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Premier Park / BW Legal / Witness Statement
HadEnuff
Posts: 2 Newbie
I can't say how much I'm impressed with the advice on this forum after lurking for some time. Many, many thanks.
Having gone through the preliminaries with Premier Park and now BW Legal, I've recently received the Claim Form from Northampton and am now at the stage of preparing a Witness Statement to submit and would be exceptionally grateful for opinions or comments on its contents. eg Is it too long / too narrative / not 'legal' enough / am I missing some legal arguments (having a paid ticket for the day in question is there other case law I should be relying on as well as or instead of Beavis for example?) Hopefully the Statement I've been working on below is self explanatory, but to fill in the other general information about this case: The claim was issued on 16 July; I submitted AoS on 18 July so plenty of time to submit the Witness Statement. Complaints were made about this case to my MP back in 2016/7 and I went through the DVLA complaints procedures at the same time as well. Here's the Statement:-
I am HadEnuff, Defendant in this matter and deny liability for the entirety of the claim.
1.0 Background
1.1 This matter relates to a pay & display car park in Lewes, Sussex and on the material day, 28/04/2015, I bought a £2.00 ticket for all day parking in good faith but inexplicably and unnoticed by me at the time, a ticket for just £1.50 (three hours) was printed by the machine.
1.2 [FONT="]The only reason I was in Lewes and using that car park was because I was on Jury Service for two weeks during that period. At the time I lived about 25 miles away from Lewes in Kent.[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.3 The sole ticket machine for that car park was exceptionally erratic and temperamental throughout those two weeks – there were regularly long queues of people waiting for it to ‘reboot’ etc.[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.4 There was no reason for me not to buy a full day ticket as parking costs were reimbursed by the Courts and Tribunal Service.[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.5 Jury Service is a full day obligation so it would be nonsensical for me to buy just a three hour ticket – as evidenced by copies of tickets from other days which clearly show I paid the full day charge whilst I was fulfilling my civic duty. [/FONT]
[FONT="]1.6 The Clerk at Lewes Court returned the ticket receipt in question along with other tickets from surrounding days to assist me with this case. I had provided the Court all parking receipts ready for claiming back my costs whilst I was on Jury Service. (Exhibit 1)[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.7 [/FONT]Based on these facts, it is my very strong belief that an objective observer would accept that we are dealing with a machine error in this instance rather than an attempt to save 50p - not for myself - but for the Courts and Tribunal Service – because I was being reimbursed in full by the Court for my parking costs.
1.8 It is also my belief that this alleged 50p “underpayment” (denied by me) is a de minimis amount that should not have been escalated by the Claimant and should not be now wasting Court time.
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.0 Claimant: Premier Park - Lack of good faith [/FONT]
[FONT="]2.1 There have been multiple breaches of implied contractual good faith from the Claimant throughout this process. When I first received the PCN on 11/05/2015 (dated 06/05/2015) from the Claimant, I immediately wrote an appeal to them.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.2 I heard nothing further from the Claimant until 02/07/2015. I immediately responded asking why I had not received any response to my appeal. [/FONT]
[FONT="]2.3 On 15/07/2015 I received a letter containing a copy of the Claimant’s response rejecting my initial appeal dated 21/05/2015. I had not received the original of this letter. During that time I had relocated from Kent to Cumbria so it is possible that this response from the Claimant was lost in the mail redirection, however I am unaware of any other mail that did not arrive through the mail redirection process.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.4 The Claimant’s appeal rejection included a POPLA appeal number which I tried to use. POPLA initially accepted receipt of my appeal to them on 20/07/2015 but then stepped back and notified me through a 24/07/2015 letter that the appeal had been closed and deregistered as the POPLA appeal number was out of date so the appeal had been logged in error.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.5 On 15/08/2015 I again wrote to the Claimant fully explaining the situation and asking for a new POPLA code if they wished to continue with their claim (Exhibit 2). In the meantime, I had received the parking receipts back from Lewes Court so was now aware of the machine error and 50p “underpayment” and so was able to more clearly explain the situation as I saw it.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.6 The Claimant replied on 21/08/2015 (Exhibit 3) to my 15/08/2015 letter by completely ignoring its contents. It merely stated that the matter was now in the hands of their Collection Agency and provided a premium rate telephone number for me to contact the debt recovery firm.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.7 I was therefore unable to continue with the BPA appeal procedures through POPLA as the claimant had refused to supply me with a new POPLA appeal code to do so.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.8 In addition, providing a premium rate telephone number to contact debt collectors is in direct contravention of FCA Handbook consumer credit conduct rules CONC 7.9.5 which states “[/FONT]A firm must not require a customer to make contact on a premium rate or other special rate telephone number the charge for which is higher than to a standard geographic telephone number.[FONT="]”[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.9 [/FONT]The Claimant has now spent 4 years harassing me with ever increasing and intimidating demands pursuing this baseless charge, sending multiple debt collector letters and causing me and my family significant distress. This is another contravention of FCA rules. In this case CONC 7.5.3: “A firm must not ignore or disregard a customer’s claim that a debt has been settled or is disputed and must not continue to make demands for payment without providing clear justification and/or evidence as to why the customer’s claim is not valid.”
