Nottingham PCN Incorrect VRN

Le_Kirk

Whilst you wait for replies, you could use the forum search facility to see if anyone has posted similarly.  Go to top of any page in the parking forum (although I always open a new tab and then open the parking forum) and click on advanced search.  In the "Search Forum" box type the name of the car park, ignore what comes up automatically but scroll down and hit search now.

Bakedalasker

OK guys here is my final W/S:

In the County Court at xxxxx

Claim Number:   xxxxxxx

Hearing Date:                  xxxxxxx

 

 

WITNESS STATEMENT OF xxxxxxxx (DEFENDANT)

 

 

1. I, xxxxxxxxxx, am the defendant against whom this claim is made. I represent myself as a litigant-in-person, with no formal legal training. I have carried out a good deal of research in preparation for this case, however I trust the Court will excuse me if my presentation is less than professional. Everything in the following statement is true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

 2. In my statement I shall refer to exhibits within the evidence bundle supplied with this statement, referring to page and reference numbers where appropriate. I will refer to this bundle as Articles 1 to Articles 7

 3 Sequence of events:

 

3.1   On the 20th June 2019  at 12:38 I parked at Marco Island carpark, Huntington Drive,  Nottingham. I paid the 2 hours fee for the use of the carpark via the ticket machine situated in the carpark. This was done in front of my daughter. I then returned to my car and placed the ticket on my dashboard. 

3.2  I then went shopping with my daughter and returned to the car park within the 2 hours I had paid for. I drove out of the car park at 14:33 and within my time period I had paid for.

3.3  I received a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for £100 on the 26th June 2019 from HX Car Park management claiming “I had failed to purchase and/or validate a pay and display ticket. I appealed this against this PCN through the Independent Appeals Service (IAS) where my appeal was rejected due to them claiming I only entering 2 digits of my registration into the pay machine. Please refer to

3.4 After receiving the above rejection I appealed to the owner of the car park RBH Properties who in return ignored my correspondence. Please refer to

 

 

4 Later Events:

4.1   After spending some time researching issues and complaints surrounding Private Parking Companies (hereafter referred to as PPCs), I decided to wait until The Claimant contacted me.

 

4.2  I received a Final Demand from HX Car Park Management on the 10th August 2019 now demanding £125.  On 9th September 2019, I received a Letter Before Claim (LBC) from Gladstone Solicitors for the amount £160.

4.3   Once I received the LBC from Gladstones I did some research on the IAS and my findings found that the IAS to be a trading name of United Trade and Industry Ltd, whose founding directors are John Llewellyn Gladstone Davies and William Kenneth Hurley. These people are (in the case of Davies) or were (Hurley) directors of Gladstone Solicitors Limited.

4.4   Gladstones are a firm of solicitors whose business model seems to be mainly based on representing PPCs like The Claimant (indeed, Gladstones has represented The Claimant on many occasions) and churning out computerised “Roboclaims”, simple copy-and-paste letters that no qualified solicitor has cast an eye over and that are designed to intimidate and harass people into caving in to vexatious and unfounded claims.

4.5   Further research showed me that the overwhelming majority of appeals from this “Independent” Appeals Service are rejected. I therefore question the Conflict of Interest in this process.

 

Bakedalasker

5 Predatory Tactics employed by the Claimant.

5.1 Ironically, HX Parking claim on their website that they are a new breed of ethical parking operator. I’m afraid that my experience, and that of the scores of other victims, this is certainly not evident through their unethical practices.  Their behaviour would appear to be predatory tactics which are totally contrary to the IPC Code of Practice. I would quote from the Code Vs 6:

Predatory Tactics

 You must not use predatory or misleading tactics to lure drivers into incurring parking charges. Such instances will be viewed as a serious instance of non-compliance and will be dealt with under the sanctions system as defined in schedule 2 to the Code. Lack of consumer information regarding the VRN and misprinted tickets is not transparent and does nothing to help consumers recognise whether their purchased tickets are valid or not.

 

5.2 The claimant will claim that I have avers to naming the driver of the vehicle. They will claim I have been approached “several” times to name the driver. In my Defence I claimed to be the Keeper of the vehicle (Refer to Claimant W/S point 2). On my IAS appeal I informed them that I paid for the parking with 2 witnesses there. That surely must be proof enough to say I was the driver( Refer to attached Article 1 IAS appeal) I revoke the claim that I have avers to identifying the driver on several occasions  so therefore, I ask for proof from the Claimant to support this accusation.

5.3 The claimant will claim that I accuse them of targeting motorists. I have never done such a thing so therefore challenge the Claimant to prove this.

