Link Parking/BW Legal beaten in court.

KeithP

The CCBC are often behind with their paperwork.

You have an automatic email receipt, so if it becomes a dispute, you have proof of when it was returned.

Nothing to worry about.

keypulse

I now have a date for my court appearance and have received a witness statement from BW. I will be preparing my own WS and document pack over the coming days.

BW refer to Parking Eye vs Beavis in their WS and I'd like to include in my pack pictures of the actual entrance signage from that case, which I think I have seen online in the past but am unable to find now. Does anyone have a link to these please? I've used Google Maps to get some snapshots of the signage at Riverside Retail Park but some higher quality pictures from around the time of the Beavis case would be appreciated, if those exist.


I will be using as many as 40 or so photographs in my pack. Is it acceptable to get prints ordered as standard 4" x 6" and mount them on A4 cards to go into the concatenated pack? I think if I use my own printer they won't come out clearly and will probably cost more in ink than ordering prints online.



BW are doing the usual moan about my defence being cribbed from the 'net but I suppose that's to be expected

beamerguy

keypulse wrote: »

I now have a date for my court appearance and have received a witness statement from BW. I will be preparing my own WS and document pack over the coming days.

BW refer to Parking Eye vs Beavis in their WS and I'd like to include in my pack pictures of the actual entrance signage from that case, which I think I have seen online in the past but am unable to find now. Does anyone have a link to these please?


I will be using as many as 40 or so photographs in my pack. Is it acceptable to get prints ordered as standard 4" x 6" and mount them on A4 cards to go into the concatenated pack? I think if I use my own printer they won't come out clearly and will probably cost more in ink than ordering prints online.


BW are doing the usual moan about my defence being cribbed from the 'net but I suppose that's to be expected

BWLegal are nonsensical about the Beavis case. They just don't understand that the Supreme court said in plain english ....
198. ''...The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme...''

What part of the English language don't BWLegal understand ??

As far as the also nonsensical stuff about the net ...... this reminds me of Edward Lear. He was a poet and story teller whose writings were pure rubbish

You don't need to do a David Bailey with pictures, as long as the judge gets the picture (not a pun)

Just a bit more on their Edward Lear comments, given that you can show real cases, especially the Southampton one where they lost the appeal as well, the mind boggles as to where they think they are going with this. Might be a good idea to have stocks outside of the courts

keypulse

I'll try pasting my draft WS in parts as I seem to be going over the character limit. Constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated, even if only to tell me it's too long Please ignore the paragraph formatting, the board software has changed it.

 

 

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 EB01

 3 Sequence of events:

 

3.1   On the material date, 22 January 2019, I was called by a colleague who was working at xxxx site in xxxx. He asked to borrow some specialised equipment and I agreed to deliver it to him as I was working nearby.

 

3.2   On turning into xxxxx site from xxxxx road at around 01:40 pm I followed his directions and drove my vehicle (xxxxxx) to a loading area adjacent to “Block J”. Cars, vans and building machinery were parked at various locations along the route and I noticed no signage referring to parking at this time. The route taken is shown on Page 01 EB01, running from “xxxxx” to the grey rectangle marked “Car”.

 

3.3   Having met my colleague at the loading area at around 01:45 pm I assisted him with carrying the equipment to his workplace.

 

3.4   On returning to my vehicle at around 01:55 pm I noticed a yellow plastic envelope affixed to my windscreen and found it to contain a “Parking Charge Notice”, demanding payment of £100. This “Parking Charge Notice” can be seen in The Claimant's exhibits.

 

3.5   I was unable to speak to a human upon calling the number on this ticket, nor was I able to locate any kind of agent who placed the ticket on my vehicle. They had vanished into thin air.

 

3.6   I phoned my colleague, who was most apologetic and told me he had no idea there were any parking restrictions on the site. He then contacted his customer who was also unaware of any restrictions as he used a gated car park beneath the building. The customer suggested there should be signage or markings to warn of parking restrictions and advised me to ignore the ticket but take plenty of photographs to show there was no indication of parking restrictions.