[FONT="]2.10 Throughout this case the term “Parking session expired or unpaid” has been used by the Claimant and its legal representative. I believe this was, at a minimum, disingenuous and it was only through the good fortune that I needed to retain the parking receipts to claim my Jury Service expenses that I came to the realisation that there had been the machine malfunction of not recognising 50p of my payment on the day in question rather than some form of non-payment. Indeed, in an email as late as 16/05/2019, BW Legal stated that “no ticket was found to have been purchased for your vehicle.” There appears to have been no attempt to act in good faith by either the Claimant or its legal representative.[/FONT]
2.11 It is my opinion that the Claimant’s behaviour in this case is symptomatic of the parking industry’s generally appalling reputation and is precisely why on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of this industry.
[FONT="]3.0 Abuse of Process: [/FONT]Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous
3.1 CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.
3.2 Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.
3.3 The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.
3.4 Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, I as Defendant argue that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims.
3.5 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.
3.6 The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the Claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware that their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.
3.7 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. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''
4.0 Summary
4.1 In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is 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 mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.
4.2 There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. As the Defendant I am of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.
4.3 The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
Having gone through the preliminaries with Premier Park and now BW Legal, I've recently received the Claim Form from Northampton and am now at the stage of preparing a Witness Statement to submit and would be exceptionally grateful for opinions or comments on its contents. eg Is it too long / too narrative / not 'legal' enough / am I missing some legal arguments (having a paid ticket for the day in question is there other case law I should be relying on as well as or instead of Beavis for example?) Hopefully the Statement I've been working on below is self explanatory, but to fill in the other general information about this case: The claim was issued on 16 July; I submitted AoS on 18 July so plenty of time to submit the Witness Statement. Complaints were made about this case to my MP back in 2016/7 and I went through the DVLA complaints procedures at the same time as well. Here's the Statement:-
Premier Park Ltd (Claimant)
And
HadEnuff (Defendant)
WITNESS STATEMENT
I am HadEnuff, Defendant in this matter and deny liability for the entirety of the claim.
1.0 Background
1.1 This matter relates to a pay & display car park in Lewes, Sussex and on the material day, 28/04/2015, I bought a £2.00 ticket for all day parking in good faith but inexplicably and unnoticed by me at the time, a ticket for just £1.50 (three hours) was printed by the machine.
1.2 [FONT="]The only reason I was in Lewes and using that car park was because I was on Jury Service for two weeks during that period. At the time I lived about 25 miles away from Lewes in Kent.[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.3 The sole ticket machine for that car park was exceptionally erratic and temperamental throughout those two weeks – there were regularly long queues of people waiting for it to ‘reboot’ etc.[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.4 There was no reason for me not to buy a full day ticket as parking costs were reimbursed by the Courts and Tribunal Service.[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.5 Jury Service is a full day obligation so it would be nonsensical for me to buy just a three hour ticket – as evidenced by copies of tickets from other days which clearly show I paid the full day charge whilst I was fulfilling my civic duty. [/FONT]
[FONT="]1.6 The Clerk at Lewes Court returned the ticket receipt in question along with other tickets from surrounding days to assist me with this case. I had provided the Court all parking receipts ready for claiming back my costs whilst I was on Jury Service. (Exhibit 1)[/FONT]
[FONT="]1.7 [/FONT]Based on these facts, it is my very strong belief that an objective observer would accept that we are dealing with a machine error in this instance rather than an attempt to save 50p - not for myself - but for the Courts and Tribunal Service – because I was being reimbursed in full by the Court for my parking costs.
1.8 It is also my belief that this alleged 50p “underpayment” (denied by me) is a de minimis amount that should not have been escalated by the Claimant and should not be now wasting Court time.