5.4 By taking advantage of my misfortune to use a faulty machine on the day the Claimant is operating contrary to the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The act says that:-

“The consumer could be at a disadvantage when a term gives the business the right to decide how the contract is interpreted or whether any breach has occurred.”

“If a business reserves the right to decide what a term of the contract means, then it is effectively in a position to alter the way it works to suit itself.”

“Concerns also arise in relation to terms that could allow the business to impose sanctions on consumers for what it chooses to regard as their breaches, whether the law would regard the consumer as being in breach or not.”

5.5  I would also challenge the Claimant to tell the courts how many of their PCNs are issued for this reason. It has become evident that this parking operator has a modus operandi which involves two unfair methods of issuing tickets on their car parks across the country. One is the use of the 10 minutes rule, the other is faulty payment machines which misprint the ticket and does not upload the full Vehicle Registration Number to their servers.

5.6 The Claimant has brought a claim for £238.33 for a contractual parking charge of £100. This gross inflation of the amount is an abuse of process and not supported by the decision of ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case). I believe this is a clear attempt at “double recovery” to circumvent the restrictions of the Small Claims track.

5.7   Once I received the LBC from Gladstones I did some research on the IAS and my findings found that the IAS to be a trading name of United Trade and Industry Ltd, whose founding directors are John Llewellyn Gladstone Davies and William Kenneth Hurley. These people are (in the case of Davies) or were (Hurley) directors of Gladstone Solicitors Limited.  

Gladstones are a firm of solicitors whose business model seems to be mainly based on representing PPCs like The Claimant (indeed, Gladstones has represented The Claimant on many occasions) and churning out computerised “Roboclaims”, simple copy-and-paste letters that no qualified solicitor has cast an eye over and that are designed to intimidate and harass people into caving in to vexatious and unfounded claims. 

 Further research showed me that the overwhelming majority of appeals from this “Independent” Appeals Service are rejected. I therefore  question the Conflict of Interest in this process.

5.8  While I fully appreciate the need for parking control on private land I do not appreciate the apparent business tactics of The Claimant.   In Jolley v Carmel Ltd [2000] 2 –EGLR -154, it was held that a party who makes reasonable endeavours to comply with contractual terms, should not be penalised for breach.  The principle of de minimis applies here, namely that this is a legal action for technical breaches of rules or agreements where the impact of the breach is negligible.

 

Bakedalasker

6. Ticket Machine

6.1 I have learned from other people using HX car parks that there are many faults with these machines and it is not uncommon for tickets to be issued with only 2 or 3 characters printed on even though the driver has entered the full VRN. HX are aware that xx is part of my VRM and that I paid the correct amount. However, they will not admit that their machines are responsible for this error and 100’s of people have experienced the same fault.

6.2 As already mentioned it was my misfortune to have encountered a faulty machine on that particular day, but since my PCN and appeal rejection I have learned that I was not the only person to have fallen victim of this unscrupulous parking injustice. I have since read local newspaper reports and very many social media posts describing these same faults recurring at this very small car park. It is of note that the former MP for Workington Sue Hayman called for a boycott of the carpark in the local press and is launching ‘mass legal action’ against HX Parking as a result of the countless PCNs issued due to these machines.

https://www.wigantoday.net/news/people/wiganers-anger-over-parking-fines-1-9264243 Refer to attached Article 2.

 

https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/16739229.workington-mp-calls-for-vulcans-lane-car-park-boycott/ Refer to attached  Article 3.

 

https://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/17505136.mp-to-launch-mass-legal-action-against-unfair-parking-charges/ Refer to attached Article 4

 

6.3 Further investigations show that people using HX Car Park Management Ltd’s car parks in Wigan, Halifax and Workington have been suffering the exact same faulty machines and misprinted tickets. This has to be too much of a coincidence. On the balance of probabilities, given the small number of car parking spaces and the high number of faults that these machines have caused, it cannot have escaped HX Car Park Management’s notice that there is a problem here.

6.4 I have knowledge of many recent court cases involving the Claimant and drivers at the Workington, Halifax and Wigan car parks where these faulty Parkeon machine caused PCNs to be issued.