 

 

3.7   I decided to take his advice on the photographs and walked the entire route from the public highway (xxxx road) to where I had parked my vehicle.

 

3.8   Upon walking the route I was able to ascertain there were indeed a number of six signs from “Link Parking Limited” (hereafter referred to as The Claimant).

 

3.9   Due to their size (600mm high by 450mm wide), their placement and the size of the font used, these signs were nowhere near adequate for drawing attention to themselves from any reasonable person in a passing vehicle. The signs were variously facing away from or perpendicular to the direction of travel of a vehicle entering the site, placed so low down that they were easily obscured by refuse bins or other vehicles, or placed near signage of the exact same size and colours (white, yellow and black) warning of “Deep Water”. I took a number of photographs and returned to my car and left the site. The photographs taken on this occasion are shown on Pages 02 to 18, EB01 and are numbered on the top-left of each photograph in red as 01 to 33. These numbers are marked in red on the site plan on Page 01, EB01. The direction of the arrows is the direction I was facing while taking the referenced photograph. I explain the route and the photographs in more detail on Page 25, EB01

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   On 26 February 2019, after obtaining my details from the DVLA, I received a Notice To Keeper from The Claimant, demanding a payment of £100 within 28 days.

 

4.3   On 26 March 2019 I emailed The Claimant to appeal the charge and made my position very clear: that their signage at the site was woefully inadequate and could not possibly form any kind of “contract” they seemed to think we had in place. I asked for a close up photograph of the sign they contend was at the location on the material date. I also intimated that I had taken 37 photographs which proved their signage was inadequate and would happily supply these if The Claimant would like to settle the matter.

 

4.4   The Claimant responded via email on 31 March 2019, rejecting my appeal. No photograph of their sign was supplied, or my request for it acknowledged. My offer of supplying them detailed photographs of the site was ignored.

 

4.5   An option to appeal to a body called the “Independent Appeals Service” (IAS) was offered in The Claimant's rejection email. Research showed 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.

 

4.6   Gladstones are a firm of solicitors much like BW Legal, 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.

 

4.7   Further research showed me that the overwhelming majority of appeals the this “Independent” Appeals Service are rejected. I therefore declined the offer of appealing to what is in fact a “kangaroo court” and await a Letter of Claim from The Claimant.

 

4.8   While I fully appreciate the need for parking control on private land I do not appreciate the apparent business tactics of The Claimant whereby they insist people going about their lawful daily business have entered into some kind of vague “contract” with them, based on the tiny words on small and obscured signs. Nor do I appreciate the tactics of BW Legal who have sent me many harassing and distressing letters, making veiled threats towards my credit rating and even my employability.

 

4.9 The Notice to Keeper, my appeal and The Claimant's rejection of my appeal can all be seen in The Claimant's exhibits.

 

 

 

 

 

keypulse

5.No Contract Exists:

 

5.1 I understand from correspondence with The Claimant that the Claimant’s case relies upon the signage at the site (as shown on Page 06, photograph 10, EB01) 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.

 

5.2 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”.

 

5.3 There is no such “offer” made by The Claimant's signage in this case, no “contractual licence”, no “benefit of free parking” and no conceivable way the I could have benefitted from this alleged “contract” without breaching its terms, even if I had been able to read them before parking. The signs stated: “NO PARKING IN THIS AREA FOR ANY VEHICLE. BY PARKING OR REMAINING AT THIS SITE OTHERWISE THAN IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE ABOVE, YOU, THE DRIVER, ARE AGREEING TO THE FOLLOWING CONTRACTUAL TERMS”, despite the fact that multiple vehicles can be seen parked in areas where some of these obscure signs were later found.

