Link Parking/BW Legal beaten in court.

keypulse

I've redacted and uploaded relevant documents to refer to and hopefully to help others. They are .pdf format and most (but not all) should be text-unlocked. No need to have an account or a .pdf reader, the files should open in a browser.
01 - Appeal and rejection
02 - My defence
03 - My witness statement

04 - Supplementary witness statement (Abuse of Process)

05 - Bundle EB01 - contents and preface

06 - Bundle EB01
07 - Schedule of costs
08 - BW's witness statement and some of their bundle (I couldn't be bothered to scan the last few pages but they were basically terrible photos of my car, the PCN, NTK... not relevant to the outcome)

keypulse

The day in court...

My hearing was scheduled for 2pm, by the time I'd parked and been searched I got to the waiting room by 1.45pm.

A man appeared from a side room and asked me to come in. I knew what was coming but I played along anyway. He introduced himself as the advocate for BW Legal, I acted surprised and asked "Could Shapla Begum not make it?". Apparently not. He then asked if he could go through my defence. I asked if he worked for BW (no) and if he was a solicitor (no). I explained that I didn't believe he had Right of Audience, he disagreed and asked if I would be challenging it. I said "Maybe not, I would like this over with today". He produced my defence and said something along the lines of "So, you will still be saying you believe your car was not parked in anyone's way?". I basically said I was sticking to everything in the defence and wouldn't be going all the way through it with him.

He then said his client was willing to settle before the hearing. I said "How much for?" and he said £150. I mulled it over for a few seconds, then said "Ok, let's do that. How soon can they do a payment?" He said they could arrange a payment plan, I said I'd prefer to do it in one sum. I could tell by now he needed a bit of help dropping this penny so I said "They could transfer me the money right now over the phone". He looked at me like I was mad, I said "Oh, you mean they want ME to pay THEM?". He nodded, I looked at him like he was mad. End of conversation, we went back to the waiting room.

(I felt a bit bad about this later as the guy was alright, he'd just been given an absolute mess of a case by BW and I shouldn't have given him a hard time really. Couldn't resist though).

We were running late by now but by around 2.20pm we got called in. TBC...

beamerguy

Whilst we still await what the judge said, a question, were you ever a high pressure salesman or did you sell double glazing, ? no wonder the BWLegal rep was clueless, bet that has never been said to him before
CLASSIC on how to deal with scammers

Coupon-mad

A man appeared from a side room and asked me to come in.
I knew what was coming but I played along anyway. He introduced himself as the advocate for BW Legal,

I acted surprised...

Hahaha, that's what I do outside the court as well, great fun.

This is a brilliant example and account of a court hearing success including your documents for people to use as templates to read & adapt.

Thanks for posting all of the above, and very well done!  ANOTHER LINK ONE BITES THE DUST!

keypulse

First thing that struck me was the room was quite grand, a "proper" court and not the cosy and informal meeting room I'd been expecting. I sat one side, BW's rep the other with a good 15 feet between us. Sat higher up on the bench was the judge. He put us both at ease and said he'd been reading my defence and WS and just wanted to put a few questions to the rep before coming back to me.

This morning I had compiled some notes to refer to but I hardly needed them because now this judge seemed to be reading my mind and channelling my very thoughts. The first thing he asked was why had the person who signed the claimant's WS (a Shapla Begum from BW) not attended today? The advocate couldn't answer. The judge then made a BIG point of why was a paralegal in Leeds who had never been to the site signing a WS with a site plan and photos of the so-called signs and why was the claimant not there either? Again, the advocate couldn't answer. I think the phrase he used was "I'm sorry I'm unable to answer that question on their behalf". He had to use that phrase a whole lot today and every time he did I think he died a little inside and I felt worse for him.

The judge went on to say the case was really all about my statement and bundle, particularly the photos. He told me he had never seen anything so well-put together (!) and going through the photos and preface made him feel like he was at the site. He agreed the signage was awful. He then asked the rep if the site plan in BW's bundle was supposed to be a representation of the signage on the material date, or since new signs had been added. The rep couldn't answer, the judge said "Well if Ms Begum had turned up today maybe she could have answered, or the claimant? The only person in this room who has been to that site is the defendant and he's got photographs to back him up". I should add the judge did all this with humour, yes he dragged the rep over the coals a bit but was smiling the whole time.

A bit of a surprise here for me as we'd been maybe 5 minutes in and the judge looked at me and said "You know that's it? You've won". I said thank you. He said "But let's take a look another of your points"...

