CEL County Court Claim Defence

Redx

Yes , but do not miss any deadlines , especially if their WS is late

Le_Kirk

If you wait for the Claimant's WS and they send it on Day_Last, when will you write yours? Better to get it fully written and then, if there is time and a need, add to it and submit just before deadline day.

nosferatu1001

OP - just write your damned WS. You know it needs writing. 90% of it will NOT be affected by their WS, and given you have to POST IT TO THEM *2 working days before the deadline*, you can easily end up with them sending the WS so it arrives on the final day, meaning if you only then start to write your WS you are *already* in breach of the order unless you drive over and hand it to the claimant in person.

Why doom yourself to failure? Just get it written!

Redx

A recent court case on here had the WS plus Exhibits thrown out by the judge for being late , don't make the same mistake

The claimant will probably submit theirs at the last minute , to try to ensure that yours is late

ActiveSec

IN THE COUNTY COURT - Claim No.:

Between

CIVIL ENFROCEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

************ (Defendant)
____________________________
WITNESS STATEMENT
__________________________

I, ****************** am an employee of the Defendant Company, ********************* of ****************** in this case.

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

2. I nor the Defendant Company are not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of the defence as already filed.

3. I assert that *********** are the registered keeper of the vehicle in question in this case. I can confirm that an employee of the Defendant company was the driver of the vehicle, however, the driver was not on company business nor in anyway acting ‘on behalf of’ the Defendant company.
4. The driver of the vehicle did not see the sign at the entrance of the car park as it was obscured by foliage.
5. Please see Fig. 1 to Fig. 3 which shows screen shots of the entrance to the car park which were taken from Google street view.
6. The screen shots shows the view that the driver of the vehicle would have seen as he was approaching the car park.
7. As you can see, the sign at the entrance of the car park is partially obscured by foliage however our driver says that the sign was even more obscured by foliage on the day in question.
8. Can the claimant confirm that the hedge is regularly maintained and what date the hedge was trimmed before the date in question?
9. Once in the car park our driver did not notice the signs displaying the terms of condition due to the small size of them.
10. Please see Fig. 4 which shows a small sign on the fence which could easily be missed by a driver travelling at the maximum speed limit.
11. Fig. 5 shows a zoomed in view of the sign “displaying” (poorly) the parking terms and conditions.

12. As you can see in Fig. 5, the print is so small that even if our driver did see the sign he would have struggled to read it.
13. The sign in Fig. 5 does not appear to say that there is a fine of £100 for breaching the parking terms and conditions.
14. Fig. 6 is an example of a sign from Parking Eye v Beavis which clearly shows the penalty amount and the conditions of the car park.
15. The sign in Fig. 6 is significantly clearer than that in Fig. 5.
16. The claimant has NOT furnished us with any evidence of the alleged contravention(s).

17. The claimant has never shown the alleged signage contract photos (not even the original ‘PCNs’ showed the purported signs). As an employee of the registered keeper, I have never seen the ‘contract’ they are trying to hold the Defendant company liable for other than the screen shots taken and mentioned above.
18. In any case I also wish to point out to the presiding Judge that the Claimant has not supplied any evidence at all that the alleged contraventions even occurred. ANPR camera photos merely show a vehicle arriving and leaving. All vehicles will have been recorded thus (assuming their VRNs were captured).

19. I did not respond to the brightly-coloured alarmist Notices sent to the Defendant company by Civil Enforcement Ltd, DRP Debt Recovery Plus Ltd and Zenith Collections because I believed they were spam (this sort of scam had been exposed on Watchdog). Also, as I was not the driver and these were not offences or fines from an Authority like a Council, there was no reason or obligation upon a registered keeper to ‘appeal’ to what appeared to be junk mail. I have since researched this, hence my knowledge that these are non-POFA PCNs, incapable of holding the Defendant company liable anyway.

20. I did not respond to letters and did not name the driver as this is not an obligation or a failure on my part; I had no reason to respond and this is supported by my Exhibit 1, an extract from the POPLA Annual Report 2015.

21. Barrister and parking law expert Henry Greenslade was the ‘POPLA’ (‘Parking on Private Land Appeals’ independent service offered by the BPA) Lead Adjudicator from 2012 – 2015. I adduce as evidence Mr Greenslade’s opinion in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 which confirms that there is no presumption in law that a keeper was the driver and that keepers do not have any legal obligation whatsoever, to name drivers to private parking companies. No adverse inference can be drawn from my choice not to respond to what appeared to be spam.

22. A similarly poorly pleaded and evidenced ‘private parking ticket’ claim was struck out by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 without a hearing, due to a the law firm’s template particulars being held to be ‘incoherent’, failing to comply with CPR 16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''.

23. The Court is invited to dismiss this Claim. I firmly believe that to pursue the Defendant company as registered keeper when the Claimant lacks ‘evidence’ is wholly unreasonable.

24. I believe the facts stated in this Defence Statement are true.





Fig. 1 to Fig. 5 - Photos of the car park signs
Fig. 6 Photo of Beavis vs Parkingeye sign

Exhibit 1
The vital matter of 'keeper liability' regarding the law when parking on private land was confirmed by parking law expert barrister, Henry Greenslade, the previous POPLA Lead Adjudicator, in 2015 in the Annual Report where he stated:

“There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time. Unlike, for example, a Notice of Intended Prosecution where details of the driver of a vehicle must be supplied when requested by the police, pursuant to Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a keeper sent a Schedule 4 notice has no legal obligation to name the driver."

ActiveSec

your comments regarding my WS gratefully received

nosferatu1001

You introduce exhibits formally - short desc of what they are, INITIALS/001 as reference index.
That way you can easily refer to yours and theirs with no confusion.

