VCS Court claim

Flame17

Dates back to an alleged offence in December 2015 via APNR and letter to registered keeper.
Followed early procedures outlined on the forum, moved house and they lost me! Found earlier this year.
Claim form issued on 2nd July 2019.
Acknowledged it on 5th July 2019.

Please can you read over my defense and give me any further pointers. Thanks


1. The Defendant was the registered keeper of vehicle registration number XXXXX on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.
2. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, it is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.
3. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the claimant's signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. No signage is attached to the main entrance of the car park and therefore the driver did not enter any contract with the claimant.
4. Upon inspection of the signs after receiving the charge notice, the signage is unclear, they are located at a distance and placed so high creating an illegible condition to read the terms and conditions required to enter a contract. The signs do not comply with BPA Code of Practice.
5.Furthermore, such is the density and complexity of the text on the sign that the most onerous term – the parking charge – is buried amongst a mass of small print and does not comply with Denning MR’s “Red Hand Rule
6. The POFA, at Section 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. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery
7.The POFA, schedule 4 paragraph, where the registered keeper is informed by post of a parking charge states the notice must be given by sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period. The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended. A notice sent by post is to be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been delivered (and so “given” for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4)) on the second working day after the day on which it is posted; and for this purpose “working day” means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday in England and Wales. Delivery would therefore would have been deemed to be 28/12/15, 16 days after the alleged offence. The letter to the registered keeper was in fact received on 30/12/15 some 18 days after the alleged offence.
8.The claimant is pursuing the registered keeper on the assumption that they were also the driver. The defendant has previously informed the claimant they were not the driver and has medical proof to back up their claim. The claimant was not interested in seeing any proof so the defendant invites the claimant to prove they were the driver at the time of the offence.
9. There is no such obligation in law to identify the driver and this was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by parking expert barrister and Lead Adjudicator, Henry Greenslade, who also clarified the fact that registered keeper can only be held liable under the POFA Schedule 4 and not by presumption or any other legal argument.

KeithP

Flame17 wrote: »

Claim form issued on 2nd July 2019.
Acknowledged it on 5th July 2019.

With a Claim Issue Date of 2nd July, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 5th August 2019 to file your Defence.

That's two weeks away. Loads of time to produce a good 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.
1. Sign it and date it.
   
2. Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
   
3. Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
   
4. 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'.
   
5. Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defence received". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to keep you under pressure.
   
7. 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.

Flame17

Please can you have a look at my defence and let me know what you think?
(On original post)
Thanks

Coupon-mad

The signs do not comply with BPA Code of Practice.

Which is fine for VCS to bat back at you, since they haven't been in the BPS AOS since 2014!

I think your first sentence needs to set the scene with the vital fact 'I wasn't driving':

The Defendant was the registered keeper of vehicle registration number XXXXX on the material date.

Which car park was this and what sort of contravention was alleged?

Not paying? Overstay? No permit?

Where exactly?

You need to add the words I wrote in post #14 of beamerguy's Abuse of Process thread, to attack the FAKE added costs that most PPCs are lying to the courts about.

Flame17

The car park was Abbey walk in Selby, the alleged contravention was overstaying the limit.

Thank you, I'll look at that thread and do another draft.

Flame17

Next draft......

Question regarding pt 13 - the claim form is signed Simon Renshaw-Smith (Claimant) is that a named solicitor?

Thanks for your help.

DEFENCE

1. The Defendant was the registered keeper of vehicle registration number XXXXX on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.
2.The claimant is pursuing the registered keeper on the assumption that they were also the driver. The defendant has previously informed the claimant they were not the driver and has medical proof to back up their claim. The claimant was not interested in seeing any proof so the defendant invites the claimant to prove they were the driver at the time of the offence.
3.The POFA, schedule 4 paragraph, where the registered keeper is informed by post of a parking charge states the notice must be given by sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period. The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended. A notice sent by post is to be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been delivered (and so “given” for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4)) on the second working day after the day on which it is posted; and for this purpose “working day” means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday in England and Wales. Delivery would therefore have deemed to be 28/12/15, 16 days after the alleged offence. The letter to the registered keeper was in fact received on 30/12/15 some 18 days after the alleged offence.
4. There is no such obligation in law to identify the driver and this was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by parking expert barrister and Lead Adjudicator, Henry Greenslade, who also clarified the fact that registered keeper can only be held liable under the POFA Schedule 4 and not by presumption or any other legal argument.
5. It is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.
6. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the claimant's signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. No signage is attached to the main entrance of the car park and therefore the driver did not enter any contract with the claimant.
7. Upon inspection of the signs after receiving the charge notice, the signage is unclear, they are located at a distance and placed so high creating an illegible condition to read the terms and conditions required to enter a contract. The signs do not comply with BPA Code of Practice.
8.Furthermore such is the density and complexity of the text on the sign that the most onerous term – the parking charge – is buried amongst a mass of small print and does not comply with Denning MR’s “Red Hand Rule
9. The POFA, at Section 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. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.
10. 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.

11. 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.

12.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.

13. 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, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

14. 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.

15. 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 their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

16. 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...''

17. 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.

18. 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. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

19. 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.


Statement of Truth:

I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.


Name

Signature


Date

Redx

he is the owner of VCS and EXCEL

BEFORE it is ordered in 16) , write something like

The 2 judges stated

Egbert_Nobacon

In point 3 I would insert the date of the alleged transgression to show how they were outside the 14 days in issuing the NTK.

Hammer this point home.

Flame17

Thank you all.
Defence submitted!

Flame17

I have received my court date. January 3rd 2019!!!
So question one would be do I need to do anything about this typo?
I'm intending to get my witness statement and supporting documents submitted by 13th December to give leeway on the 14 days and with it being Christmas.
Thanks

Redx

personally, I would contact the court and get the court order reissued with the correct details, even if it was emailed to you and to the claimant