And so the massacre of BW's case continued, this time with contract (lack of being able to form one). At this point the judge said (verbatim, I wrote this bit down) "Now I don't know if this is Mr (me)'s research or he borrowed it from others" (he's smiling wryly as he says this). He then basically said it was impossible to form a contract from the wording on the signs and Beavis didn't apply, but in so much more detail than I can remember now.

TBC...

keypulse

So by now the case is obviously a dead duck. I was still hoping the judge would cover Abuse of Process but sadly he went straight to costs from here. Up to now I hadn't had to say much, just nod at the right times. The judge asked about my unreasonable behaviour claims, I said I'd taken the photographs and made them available for the claimant but my invitation was ignored. He asked when I had made them available, I said during my appeal to Link. I pointed him towards this and he agreed that the offer was plainly there. He said if Link or BW had bothered to look at my evidence they would have reasonably been expected to drop their case. He also agreed that the additional signage that appeared at the site showed that they knew their signage wasn't adequate.

He asked why I was claiming £95, did I just happen to know that was the maximum. I said I did. He praised me for my research and again, said my statements and evidence were highly professional or words to that effect. I was actually embarrassed by now, I know I've put a lot of work into this but I wasn't expecting a judge to speak so highly of it. And the rep seemed to agree! I could see he was having trouble finding my costs schedule (maybe BW didn't give him a copy) so I crossed the court and gave him my copy, which he thanks me for and said "It's hard to find it among all your evidence". Shared a laugh, felt less bad. He was just doing a job and getting through it, hope he billed BW plenty.

The judge agreed my ordinary costs. He then went into deep explanation about the unreasonableness of the case and I must admit I was so tired I was struggling and thought he was getting around to saying "not today". He then said "Ok, £19 x 16 hours is £304, but I like round numbers so let's say £300. That being said, I'm not going to give you the printing and stationary costs" (I was just so surprised by that, but just nodded). He seemed to ask the rep if he disagreed, he didn't. The judge then said "So total costs awarded are £414.50, that's it". I thanked him and the rep and left. I was grinning like a Cheshire cat as I walked out, the security guys had confiscated something during my search but I guess they could tell it went my way by the look on my face when I claimed it back on the way out.

beamerguy

This really does confirm the nonsence that BWLegal bring to court. They claim to have 250 people working for them ???   Surely one of those employees would have said "hey your claim is rubbish" ?

But, BWLegal press on regardless with idiotic claims which in their foolish manner expect a judge to believe
Who is this Shapla Begum who signs a statement of truth ..... what a liability for BWLegal ????

Will BWLegal continue with their rubbish claims ????   of course they will, and will the courts dismiss their claims ...... OF COURSE THEY WILL

keypulse

Afterthoughts:

I think I had a good judge but I think any judge would have struggled to find for the claimant with what was put before them. Anyone else going through this for poor signage I really recommend taking a load of photos and making a clear site plan, even if you are reading this after getting a PCN; go back to the site and do it. Timestamp them (find software that will timestamp by file date created or photo EXIF date taken), then use your photos to tell a story. I left it too late to get mine developed cheaply (would have costed a fortune to do 3 x sets of prints on the high street) so I pasted 2 photos per page in Word and took that to a very reasonable printers (Minuteman), did 3 x 25 pages of colour A4 for about £12.

I'm really quite disappointed the judge didn't touch on the Abuse of Process argument. I know a few people here have spent a lot of time researching that and today might have driven the point home that bit further if the judge explored it. He was very thorough in going through the poor signage and no contract points  though and by then I feel bringing something else up would have just been pure sadistic on the rep.

I'd like to say a massive thanks to Coupon-mad, KeithP, beamerguy, RedX and Le_Kirk for your advice and patience with me on this thread, as well as the tireless work you do across this forum. Thanks also to the countless others who post their wisdom here and on Pepipoo, I have been lurking for months reading and learning for this day.

Umkomaas

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Great report. So good to see someone stand up to these pariahs, had them put in their place - and a nice bill to settle at the end of it. Tried to take you for a 'ton', cost them four times that for their impudence!

Gardner will have to dig into his reserves to find the £400+ to pay for BWL's encouragement to him to chase an absolute lost cause. Time to sack them Martin!

beamerguy

I have to agree with Umkomaas, Gardner should kick BWLegal into the long grass as a failure

This case whilst not abuse of process as such is abuse against against the motorist and is now list in the hall of shame ....Abuse of Process thread --- PART 2
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6103933/abuse-of-process-thread-part-2/p1?new=1