Claim Form - UK Car Park Management/Gladstone

Tinman45

When is your court date mate? 

Unfortunately yesterday i got a letter from the Court saying they Cancelled my hearing due to lack of available Judges! 
Fuming but my hunch is they know the background of these Cases now and have put it at the bottom of the pile
Now trying to get any Judge to review the case and dismiss!

richiew2k

Morning All, hope you are keeping well away from the virus
My court date is meant to be next tuesday, if i was in self isolation would the case go ahead without me do you think?
I am going to ring the court and see what the situation is

nosferatu1001

You would have to inform the court, obviously! You have to give notice. 
You can ask for it to be heard "on papers" but a further adjournment sounds possible. 

richiew2k

Thanks 
I wonder if old Jack Chapman is going to use the self isolation excuse

richiew2k

Hi All 
Please see below draft skeleton argument, any feedback greatly appreciated, i aim to send this the working day prior to the court date, (next tuesdsy)

In the County Court at
Mayor’s and City of London Court
Claim No. XXXXXXXXXXX
Between
UK Car Park Management Limited (UK CPM) (Claimant)
and
XXXXXXXXXXXXX (Defendant)

Skeleton Argument of Mr XXXXXXX, Address: XXXXXXX

PREAMBLE

1. This skeleton argument is to assist the Court in the above matter for the hearing dated on 24/03/2020.

2. The Claimant’s legal representative informed that the Claimant’s witness will not attend the hearing, presenting a significant disadvantage for the Defendant. The author of statement will invariably not be there to give evidence. If he doesn't turn up in court the statement is inadmissible evidence as the Defendant can't question him upon its validity.

3. The witness and the accompanying witness statement is not credible. It contains invalid, false and vexatious statement which can be shown in this skeleton argument. Moreover, it displays a laissez-faire attitude towards submitting a truthful, factual witness statement.

4. The Defendant will highlight to the Court that the claim is not only fundamentally misconceive and flawed, but that the claimant behaved unreasonably.

5. The witness statement by Jack Chapman is contradictory, confusing and particularly troublesome as detailed below.

6. The witness statement was also received after the 27.02.20 deadline that was ordered by the District Judge on the letter received on the 23.01.20 hence why this skeleton argument is being submitted prior to the hearing for the District Judges attention

THE ISSUES

7. The Defendant has identified the following areas of dispute:

(a)!! The Claimant’s witness statement is not signed hence it is invalid

(b)!! Validity of Contractual Agreement
(g)!! Inflated Costs

(e)!! No Valid Permit displayed

(f) Clear Signage

(h)!! Conduct

SUBMISSIONS

THE CLAIMANT’S WITNESS STATEMENT IS NOT SIGNED HENCE IT IS INVALID

8. The witness statement appear to not actually be signed by Mr Jack Chapman, and a formal complaint has already been sent to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) about a similar UKCPM case where this exact same UKCPM 'electronic signature' was exposed by a lay representative last month, to be a facsimile and that UKCPM could not have signed the statement on the date stated under the facsimile signature, or at all.

9. In the two cases in October, Claim Nos. E9GF9M7K and E4GF8M1R, UKCPM -v- Mrs A, before Deputy District Judge Chohan at High Wycombe statements purported to have been signed by 'Jack Chapman', an employee of the Claimant Company, could not have been. A comparison of the signatures on these two statements showed that the signatures are 100% identical in every respect, down to the last pixel. It was highly improbable, if not impossible, that any person would sign his name twice in a completely identical manner on two separate occasions, three months apart. The same signature in this case too. See Exhibit xxx (Link to comparison of signatures)

10. The complaint to the SRA continued: ''The only possible conclusion to be drawn from this, is that Gladstones have copied, traced, or otherwise forged Mr Chapman's signature, and that in fact Mr Chapman has never seen or signed these statements. This is particularly relevant in the case of the second statement, which was emailed to the Defendant on the day after it was created. Gladstones are based in Knutsford, Cheshire, whereas the Claimant company are situated in West Sussex. Unless they couriered it by helicopter, it is clear that Mr Chapman could not have signed it.

11.This is a significant and serious act of dishonesty, for which Lesley Layton of Lance Mason Solicitors was struck off the roll in 2017.

12. The complaint, currently under investigation against Gladstones, suggested that the SRA needs to take urgent action on this matter, as it is more likely than not that this is an ongoing and regular practice. See Exhibit XXX (insert email ATTACHMENT SRA))

13. In the case of UKCPM v Mrs A on 17th October, Deputy District Judge Chohan at High Wycombe struck out both conjoined claims. He also agreed that the two factors of late service, and a defective WS, crossed the threshold of unreasonable behaviour, and awarded Mrs A her full costs in the sum of £331.80, which he said was a very reasonable figure.