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.0 Claimant: Premier Park - Lack of good faith [/FONT]
[FONT="]2.1 There have been multiple breaches of implied contractual good faith from the Claimant throughout this process. When I first received the PCN on 11/05/2015 (dated 06/05/2015) from the Claimant, I immediately wrote an appeal to them.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.2 I heard nothing further from the Claimant until 02/07/2015. I immediately responded asking why I had not received any response to my appeal. [/FONT]
[FONT="]2.3 On 15/07/2015 I received a letter containing a copy of the Claimant’s response rejecting my initial appeal dated 21/05/2015. I had not received the original of this letter. During that time I had relocated from Kent to Cumbria so it is possible that this response from the Claimant was lost in the mail redirection, however I am unaware of any other mail that did not arrive through the mail redirection process.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.4 The Claimant’s appeal rejection included a POPLA appeal number which I tried to use. POPLA initially accepted receipt of my appeal to them on 20/07/2015 but then stepped back and notified me through a 24/07/2015 letter that the appeal had been closed and deregistered as the POPLA appeal number was out of date so the appeal had been logged in error.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.5 On 15/08/2015 I again wrote to the Claimant fully explaining the situation and asking for a new POPLA code if they wished to continue with their claim (Exhibit 2). In the meantime, I had received the parking receipts back from Lewes Court so was now aware of the machine error and 50p “underpayment” and so was able to more clearly explain the situation as I saw it.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.6 The Claimant replied on 21/08/2015 (Exhibit 3) to my 15/08/2015 letter by completely ignoring its contents. It merely stated that the matter was now in the hands of their Collection Agency and provided a premium rate telephone number for me to contact the debt recovery firm.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.7 I was therefore unable to continue with the BPA appeal procedures through POPLA as the claimant had refused to supply me with a new POPLA appeal code to do so.[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.8 In addition, providing a premium rate telephone number to contact debt collectors is in direct contravention of FCA Handbook consumer credit conduct rules CONC 7.9.5 which states “[/FONT]A firm must not require a customer to make contact on a premium rate or other special rate telephone number the charge for which is higher than to a standard geographic telephone number.[FONT="]”[/FONT]
[FONT="]2.9 [/FONT]The Claimant has now spent 4 years harassing me with ever increasing and intimidating demands pursuing this baseless charge, sending multiple debt collector letters and causing me and my family significant distress. This is another contravention of FCA rules. In this case CONC 7.5.3: “A firm must not ignore or disregard a customer’s claim that a debt has been settled or is disputed and must not continue to make demands for payment without providing clear justification and/or evidence as to why the customer’s claim is not valid.”
[FONT="]2.10 Throughout this case the term “Parking session expired or unpaid” has been used by the Claimant and its legal representative. I believe this was, at a minimum, disingenuous and it was only through the good fortune that I needed to retain the parking receipts to claim my Jury Service expenses that I came to the realisation that there had been the machine malfunction of not recognising 50p of my payment on the day in question rather than some form of non-payment. Indeed, in an email as late as 16/05/2019, BW Legal stated that “no ticket was found to have been purchased for your vehicle.” There appears to have been no attempt to act in good faith by either the Claimant or its legal representative.[/FONT]
2.11 It is my opinion that the Claimant’s behaviour in this case is symptomatic of the parking industry’s generally appalling reputation and is precisely why on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of this industry.
[FONT="]3.0 Abuse of Process: [/FONT]Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous
3.1 CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.
3.2 Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.
3.3 The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.
3.4 Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, I as Defendant argue that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims.
3.5 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.
3.6 The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the Claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware that their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.
3.7 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. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''
4.0 Summary
4.1 In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is 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 mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.
4.2 There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. As the Defendant I am of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.
4.3 The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
0
Comments
-
Wait a minute...
You say:
You certainly do have plenty of time to produce a Witness Statement... several months.The claim was issued on 16 July; I submitted AoS on 18 July so plenty of time to submit the Witness Statement.
Well before that you need to produce and file a Defence.
With a Claim Issue Date of 16th July, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 19th August 2019 to file your Defence.
That's a month away. Loads of time to produce a perfect Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.
When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as suggested here:-
Print your Defence.
- Sign it and date it.
- Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
- Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
- Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
- Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defence received". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
- Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to keep you under pressure.
- Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.
0 - Sign it and date it.
-
Just an update on the timeline with this one if anyone else is going through the Premier Park recent claims dump to BW Legal:
16 July: BW Legal issue Notice of County Court Claim
22 July: I submit Statement of Defence to Northampton CCBC (acknowledged by CCBC with letter dated same day)
9 August: BW Legal letter - 'Our client intends to continue with the claim'
18 August: CCBC issue Small Claims Directions Questionnaire
23 August: BW Legal letter containing copy of Premier Park's Directions Questionnaire
28 August: BW Legal letter containing copy of Notice of Discontinuance to CCBC from Premier Park
(I was due to go to the Post Office today to mail my Directions Questionnaire back to CCBC and a copy to BWL but don't need to now...)
So that claim seems to be all over and done with for me now. I just need to decide whether to pursue them for costs or to just give it up as an all round bad business.
Many thanks to the regular posters on this forum - there's an awful lot to go through but it certainly strengthened my resolve to keep going with my defence.0
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