 

5.4   In J Spurling Ltd v Bradshaw in the Court of Appeal, Lord Denning states that ‘the more unreasonable a clause is, the greater the notice which must be given of it’. This is commonly referred to the ‘Red Hand Rule’. As the terms of this “contract” (specifically the clause relating to a £100 parking charge) are designed to discourage motorists from accepting them it follows that they must be “unreasonable” and that therefore Lord Denning’s rule should apply.

 

 

 

 

5.5   The Claimant has not applied Lord Denning’s ‘Red Hand Rule’ to the terms and conditions in this case. The sentence that refers to a “parking charge” is in an extremely small font (one of the smallest on the sign) which, given that this sign is supposed to be read from a vehicle, is woefully inadequate, particularly when compared to the signage in the “ParkingEye vs Beavis” case (see Pages 22 & 23, EB01).

 

5.6   The very act of entering into this alleged “contract” (parking) constitutes a breach of its terms, therefore making it impossible to perform.

 

5.7   Both the PCN and Notice to Keeper issued by The Claimant state the reason for the disputed charge as being Parking in No Parking area”. I cannot be seen to have entered into a contract for something I was not allowed to do.

 

5.8   The signage and its wording at this site is very similar to the signage in the case of “Parking Control Management v Bull” (see Page 24, EB01) in which the District Judge Glen found that it was “impossible to construct out of this in any way, either actually or contingently or conditionally, any permission for anyone to park on the roadway”  and that therefore any charges made on the basis of said signage would be damages for trespass and must constitute reparations for actual loss.

 

6. Inadequate Signage:

 

6.1   A key factor in “ParkingEye v Beavis” was that the relevant signs were “large, prominent and legible, so that any reasonable user of the car park would be aware of their existence and nature”, that “Motorists could hardly avoid reading the notice” and “the charge is prominently displayed in large letters at the entrance to the car park and at frequent intervals within it”. As shown in the lower photograph on Page 22, EB01, the sign displayed on entering The Riverside Retail Park (of the Beavis case) is around 1350mm high and 1800mm wide. That's almost 9 times the size of The Claimant's signs (600mm by 450mm, see upper photograph, Page 22). The parking charge of £100 is actually one of the smallest fonts on the Claimant's sign measuring just 1cm in height. ParkingEye had additional signage at high level placed prominently around the Riverside Retail Park, as can be seen clearly on Page 22, upper photograph. It is harder to judge the size of these signs but using the cars parked beneath the one in the foreground it can easily be seen that these are appreciably larger than The Claimant's signs at The xxxxxx site, and more prominently displayed.

 

6.2   In Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest the Court of Appeal ruled that a person cannot be presumed bound by terms and conditions on signage that they haven’t seen. In this case, which was found in favour of the motorist, the signage was deemed insufficient because there was no sign directly adjacent to the Appellant’s parking bay and the only signage that was displayed could not have been seen from within the vehicle whilst parking.

 

6.3   In this case there was no sign adjacent to my vehicle, I had not passed any legible signs to park or not to park, and no signs in the vicinity could possibly be read from inside my vehicle. There was no signage or marking on the ground to indicate my vehicle was parked in a “No Parking area” as claimed on the Parking Charge Notice and the Notice to Keeper (see Pages 14 to 18, EB01, photographs 25 to 33).

 

 

 

6.4   On a subsequent visit to the xxxxx site (14 October 2019) I was able to determine that additional and new signage had been added by The Claimant since the date of my alleged contravention. One of these signs (see Page 18 & 19, EB01, photographs 7a and 7b) is now placed at what I understand to be the start of The Claimant's “jurisdiction” (for want of a better word) on the site. They have also placed some new signs along the road at the top of the site plan (Page 01) and 2 new signs in the general area near where my vehicle was parked on the 22 January 2019 (Pages 21, photographs 32a and 33a). While still very poor, these additional signs are a clear indication that The Claimant was well aware that their signage was woefully inadequate on the material date and have since taken some steps to attempt to improve this.