14. My case has the same facsimile signature from a person who was not a witness. It is a templated statement and 'Jack' from UKCPM is not here to be cross examined, being conspicuous by his absence.


Validity of Contractual Agreement

15. In this event, the Parking Enforcement contractual agreement that the Claimant has with the Leaseholder cannot be valid as it does not have an end date. The alleged PCN took place months later following the agreement and the Claimant has failed to show evidence that the agreement was valid at the material time.

16. The Defendant therefore legitimately brings into question as to where the Claimant submits the authority of the disclosed contract agreement.

 

Inflated costs

17.   The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 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. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

18.   Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 ('the Beavis case') is 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.

19.   The Particulars of Claim refer to a further sum of £50 purportedly for “legal representative’s costs”.

20.   According to Ladak v DRC Locums 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.

No Valid Permit

21. The claimant uses the argument that I was not displaying a valid permit however as outlined in my Witness Statement this is due to the nature of my work which resulted in a disgruntled client of my employer covering my vehicle in acid.

 

22. The permit when displayed was a courtesy rather than necessity and this had been the same since we started parking in this location from 1st April 2013.

 

23. The claimant explains they have been managing the land since 30/11/2017 and the charge was not until 19/09/2018, which proves that this behaviour had been acceptable for 7 months.

 

24. As this was accepted behaviour I did not have any reason to change this behaviour or to observe and enter into a contract with the signage.

 

25. No communication was made by my employer to say that this had changed.

 

Clear Signage 

26. The claimant provides a top down view of the signs within their Witness Statement however this does not show how readable these signs would be to the public. Also from the google map exhibit within my Witness Statement it shows that the signs we particularly small upon entering the premises.

 

27. Regardless of this as I was continuing my parking behaviour that I had done since 2013 then there was no reason to read the signs upon parking which therefore means no contract ever existed between myself and the claimant.

 

CONDUCT

28. The Defendant’s conduct and defence was entirely with merit.

29. Due to the ‘robot-issued’ nature of the claim particulars, the Defendant was unnecessarily disadvantaged in regards to the pertinent facts and information of the claim.

30. The Claimant claims that their IPC AOS code of practice allows include an additional £60 however, the Defendant clearly indicated in their witness statement that this is against POFA 12 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 schedule 2.

31. The Defendant had no choice but to serve a fully comprehensive and inclusive defence in response to the claim and therefore should be used in determining the facts.

32. The Defendant’s view is that the witness statement is merely a ‘copy and paste’ exercise by the Claimant.

33. The Defendant has demonstrated to the Court that the Claimant has been wholly unreasonable. It is also argued that the conduct of the Claimant cannot be overlooked and has therefore put forward a statement of costs in accordance with CPR 27.14(g) for consideration by the Court.

34. The Defendant would like to ask that the case is dismissed with no relief from sanctions and that my full costs are granted on the indemnity basis.

Signature:

Date:

Le_Kirk

That is a very long skeleton.  It is supposed to be a bare bones aide memoire for you and the judge and it appears to be longer than some witness statements (WS) posted on here!  Your points 8, 9 & 10 whilst accurate would be better off in a WS.  Unless you are trying to introduce arguments not submitted before (not really allowed), I would cut it down to bullet points.

richiew2k

Le_Kirk said:

That is a very long skeleton.  It is supposed to be a bare bones aide memoire for you and the judge and it appears to be longer than some witness statements (WS) posted on here!  Your points 8, 9 & 10 whilst accurate would be better off in a WS.  Unless you are trying to introduce arguments not submitted before (not really allowed), I would cut it down to bullet points.

hi,
Yeh the main thing I am trying to do is add extra arguments as their witness statement was received late.
I asked previously how best to do this and didnt know whether to do it by skeleton argument which coupon mad mentioned about using skeleton argument and adding tinmans things into it and send the working day before the court date via email .

Do you think I should still do this or cut it down a lot more?

Really i am just looking for the easiest way to stress the points regarding jack chapman as i wouldnt have known this when i sent my witness statement as theirs was late

Le_Kirk

OK, understood but it might have been better submit a supplementary witness statement, a ploy often advised by Coupon-mad.

richiew2k

That sounds a wise option too,
Which do you think would be best? I could adapt the above to a supplementary witness statement due to the fact they were late and then use the above as a basis and cut it down for my skeleton argument.

Could the supplementary witness statement be sent via email?

richiew2k

Ideally whatever I do now needs to be via email so it gets there in time for next tuesday