 

Name	Location	Reason	Claim No	Hearing Date	Outcome for Defendant
Tol Larmour	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	E8GF4R8E	14/01/2019	Won
Tony Charalambous	Westgate	Misprint	E4GF3Z3C	22/01/2019	Won
Jason Brown	King St.	Misprint	E5GF3K2A	27/02/2019	Won
Philip Scala	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	E3GF7Q6Y	25/03/2019	Won
Barrie Bryce	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	E1GF55RK	03/06/2019	Won
Dickinson	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	E10GF46RK	03/06/2019	Won
Bessie Wood	Westgate	Misprint	E1GF38RK	10/06/2019	Won
Mary Kendall	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	E1GF68RK	11/06/2019	Discontinued
Helen Paine	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	E1GF43RK	11/06/2019	Discontinued
Chris Dempsey	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	F6GF563Z	12/08/2019	Won
Karen Quin	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	F7GF75M5	14/09/2019	Discontinued
John Hatchard	Vulcan Ln	Misprint	F5GF803R	11/09/2019	Won
Jayne Maiden	Westgate	Misprint	F5GF773R	13/09/2019	Won

 

​

In all cases the Judges found for the defendants for the reasons that the drivers had acted reasonably and that on the balance of probability the machines were at fault.

Furthermore, the Claimant has discontinued further hearings at very short notice in the West Cumbria Court. This only goes to prove their flagrant disregard for the defendants and their abuse of the Small Claims Process.

 

6.5 I would draw the court’s attention to case law with Claim No. C8DP11F9, EXCEL PARKING SERVICES LTD v Ms S. DISTRICT JUDGE BURROW ruled:-

“I am satisfied that the ticket then produced is the ticket that she has produced to the court. It was through no fault of hers that this ticket displayed the letters “QQ” instead of her registration number. She obtained a ticket. She made the payment to obtain that. She displayed that ticket. It shows the relevant time of entry. It shows the amount that she has paid and it shows the registration number that the ticket machine produced. It would have been unreasonable to expect the defendant to do anything further beyond that as far as I am concerned. The registration number is not accurately reflected but that is through no fault on the part of the defendant and I find on the balance of probabilities that the defendant had inputted the correct registration number and she had then displayed the ticket that was issued and so to all intents and purposes had fully complied with the terms and conditions applicable to this car park. Accordingly, I am going to dismiss the claim.”

This claim is exactly the same as mine and the hundreds of other claims that HX is trying to pursue. Refer to attached Article 5

 

6.6 I also case of UK Car Park Management Ltd v Esplanade Limited (E8GF1V7V) where, on the 21/11/2018, Judge Grand sitting at Newport ordered that the claim be struck out.

 

6.7 I have also noticed that on Monday 21st October 2019 that HX Parking Management LTD had 9 such hearings listed at The County Court West Cumbria before DDJ Forrester.

 

6.8 The Claimant has received many complaints about these ticket machines they employ yet they refuse to act on them. These complaints can go back over a year or more before my case was initiated. You would think the Claimant would consider actions like having the machines upgraded so a customer is forced to put in a 6 digits registration. The fact this has not happened makes you question the ethics of this company.

6.9 The Claimant claims during the IAS appeal that there is a telephone number to call them if there is an issue with the ticket. There is no transparent sign to advise the customer of this and what number there is its in small print making it difficult to find. The efforts to help the customer at this site are very minimal.

 

Bakedalasker

7. No Contract Exists:

7.1 I understand from correspondence with The Claimant that the Claimant’s case relies upon the signage at the site  constituting a “contract” between myself and The Claimant. The “outstanding liability” on the Particulars of Claim presumably refers to the supposed “contract” formed by this signage.

7.2 PPCs and their legal representatives often rely on the case “ParkingEye vs Beavis”, seemingly without actually understanding many aspects of the case. In that case, it was found that a contract could exist because there was a meaningful “offer” made to the Defendant (that of a licence allowing free parking for a set period of time) and that the Defendant’s agreeing not to overstay this period could constitute a “consideration” in respect of this. The ‘ParkingEye vs Beavis’ judgement is littered with references to the disputed charge being justifiable only in the context of the “contractual licence to park” being given to the Defendant, e.g. “They must regard the risk of having to pay £85 for overstaying as an acceptable price for the convenience of parking there”.

 

7.3 There is no such “offer” made by The Claimant's signage in my case, no “contractual licence”, no “benefit of free parking” and no conceivable way that I could have benefitted from this alleged “contract” without breaching its terms, even if I had been able to read them before parking. Therefore, to apply the ParkingEye v Beavis case to claim a contract exists is misleading and wrong.  Infact the signage at Marco Island states: “THERE IS NO FREE CAR PARKING PERIOD OR CONCESSIONS”.  Therefore, “Consideration”  does not exist in that statement, so no contract exists according to ParkingEye v Beavis.

 

 

8. Additional Costs – Abuse of Process:

8.1 I note that the particulars of claim include a substantial charge for “contractual costs” of £60 in additional to the parking charge of £100 under the alleged “contract”. This additional charge is not specified on the signage in the car park. Having researched this point, I understand that this amount is in breach of both a number of statutory provisions and also widely known case law applicable to the parking industry, including:
a) the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (attached as Article 6) paragraphs 4(5) and 4(6), where Parliament limits the charge to the amount specified in the notice to keeper (£100);
b) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14 of Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (attached as Article 7); and
c) the judgement in Parking Eye Ltd vs Beavis, which I understand to be the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in the Beavis case) was held to already incorporate the costs of an automated private parking business model including recovery letters. It is indisputable that an alleged 'parking charge' penalty is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover all costs.