 

6.5   A key factor in ‘ParkingEye v Beavis’ was that ParkingEye were found to have operated in line with the relevant parking operator’s code of practice. In this case the signage and operating practice of the Claimant fails, on numerous counts, to adhere to the standards laid out by the relevant accredited parking operator - The International Parking Community (IPC).

 

6.6   The IPC guidelines state that signage at the entrance to the site should ‘Make it clear that the motorist is entering onto private land’. There was no signage at the entrance to the site in question and one can see from my detailed explanation of the route on Page 25, EB01 in conjunction with the photographs referred to that I would not have passed any signage indicating I was entering private land.

 

6.7   The IPC guidelines state that text on signage “should be of such a size and in a font that can be easily read by a motorist having regard to the likely position of the motorist in relation to the sign”. It also states that “they should be clearly seen upon entering the site”. The text on the signage in this case, particularly that which refers to “contractual terms” and a “parking charge” is very small. In fact is measures just 1cm in height. This, coupled with the facts that the signs were variously facing the wrong direction for a motorist traveling the route to read, mounted so close to the ground as to be unnoticed, obscured by other vehicles or refuse bins or near signs of identical size and colour warning of “Deep Water”, makes it very hard to read or even notice and impossible to do so from a vehicle.

keypulse

7. Additional Costs – Abuse of Process:

 

7.1   The Particulars of Claim include £60 for “contractual costs”. The Claimant is put to strict proof that these additional charges are justified. I have the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred £60 costs to pursue an alleged £100 debt. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, Para 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.

 

7.2   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.

 

 

 

7.3   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 earlier General Judgment or Orders of DJ Grand, who (when sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court in 2018 and 2019) has struck out several parking firm claims. These include a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Orders have been identical in striking out both claims without a hearing, with the Judge stating:
''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...''

 

7.4   That is not an isolated judgment striking a parking claim out for repeatedly adding sums they are not entitled to recover. In the Caernarfon Court in Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies (Case number FTQZ4W28) on 4th September 2019, District Judge Jones-Evans stated:

7.5  
''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.''

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.

keypulse

Sorry to bump, but I need to get this posted to the claimant and hand delivered to the court today. Have I covered everything, is there anything I need to remove/add etc?
In summary my defence is:

A: Inadequate signage (and I have many photographs in my evidence to show this)

B: Impossible to form meaningful contract even if signs could have been seen (I've quoted relevant cases, do I need to print examples of these for my evidence bundle?)
C: Abuse of process re. additional £60 charge (as in B, do I need to print/present cases?)

Thank you

Le_Kirk

3.8   Upon walking the route I was able to ascertain there were indeed a number of six signs from “Link Parking Limited” (hereafter referred to as The Claimant).

Were there a number or were there six?

Take out Ladak (7.2) as that is an old argument.  If you look at the latest postings by Coupon-mad about the abuse of process: -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75937581#Comment_75937581

you will see she does not use it.  Just check that you have the most up-to-date posting.

keypulse

Le_Kirk said:

3.8   Upon walking the route I was able to ascertain there were indeed a number of six signs from “Link Parking Limited” (hereafter referred to as The Claimant).

Were there a number or were there six?

Yes that's sloppy grammar. There were six, I'll amend that.

Le_Kirk said:

3.8   Upon walking the route I was able to ascertain there were indeed a number of six signs from “Link Parking Limited” (hereafter referred to as The Claimant).

Were there a number or were there six?

Take out Ladak (7.2) as that is an old argument.  If you look at the latest postings by Coupon-mad about the abuse of process: -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75937581#Comment_75937581

you will see she does not use it.  Just check that you have the most up-to-date posting.

I will do that, thanks.

@Le_Kirk I really appreciate you taking the time to read all that and give feedback, I spent hours on this, then looked back over it and thought I'd done too much and the judge's eyes would glaze over. Still got a few tweaks to make including your suggestions but I'm almost good to go I think.

keypulse

Quick question, I am taking my WS and exhibits etc to the court.

Am I supposed to send the other copy to the claimant (Link Parking) or is it to BW Legal?