County Court Defence Help Please

Coupon-mad

dollydoodar said:

can you please tell me, do i have to write the beavis case paprgraphs in my WS or just signpost to them and send a copy of the case?? thanks 

Easier to write them in your WS IMHO.  No need to append the Beavis case at all because it's Supreme Court level and easly available to the Judge to check what you are saying.

beamerguy

Court on the the 17th July.

There is time to email CEL regarding the fake add-ons.
Suggest you read this thread and scroll down to ....
A SUITABLE REPLY TO SCAMMERS"
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6129744/bwlegal-the-scam/p1?new=1
You will need to adapt to your case

The purpose being that you are putting CEL on notice to explain their fake add-ons. Of course there is no legal authority they can claim.  

It does not matter if they reply or not, your letter can be shown to the judge on the day which will highlight abuse of process and show a judge that their claim is unreliable

dollydoodar

hi everyone,
i am panicking a bit as i thought i had given myself enough time to get things sorted but upon looking at it all, my head has started to become jumbled. this friday is 14 days before the trial and i thought a couple of days working on it would suffice. it will have to but i may be up late...

i have a fee schedule and a WS started but i am unsure of the angle i am going to take. should i add lots of points or focus on one or two?

i feel sure the sign issue will be a good point as it used to be free for disabled patrons to park and the rules changed and i did not realise. i have recently noticed that they changed the sign to a much smaller one when they took over, you can see the extra pole which contained a larger sign previously, sneaky ££££££'s...

i am thinking of calling the court again to make sure it's going ahead in person. i tried to get onto the mcol site to see if they have filed anything on there as i have not heard a thing from them so i have no idea of their approach. i forgot my password and will have to wait up to 3 days for help as i do not have access to the telephone number stored for recovery.

not sure what to do next. all advice will be greatly appreciated...

dollydoodar

Coupon-mad said:

dollydoodar wrote: »

I received the SAR from popla today and although they state that I admit to being the driver, I do not. I do say "I did not realise that the car park had new rules and that I needed to present the car park ticket at the till for free parking or else I would of done so" and I did do those things but that is not admitting to being the driver, is it? I think they're just trying their luck...

I agree. Make a formal complaint to POPLA and tell them:

It is a manual van which I am unable to drive due to disability.

...and point out that the Assessor was never entitled to guess (horribly wrongly) that you were driving, just because you were a passenger who talked about getting a ticket validated when shopping (as any shopper would). They were not entitled to decide that shopper was the driver, because you said in the appeal at the start a point of fact that was never rebutted by any evidence:

The Defendant was not the driver of said vehicle.

ask POPLA whether their position nowadays is that disabled people have to prove they were not driving, and are not believed when they start their appeal with the honest position that they were NOT, then merely talk about being a shopper/visitor.

Say that their consideration of the points was cursory, and based upon incorrect assumption, and you consider it discriminatory, and that you require an apology for the horrendous error that now sees you with a court claim threat and has caused you huge distress.

I wrote to complain and this was their reply...

I note from your correspondence that you are unhappy with the decision reached by the assessor in your appeal against Civil Enforcement.

 

POPLA is an impartial and independent appeals service and we do not act either for the parking operator or the appellant. It is important to explain that it is not our remit to source evidence and documents from either party in support of their submission and our decisions are based on the evidence received from both parties at the time of the appeal. We cannot consider further evidence after the appeal has been completed.

 

You advise that you feel you have been discriminated against. You state you are a disabled motorist and that the assessor has wrongly assumed that you were the driver of the vehicle on the date of the event.

 

When assessing an appeal, we will firstly look at the appellant’s grounds of appeal to determine what type of liability we are considering. In your appeal to POPLA, you used statements such as:

 

“I was unaware that I was committing an offence. I have been parking in this car park as a disabled customer of Morrisons supermarket for over 3 years now and I have never received a parking charge before. I have contacted Morrisons and they tell me that this is a relatively new rule, one which I was not aware of myself”.

 

From your statements, the assessor was satisfied that you had appealed as the driver of the vehicle. Having reviewed your grounds of appeal myself as an Independent assessor, I am satisfied that the assessor made a judgement call based on the information received. I do not consider any errors to have been made nor has the assessor been discriminatory towards you.

 

I have reviewed the assessor’s decision and I am satisfied that they have considered all of the evidence provided so, the outcome reached is correct and therefore, no procedural error has occurred. As POPLA is a one-stage process, there is no opportunity for you to appeal the decision.

dollydoodar

just spoke to the court. it's definitely not going to be face to face and they will contact me any time between now and the day before to let me know if it will be by telephone, skype or adjourned. i am off to read the advice on here about non face to face trials.....

nosferatu1001

Nope, first get your WS written because that still has a deadline of friday until told otherwise by the court
Your WS is written in support of the defence filed
So it talks about the facts of the day - firstly that you were not the driver and could not be, and here is the evidence proving that - and so on.
You look at your defence, work out the facts you have that support that defence, and write them down. 
Its pretty easy! It is your story of what happened 

dollydoodar

do you think it will be okay to write in my explanation as to why it has gone this far that after appealing to popla and they wrongly presummed i was the driver, i did not know what to do next?

nosferatu1001

Well there wasnt anything for you to do next, other than pay - so you dont have to "apologise" as such for it having gotten to court. Just state that, despite you proving you were not the driver, the Claimant took you to court anyway. 

dollydoodar

i have been looking through other WS's and I am confused as to whether I need to make mine a mammoth or a short one. 

nosferatu1001

How about: write it out, and see
Prevaricating and obsessing isnt helping
Get. it. written. Then you can see if it needs trimming down or not.