8.2 I believe 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 and is an attempt at double recovery. This practice has already been exposed and routinely disallowed by many Courts in England and Wales. It is only those who defend, who draw individual cases to the attention of the courts one by one, but at last, particularly in 2019, a number of District Judges have moved to strike out similar claims for abuse of process. Some examples include:
a) District Judge Grand in the County Court at Newport, Isle of Wight in respect of Claim Number E8GF1V7V (UK Car Park Management Ltd v Esplanade Ltd)

on 21 November 2018
b) District Judge Jones-Evans in the Caernarfon Court in in respect of Claim Number F2QZ4W28 (Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies) on 4th September 2019 inciting:

''Upon it being recorded that District Judge Jones-Evans has over a very significant period of time warned advocates [...] in many cases of this nature before this court that their claim for £60 is unenforceable in law and is an abuse of process and is nothing more than a poor attempt to go behind the decision of the Supreme Court v Beavis which inter alia decided that a figure of £160 as a global sum claimed in this case would be a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and therefore unenforceable in law and if the practice continued he would treat all cases as a claim for £160 and therefore a penalty and unenforceable in law it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be wholly without merit and an abuse of process.''

c) Deputy District Judge Joseph sitting at Warwick County Court in respect of Claim Numbers F0HM8F4K (Phoenix Parking Solutions Ltd v [ ]) and F5DP2D6Y (Premier Park Limited vs Mr Jonathan Shaw) on 15th November and 5th December 2019 respectively:
d) District Judge Taylor in Southampton County Court in Case Number F0DP201T (Britannia Parking v Mr C) on 10 June 2019 inciting:

''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...'' and finally:

e) District Judge Grand in Southampton County Court in Case Number F0DP163T (Britannia Parking v another) on 11 July 2019

8.3. In respect of the Case Numbers F0DP806M and F0DP201T mentioned above, the courts went further in a landmark judgment in November 2019 by striking out Britannia Parking’s application to have the previous judgments set aside, with District Judge Grand holding that the add-on of £60 of costs/damages to the parking charge did indeed breach CRA 2015 as well as POFA 2012 and the principles laid down in Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis.

8.4   According to Ladak v DRC Locums (case number 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.

 

 

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.

 

 

KeithP

3.3  I received a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN)...

That isn't true, is it?

Surely it is a Parking Charge Notice that you received?

Bakedalasker

This was pointed out to me earlier but I had not corrected it. All correct now.

Le_Kirk

5.2 The claimant will claim that I have avers to naming the driver of the vehicle. 

That sentence makes no sense, what are you trying to say? 
Check out the latest wording around Abuse of Process by looking at the New Defence Template written by @Coupon-mad (can be found by searching the forum) and yes, I know it is a defence but it contains the recommended court cases (not Caernarfon) plus the judgments to be attached as EXHIBITS not articles and referenced INITIALS_001 etc.
You also need the latest statement of truth: -

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.  I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

Bakedalasker

This is what they have put in their W/S. I'm just saying its a load of rubbish.

The Defendant avers that they were not the driver

12. The Criminal Case of Elliott v Loake 1983 Crim LR 36 held that the Registered Keeper of a vehicle
may be presumed to have been the driver unless they sufficiently rebut this presumption. To
date the Registered Keeper has been invited on numerous occasions to identify the driver, yet
has failed to do so. The Court is therefore invited to conclude it more likely than not that the
Registered Keeper (i.e. the Defendant) was the driver.
13. In the alternative, if the Court is not able to infer that the Defendant was the driver then the
Defendant is pursued as the Registered Keeper of the vehicle pursuant to Schedule 4 of the
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (‘the Act’) Paragraph 4(1) which states:
“The creditor has the right to recover any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the
vehicle.”
14. Paragraph 2 of the Act states that; the “keeper” means the person by whom the vehicle is kept
at the time the vehicle was parked, which in the case of a registered vehicle is to be presumed,
unless the contrary is proved, to be the registered keeper.
15. The relevant Notice was sent to the Defendant in accordance with the Act and the Registered
Keeper (the Defendant) failed to nominate who was driving the vehicle prior to these
proceedings which is required under paragraph 5(2) of the Act.

MistyZ

Even so, your 'avers' sentence doesn't make sense.  'The claimant will claim / claims that I averred I was not the driver' makes grammatical sense.