his disability meant we were eligible for a carer disability allowance. [See Exhibit 2]

4. I arrived at the car park and parked up in what appeared to be a normal car parking bay, albeit a poorly marked one. The bay was very faded and not signed as a disabled bay, there was no visible indication that the bay in question was reserved for Disabled Badge Holders [See Exhibit 3-7]. I believe that the claimant either negligently or deliberately had a 'concealed pitfall or trap' of the type highlighted in Parkingeye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67. I had the honest belief that it was an ordinary bay or a parent and child bay.

5. I unstrapped my son from his specialist car seat, placed him in a pram and walked to the ticket machine to purchase a ticket. I then clearly displayed the ticket on my dashboard [See Exhibit 8].

6. After a time window of around 45 minutes, hours before my ticket expired, I was extremely shocked to find out I had been given a parking ticket when I returned to my vehicle.

7. I immediately tried to follow the correct process and enter into meaningful correspondence with the claimant via e-mail to explain the circumstances [See Exhibit 9].

8. I received nothing but automated e-mails in response [See Exhibit 10] and no opportunity to use POPLA as requested.

9. On xx/xx/xx I received a threatening letter from ZZPS (acting on behalf of VCS) and Wright Hassell [See Exhibit 11]

10. On 27/01/2016 my husband sent a cease and desist e-mail to ZZPS as the letters were of a threatening nature, causing distress and the basis of their claim was untrue [See Exhibit 12].

11. On 01/02/2016 I was informed by ZZPS Limited that the case was on hold and they would contact me after further dialogue with VCS [See Exhibit 13]. I never received any response on this matter. The next correspondence was a Letter Before Claim, 3 ½ years later.

12. The Claimant has shown a blatant abuse of process, their Letter Before Claim didn’t comply with the requirements of Annex A Para 2 of the Practice Direction on Pre-action Protocol.

13. I have reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred £60 costs to pursue an alleged £100 debt. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, in Schedule 4, Para 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100.

(Comment 1: I’m unclear whether I should include any of the detail in my defence referencing cases when costs were disallowed, can anyone advise?)

(Comment 2: Should I be printing out any case law and any previous court transcripts as evidence?)

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.

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

Name: xxxxxxxxxx

Signature

Date

Umkomaas

In terms of an update VCS have offered to settle at a reduced amount which I'm not going to accept.

Ready yourself for discontinuance.

Coupon-mad

''Psychic'' Umkomaas knows what he is talking about:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76423948#Comment_76423948

1505grandad

Para 8 - probably irrelevant due to imminent discontinuance but what has POPLA got to do with an IPC AOS member - (notice this was also in the Defence).

RoyalBlue82

Coupon-mad wrote: »

''Psychic'' Umkomaas knows what he is talking about:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76423948#Comment_76423948

That's great to hear, if they do indeed discontinue, does that mean I will not get an opportunity to claim any costs back (for time/effort spend defending)?

The money isn't the issue, it's more the principle that VCS can cost us hours and hours of lost time, send threatening letters and then just drop things when the going gets tough!

Umkomaas

RoyalBlue82 wrote: »

That's great to hear, if they do indeed discontinue, does that mean I will not get an opportunity to claim any costs back (for time/effort spend defending)?

The money isn't the issue, it's more the principle that VCS can cost us hours and hours of lost time, send threatening letters and then just drop things when the going gets tough!

Depends on how late they leave it, but there’s little prospect of a pay out.

Do you realise how many hours VCS cost regulars here (in addition to the 200+ other scammers we have to deal with)? They’d be bankrupt if we could recover our time costs!

RoyalBlue82

Of course, you guys do a superb job and it's much appreciated. I'm sure VCS et al are big fans of the forum!

In your opinion should I not spend much more time on the WS unless I hear that VCS have paid the Court Fee?

Coupon-mad

In your opinion should I not spend much more time on the WS unless I hear that VCS have paid the Court Fee?

How do you think you are going to hear that? NO. You need to prep it now.

RoyalBlue82

Hello All,

It appears VCS are still planning on taking this all way to court as they've recently paid the £25 court fee (I called CC to confirm).

I'll be submitting my WS early next week......some changes/queries (from post #32), hopefully you can help with:

1. I'll remove any reference to POPLA as VCS have not been members of BPA's AOS since 2014 [as per 5015grandad]. An oversight by me, I could replace with the word 'appeal' but that wouldn't match by Defence statement. Any views on whether to just cut completely?

Evidence inclusion, not sure how much/what to include in terms of referencing law and other cases.

2. Should I include any further evidence referencing cases where costs were disallowed?
3. Should I be printing out any case law and any previous court transcripts as evidence?

General query

4. In Court, can VCS come at me with any other unrelated parking claims? Just to be clear, the Claim Form 'particulars of claim' box only references the claim this thread is about. VCS have done the whole suite of letters/threats (Wright Hassall etc.) over another claim but this has never progressed into a Court Claim.

Thanks.

RoyalBlue82

Just giving this a bump as as drowning a little bit and struggling with how to keep the WS and evidence as succinct as possible. The aim is to have this neatly indexed in a folder for Monday morning.

From reading the forum I know I need to include the judgements from E8GF1V7V as they were struck out for abuse of process. I will also include schedule 4 of the protection of Freedoms Act. Not sure about including any of Equality Act as evidence though.