VCS Court claim - defence for a resident

stevejones23

Hi All,


Received the witness statement from VCS. Should I post a summary of their points here? It is 60 paragraphs long. The evidence supplied is primarily photos of the car park and a blue print of the car park. There are also a couple of other cases posted besides Beavis.

IN THE COUNTY COURT
Claim No.:
Between
Vehicle Control Services Ltd
(Claimant)

-and-


ANON
(Defendant)

WITNESS STATEMENT of ANON

1. I, ANON of ADDRESS am the defendant in this case.

2. The facts in this statement come from my own personal knowledge. Where they are not within my knowledge they are true to the best of my belief.

3. I have attached several documents to this letter which I exhibit as XX-X.

4. I am not liable to the claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defence as already filed.

Preliminary matters

5. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. As the event to which the claimant refers occurred over 4 years ago, I am not able to recall who was driving. My insurance has always covered myself and another family member.

6. The claimant has not demonstrated that I was the driver during the events in question and I would ask the court to consider this. I would ask the court to consider the Parking on Private Land Appeals, 2015 Annual Report, pages 12 and 13 [XX-8] and Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 [XX-9]. There is no reasonable assumption that the driver is the keeper.

7. The claimant has failed to supply me with a copy of their written contract nor any detail for this claim (Practice Directions 16.7.3(1) and 7C 1.4(3A) refer).

8. The Particulars of the Claim (“PoC”) do not meet the requirements of the Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how any terms were breached. The PoC are not clear or concise and only vaguely state that the vehicle was “parked in a restricted area”. As a result I have been unable to properly consider my position and this has denied me the chance to defend myself in an informed way.

9. The Letter Before Claim sent by the Claimant to the Defendant were not compliant with the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct and Protocols, specifically at 2.1 (2), (3); 2.2 (1),(2) and 2.3 (1). The defendant wrote to the Claimant 1 May 2019, 30 May 2019 and 12 June 2019 [XX-11] pointing out deficiencies in their paperwork which rendered them non-compliant with the relevant Practice Direction and requesting clarification. I received acknowledgements on 15 May and 15 June 2019 [XX-11] but not substantive response.

10. I have only been able to obtain further detail through a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act 2018 XX-10.

11. The Notice to Keeper/Driver was sent to an incorrect address and so I was not aware of this charge at the time. This is despite the photograph of the Parking Charge Notice (“PCN”) itself noting a valid permit, and the photographs taken by the Claimant clearly showing a permit with the number “000” written on. This indicates the claimant knowingly issued the Notice to Keeper to the incorrect address.

12. Finally I ask the court to consider Schedule 2 Consumer Rights Act 2015, specifically paragraphs 6, 10 and 14 [XX-18].

Signage

13. I do not accept that the signage at the site is clear. The terms and conditions are not not clear, particularly when driving. I invite the court to consider the exhibits [XX-15] [XX-16]. I enclose a copy of Parkingeye v Beavis which provides an example of adequate signage.

Background to event

14. I was resident at ADDRESS from September 2015 until May 2018. Unfortunately I do not have a copy of the original tenancy agreement I signed in September 2015, so I enclose a copy dated 19 January 2017 which was precisely the same agreement as I signed September 2015 [XX-2]. As further evidence I exhibit emails with LETTING AGENT in May 2018 [XX-3] and October 2015 [XX-4] .

15. During my residence at ADDRESS I was given 2 parking permits as the tenancy agreement permitted parking at the property [XX2-6 para 9.8, 9.9]. I had a given parking space and I was informed by my letting agent that the permit enabled me to park in the visitor's car park.

16. I have enclosed a satellite view of the car park in question which accurately represents the layout of the car park at the time I was resident [XX-1]. Within this photo I have highlighted the following:
The barriers – highlighted in white
The visitor's rack park – orange
My flat and allocated car parking space - red

17. One barrier controlled access to the visitor's car park, and another controlled access to the resident's car park.

18. The design of the car park had several flaws. Although there were barriers in place these were often raised if you simply approached the barrier. They were raised manually by the concierge.

19. This meant that it was relatively easy to gain access to the resident's car park. Access to the visitor's car park required a request in person by approaching the concierge and anyone could do this.

20. In addition it is important to highlight that the resident's car park in my area was relatively narrow. To demonstrate this I enclose photographs and video [XX-13] [XX-15] [XX-16].

21. These factors meant there were two relatively frequent occurrences that stopped me from using my numbered car parking space:
The ease of access meant other people could, and often did, park in my allocated space.
Deliveries, other resident's moving in/out and various other reasons, meant that access to my space could be blocked as people would frequently park as close as possible to the entrance of the block of flats. A vehicle parked outside of the block of flats would black access to approximately 6/8 parking spaces. Unfortunately my space would be blocked in such a scenario being close to the entrance of a block of flats.

22. In such circumstances described above I would use the visitor's car park.

23. However the visitor's car park had limited capacity and, especially on weekends, was frequently at full capacity.

24. In summary there were sometimes circumstances were, as a resident, I was unable to make use of the allocated/unallocated parking bays available to residents. I refer again to XX-2 in which I describe the visitor's car park being full and enquiring about a second allocated space on 17 October 2015.

The event

25. My vehicle has been photographed outside of a parking bay on DATE 2015. The only reasonable explanation for this is that access to my own numbered space was most likely occupied or blocked by an unknown party, as described above, and the visitor's car park was full. My vehicle insurance would have stated the car was parked in a secured car park. To park anywhere else i.e. outside of the secured car park, could have caused me significant financial loss had the car been stolen or damaged. The position of the vehicle did not block any access or right of way to my fellow residents.

