Claim Form - UK Car Park Management/Gladstone

Le_Kirk

Supplementary WS in my opinion but nothing to stop you submitting a skellie (in bullet point format), just make sure you get them in a few days before the hearing date and of course everything you send to the court you must send to the claimant.

richiew2k

Le_Kirk said:

Supplementary WS in my opinion but nothing to stop you submitting a skellie (in bullet point format), just make sure you get them in a few days before the hearing date and of course everything you send to the court you must send to the claimant.

and would it be ok to email that supplementary WS? My court date is next tuesday so if i aim to get it emailed by close of play tomorrow?

Coupon-mad

Nothing should be sent to court via email as they will not print it out.  It will NOT get to the Judge.

Also you can't just plan not to turn up without telling the court, and are more likely to lose if you duck out  - and more likely to get walloped with their legal rep's attendance costs, taking it to £300 for one PCN that in person, you could win and claim your own costs.

richiew2k

Ok but i thought in your previous post you had told me to send the skeleton argument to the court and gladstones via email the last business day before the case? But are you saying now nothing gets read via email so is pointless? 
"Do that but serve it (by email to court and to Gladstones) the working day before the hearing, so they can't scrabble to hide, and even if they try to discontinue that very day, you'd go to court ANYWAY and insist on ten minutes with the Judge for your listed case, to hear from you regarding the matter of your wasted costs, based upon the unreasonable conduct of the Claimant and their solicitors."

Apologies but i am confused and also I have no intention of not turning up. 

So bearing in mind the timescales  its going to be a struggle to get the supplementary witness statement, hand delivered to the court and sent to gladstones.
So do i revert back to the original idea of a cut down skeleton argument and email it? 

Coupon-mad

Ok but i thought in your previous post you had told me to send the skeleton argument to the court and gladstones via email the last business day before the case? I am confused

Gladstones you will probably be OK to email a small document like that, but not the court.  Why not post it tomorrow, it doesn't take loads of work if you make it bullet points and show the issue with Jack Chapman's signature as reported in other threads (there is a document with at least 3 examples on it that match yours, that you could attach - trouble is I can't recall which poster prepared it...they had a long username but I can't remember it).

richiew2k

Thanks I already have the three example signatures and have also attached my one as a comparison. 

Should i convert this to a ws and try and get it printed and sent by close of play tomorrow? I havent got any binders handy however so i would just have to send it normal envelope

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:

Coupon-mad

Remove #19, #20 and #23.

Has your earlier WS already sent the Southampton transcript showing why a PPC can't add sixty quid?

Change the 'Clear Signage' heading to 'Unclear Signage'

#4 has a typo 'misconceive' that should be 'misconceived'.

here is some wording from bargepole who started the SRA complaints; can you use some of this:

Gladstones’ primary business is the pursuit of alleged, and unproven debts, on behalf of their clients, who are private parking operators. They issue small claims proceedings for these on an industrial scale, sometimes up to 1,000 per week, and perform no due diligence whatsoever to establish the validity of the claims.
 
In addition to the purported £100 ‘parking charge’, court fees and £50 solicitor fee, they add on a further £60 in purported ‘debt recovery’ 'indemnity' or 'contractual' costs.  The additional £60 add-ons are non-contractual and are a means of artificially inflating the claims.   In recent months, many District Judges in County Courts as diverse as Warwick, Southampton and Skipton, have routinely struck out such claims ab initio as an abuse of process and the parking firms concerned have sent barristers to the last two courts on that list, and still failed in their applications to set the judgments aside.
 
The witness statements produced when cases are defended, are written by freelance ‘statement writers’ working from home, with no actual knowledge of the narrative of events, and consist mainly of templated cut and paste paragraphs, with the signature of the witness photocopied into the document. The actual witness never sees these statements, and has no knowledge of their contents.
 
The holding company which owns Gladstones, United Trade and Industry Limited, is also the holding company for the parking industry trade association, the International Parking Community (IPC), and the supposedly independent appeals service, the IAS. The controlling minds of this incestuous setup are the principal solicitors, William Hurley and John Davies.   It is clear that this firm is operating in breach of the SRA Code of Conduct, and is simply abusing the civil litigation process as a means of low-cost ‘debt collection’ for its clients, who in many cases are proven to have no entitlement to recover any sum at all. 

richiew2k

Thanks so much for your help,
Where you mention the southampton transcript in my previous WS, is this the section that you mean? If so yes it is

29.3.3. That N244 application to try to protect the cartel-like position of some of the 'bigger player' parking firms, was placed before the area Circuit Judge and a hearing was held on 11th November 2019, with other parking charge cases in that circuit remaining struck out or stayed, pending the outcome. The Defendants successfully argued on points including a citation of the CRA 2015 and the duty of the court to apply the 'test of fairness' to a consumer notice (a statutory duty that falls upon the courts, whether a consumer raises the issue or not). All three points below were robustly upheld by District Judge Grand, sitting at the Southampton Court, who agreed that:
(a) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was in breach of POFA, due to paras 4(5) and 4(6).
(b) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was unconscionable, due to the Beavis case paras 98, 193, 198 and 287.
(c) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge where the additional 'recovery' sum was in small print, hidden, or in the cases before him, not there at all, is void for uncertainty and in breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14.