8) you dont ask q in a WS.
5) and 6) combine, no need for sep. para her. Concise short sentence.

9) terms and conditions...
10) combines into 9 - see exhibit... for an eaxmple of one o the small, obscured signs easily missed when travelling around the car park at a normal speed.
11) and 12)how will they determine the size of the lettering? any measurements?
13) NEVER use the damned word "fine". state the sign in figure 5 does not show any purported "parking charge" of £100 in a prominent enough font. Compare, side by side, YOUR sign with the sign from Beavis to show the HUUUUUUUUGE difference!
14) that gets rid of this para, as youre now doing it in para 13.
15) Take it out, again why a separate para?
16) What was the alleged contravention? I dont see it mentioned anywhere.
17) and 18) its VRM, not VRN. Way too long a para here, that essentially reiterates 16
24) not a defence!

You havent included ANYHTING about the abuse of process added on money - have they not claimed it in this case?

Le_Kirk

2. I nor the Defendant Company are not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of the defence as already filed.

Better as: -

2. Neither I nor the Defendant Company are 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.

1505grandad

Also make sure claimant's name spelt correctly.

You have signed it off as Defence.

ActiveSec

Thank you for all you help people. Please see my revised WS below. I would appreciate any feedback.

IN THE COUNTY COURT - Claim No.:

Between

CIVIL ENFORCEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

************ (Defendant)
____________________________
WITNESS STATEMENT
__________________________

I, ****************** am an employee of the Defendant Company, ********************* of ****************** in this case.

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

2. Neither I nor the Defendant Company are 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.

3. I assert that *********** are the registered keeper of the vehicle in question in this case. I can confirm that an employee of the Defendant company was the driver of the vehicle, however, the driver was not on company business nor in anyway acting ‘on behalf of’ the Defendant company.

4. The driver of the vehicle did not see the sign at the entrance of the car park as it was obscured by foliage.

5. Please see exhibit AE/001, AE/002 and AE/003 which shows screen shots of the entrance to the car park which were taken from Google street view. The screen shots show the view that the driver of the vehicle would have seen as he was approaching the car park.

6. As you can see, the sign at the entrance of the car park is partially obscured by foliage however our driver says that the sign was even more obscured by foliage on the day in question.

7. Please see exhibit AE/004 which shows small signs around the car park which poorly displays the terms and conditions due to the small size of them.

8. Please see exhibit AE/005 for an example of one of the small, obscured signs easily missed when travelling around the car park at a normal speed. It shows a zoomed in view of the sign which poorly displays the parking terms and conditions.

9. The sign in exhibit AE/005 does not show any purported "parking charge" of £100 in a prominent enough font.

10.  AE/006 is an example of a sign from Parking Eye v Beavis which clearly shows the penalty amount and the conditions of the car park. Please see exhibit AE/007 which shows the claimants poor sign against the remarkably clear sign from Parking Eye v Beavis.

11. I wish to point out to the presiding Judge that the Claimant has not supplied any evidence at all that the alleged contraventions even occurred. ANPR camera photos merely show a vehicle arriving and leaving. All vehicles will have been recorded thus (assuming their VRMs were captured). I have never been supplied with the alleged signage contract photos or a copy of the “contract”.

12. I did not respond to the brightly-coloured alarmist Notices sent to the Defendant company by Civil Enforcement Ltd, DRP Debt Recovery Plus Ltd and Zenith Collections because I believed they were spam (this sort of scam had been exposed on Watchdog). Also, as I was not the driver and these were not offences or fines from an Authority like a Council, there was no reason or obligation upon a registered keeper to ‘appeal’ to what appeared to be junk mail.

13. I did not respond to letters and did not name the driver as this is not an obligation or a failure on my part; I had no reason to respond and this is supported by my Exhibit AE/008, an extract from the POPLA Annual Report 2015.

14. Barrister and parking law expert Henry Greenslade was the ‘POPLA’ (‘Parking on Private Land Appeals’ independent service offered by the BPA) Lead Adjudicator from 2012 – 2015. I adduce as evidence Mr Greenslade’s opinion in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 which confirms that there is no presumption in law that a keeper was the driver and that keepers do not have any legal obligation whatsoever, to name drivers to private parking companies. No adverse inference can be drawn from my choice not to respond to what appeared to be spam.

15. A similarly poorly pleaded and evidenced ‘private parking ticket’ claim was struck out by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 without a hearing, due to a the law firm’s template particulars being held to be ‘incoherent’, failing to comply with CPR 16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''.

16. The Court is invited to dismiss this Claim. I firmly believe that to pursue the Defendant company as registered keeper when the Claimant lacks ‘evidence’ is wholly unreasonable.

17. As mentioned in the Defence Statement, 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.

18. I believe the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.

 

Exhibits AE/001, AE/002, AE/003, AE/004 and AE/005 shows a photos of the car park signs.

Exhibit AE/006 shows a Photo of the Parking Eye vs Beavis sign

Exhibit AE/007 shows a side by side example of the Claimants sign against the clearly presented sign from Parking Eye vs Beavis

 

Exhibit AE/008

The vital matter of 'keeper liability' regarding the law when parking on private land was confirmed by parking law expert barrister, Henry Greenslade, the previous POPLA Lead Adjudicator, in 2015 in the Annual Report where he stated:

“There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time. Unlike, for example, a Notice of Intended Prosecution where details of the driver of a vehicle must be supplied when requested by the police, pursuant to Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a keeper sent a Schedule 4 notice has no legal obligation to name the driver."