26. I believe this is scenario is a direct result of (presumed) decision of the Claimant to issue 2 parking permits for each flat, without there being sufficient space in the visitor's car park to accommodate such numbers.

27. The photographs taken by the claimant [XX-5] show that my vehicle was observed for 13 minutes. I would point out that it takes approximately 5 minutes to walk from the visitor's car park to ADDRESS, which is located on the 2nd floor of a block of flats. This is a conservative estimate. If I were to walk from the visitor's car park with food shopping or perhaps a heavy item, it would typically take longer. Top drop the item(s) off and walk back could feasibly take 15 minutes, 10 minutes walking and perhaps 5 minutes (or more) to drop off/arrange any item which I or a family member had brought. I would contend that the appellant has not demonstrated that my vehicle was “parked” which was covered in the case Jopson v Homeguard Services Limited, paragraphs 20 – 21 [XX-7].

28. If it could be demonstrated that the vehicle was parked, then I believe Jopson v Homeguard Services Limited would still be relevant, as the claimant has no right to override the terms of my tenancy agreement. I believe this point is also supported by the case PACE Recovery v Mr N [XX-12].

29. In summary, my vehicle would only have been parked there due to my own allocated space being occupied by someone who as not entitled to do so, and the visitor's car park being fully occupied. This appears to be a direct result of the Claimant issuing too many parking permits.


My witness statement is due with the court 4pm Wednesday 4th December. Court date is 18th December.

Edit - apologies for the spelling mistakes, I'm using OpenOffice and have just used the spell check. Most should be corrected so happy for spelling checks to be ignored.

Thanks


SJ

1505grandad

Suggestion - all paras should be numbered sequentially - if anyone wishes to comment (and for the Court of course) it will be easier to say para 1 rather than 4th para numbered #1.

stevejones23

Yeah sorry it is numbered that way it is just the way it has come out on the forum. Screwed my formatting!

Umkomaas

stevejones23 wrote: »

Yeah sorry it is numbered that way it is just the way it has come out on the forum. Screwed my formatting!

Are you copying and pasting from Word directly into the forum message box? If so, please read this:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5637311/warning-do-not-copy-and-paste-content-from-word-pdfs-etc-into-your-posts

stevejones23

Thank you Umkomaas. Re-edited with proper para numbers and removed spelling mistakes.


If anyone thinks of missed anything or should elaborate let me know.


Will be posting this tomorrow morning.



I'm going to continue my reading of the forums now!

Redx

If there are spurious charges added like the fake £60 , the abuse of process paragraphs by coupon mad , plus the CRA , should be an added feature and exhibit , plus another exhibit which is your Costs schedule , time off work (half a day , £95) plus parking , travel costs , printing etc , possibly unreasonable behaviour too

1505grandad

As above.

Some observations (in absence of the filed Defence) - no doubt the experts will comment on contents if required:-


Para 11 - "The Notice to Keeper/Driver was sent to an incorrect address and so I was not aware of this charge at the time."

should be only NtK?


Para 13 - "The terms and conditions are (not) not clear, particularly when driving." - (not) not required


Para 16 - "visitor's rack park" - is that "visitors bike rack"?

Para 21 - " A vehicle parked outside of the block of flats would (black) access to approximately 6/8 parking spaces." - (block)

Para 26 - " I believe this (is) scenario is a direct result of (presumed) decision of the Claimant to issue 2 parking permits for each flat" - (is) not required

Para 27 - "If I were to walk from the visitor's car park with food shopping or perhaps a heavy item, it would typically take longer." - should that be "If the driver were ........"

Also - " (Top) drop the item(s) off and walk" - (To) - again, further into the sentence, should there be any mention of "I" in case it gives the impression that the D is stating facts about the particular parking event in the claim.

Also - " I would contend that the appellant has not demonstrated that my vehicle was “parked”" - are you not the "appellant"? - although you are not actually appealing but defending.

Para 29 - "someone who (as) not entitled to do so" - (was)

stevejones23

Appreciate you taking the time to do that Grandad, I've proof read it since posting it so picked up on a few of your points but not all of the typos you pointed out.

Fruitcake

Do you have a copy of the scammers' alleged contract with the landowner? I've seen a couple of VCS contracts recently and they are all pants.
Please post a copy if you have it.

Have a look at the threads by skaart and Loum5 where they have shown their contracts with VCS, and read the comments made about how they are incapable of forming a contract.

As for their 60 [STRIKE]tree[/STRIKE] page long WS, scan and upload it to a web hosting site of your choice, then post the link. That way anyone who wants to look at it can.

Make sure any images are fully redacted, the web hosting site is not in your real name, and no personal images are in it or any album as well.
Believe me, it has happened!

stevejones23

Thanks Fruitcake


Yes got a copy of the contract - it doesn't cover the period of the event. That is what I have picked up on so far. It is dated 2013 and 12 months from that. My alleged "breach" was in 2015. So I have put this in my WS.



Thanks for the tips re Skaart and Loum5 I'll look for them now. I've picked up on a few other bits - I've picked out a few paragraphs on the POFA2012 that the notice to keeper did not satisfy e.g. current address of keeper (they sent it to the incorrect address) and that the notice did not say they don't know who the driver is.