29.3.4. At the hearing, the Judge refused their request to appeal. It was successfully argued that the parking firm's consumer notice stood in breach of the CRA 2015, Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14. Using the statutory duty upon the Courts to consider the test of fairness and properly apply schedule 2 of the CRA 2015 it was irrelevant whether or not the consumers' defences had raised it before, which they had not. The same issues apply to this claim.

29.3.5. A transcript will be publicly available shortly. In his summing up, it was noted that District Judge Grand stated: ''When I come to consider whether the striking out of the whole claim is appropriate, that the inclusion of the £60 charge means that the whole claim is tainted by it, the claimant should well know that it is not entitled to the £60. The very fact that they bring a claim in these circumstances seems to me that it is an abuse of process of the court, and in saying that, I observe that with any claim that can be brought before the court that if a party doesn't put in a defence to the claim, default judgments are entered. So, the Claimant, in bringing the claims is, in other cases, aware that if the defendant doesn’t submit a defence, the Claimant is going to get a judgment of a knowingly inflated amount. So I conclude by saying that I dismiss the application to set aside Judge Taylor’s ruling.''

richiew2k

Updated Supplementary witness statement for feedback.
Hopefully this is ok for me to print and sign and send today? Should I get proof of postage as with the previous witness statement?

-------------------------
Supplementary Witness Statement
-------------------------

1. I am Mrxxxx, of cxxxxxx, xxxxx, the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:

2. This supplementary Witness Statement is to assist the Court in the above matter for the hearing dated on 24/03/2020.

3. The claimant’s witness statement was 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 supplementary witness statement is being submitted prior to the hearing for the District Judges attention

4. 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.

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

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

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

 

THE ISSUES

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

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

(b)!! Behaviour of Gladstones

(c)!! Validity of Contractual Agreement

(d)!! Inflated Costs

(e)!! No Valid Permit displayed

(f) Unclear Signage

(g)!! Conduct

SUBMISSIONS

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

9. 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.

10. 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 DJ8

11. 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.

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

13. 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 DJ9 & DJ10 (SRA Complaint and Response)

14. 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.

15. 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.

 

BEHAVIOUR OF GLADSTONES

 

16. Gladstones’ primary business is the pursuit of alleged, and unproven debts, on behalf of their clients, who are private parking operators. They issue small claims proceedings for these on an industrial scale, sometimes up to 1,000 per week, and perform no due diligence whatsoever to establish the validity of the claims.
 
17. In addition to the purported £100 ‘parking charge’, court fees and £50 solicitor fee, they add on a further £60 in purported ‘debt recovery’ 'indemnity' or 'contractual' costs.  The additional £60 add-ons are non-contractual and are a means of artificially inflating the claims.   In recent months, many District Judges in County Courts as diverse as Warwick, Southampton and Skipton, have routinely struck out such claims ab initio as an abuse of process and the parking firms concerned have sent barristers to the last two courts on that list, and still failed in their applications to set the judgments aside.
 
18. The witness statements produced when cases are defended, are written by freelance ‘statement writers’ working from home, with no actual knowledge of the narrative of events, and consist mainly of templated cut and paste paragraphs, with the signature of the witness photocopied into the document. The actual witness never sees these statements, and has no knowledge of their contents.
 
19. The holding company which owns Gladstones, United Trade and Industry Limited, is also the holding company for the parking industry trade association, the International Parking Community (IPC), and the supposedly independent appeals service, the IAS. The controlling minds of this incestuous setup are the principal solicitors, William Hurley and John Davies.   It is clear that this firm is operating in breach of the SRA Code of Conduct, and is simply abusing the civil litigation process as a means of low-cost ‘debt collection’ for its clients, who in many cases are proven to have no entitlement to recover any sum at all. 

VALIDITY OF CONTRACTUAL AGREEMENT

20. 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.

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

 

INFLATED COSTS

22.   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.

23.   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.

NO VALID PERMIT

24. 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.

 

25. 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.

 

26. 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.

 

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

 

UNCLEAR SIGNAGE

 

 

28. 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. (Exhibit DJ2 – Original Witness Statement)

 

29. 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

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

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

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

35. 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.

36. 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.

Statement of Truth

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

 

 

 

 

Signature :

Date :

 

richiew2k

Had to send it as it is could only get to the post office at lunch time so hopefully the above is ok