New battle

Allygood100

Sorry guys i thought i was experienced clearly not.
My friend received a letter from Northampton county court busnies center issued 06/12/19
Pcn is for parking without displaying a valid permits. My mate was there for over an hour but the pcn doesn't state that.

KeithP

With a Claim Issue Date of 6th December, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 8th December, you have until 4pm on Monday 6th January 2020 to file your Defence.

That's just over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.


When you are happy with the content, your Defence could be filed via email as suggested here:

Print your Defence.
1. Sign it and date it.
   
2. Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
   
3. Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
   
4. Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
   
5. No need to do anything on MCOL, but do check it after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defence received". If not, chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are trying to keep you under pressure. Just file it.
   
7. Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.

Of course everywhere I have written 'you' or 'your' I mean the named Defendant.

Allygood100

Correction the first letter before court was sent to my friend brother's home even though he never shared the address with him. It was from TRACE legal department which is odd as they letter from county court have gladstones on it !

Redx

nothing odd about TRACE trying to trace a person using credit agencies and council records etc


Gladstones will have been employed by the PPC, either the PPC or Gladstones employed TRACE to do the background check

Fruitcake

It would really be better if your friend came here and took over this thread or it's going to get messy.
Acting as a go-between is likely to result in something important being missed, or misunderstood, and it's bound to cause delays that could be fatal to your friend's case.

He really does need to make the complaints to the DVLA as soon as possible as well as the SRA and ICO where applicable.

He needs to get up to speed on how to beat this scam by reading the guide to court in post 2 of the NEWBIES written by bargepole, and also the so very important Abuse of Process thread by beamerguy, especially post 14 of that thread written by Coupon-mad.

Allygood100

I think am his best hope unfortunately.

Fruitcake

Then you should get him sat next to you whilst you help him.

Coupon-mad

OK so read the thread by CEC16 so you understand why they can't add £60.

And read the NEWBIES thread post #2 and show us a draft defence for critique, based on a similar no permit PACE v Lengyel one.

Search the forum!

Allygood100

Draft defence!

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

parking company (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1. I xxx, defendant in this matter was the authorised registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident. I deny liability for the entirety of this claim for the following reasons:

2. The Particulars of Claim are sparse and provide no information regarding the alleged contract, or breach, or what the terms on signage actually said on the material date, or what the alleged breach was, or why/how the Claimant purports that the registered keeper is liable, given the facts that this Claimant has failed to evidence the identity of the driver and they do not conform to the keeper liability provisions in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (the 'POFA').


2.1. Furthermore, it is unclear as to what the legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. . It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts. The claimant used a third party agents to trace the defendant details and the agent breached the defendant right to privacy according to the data protection act 2018.


2.2. However, it is denied that the vehicle was - by any reasonable interpretation - unauthorised, or that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

3. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXXXX, of which that while the Defendant is the registered keeper more the Claimant is put to strict proof of a single parking event by an identified driver. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle, but the driver has not been identified and any 'violation' or 'breach of terms' is denied.



4. The Claimant is not the land-owner and has no capacity to bring the claim unless its contract grants it. In the absence of written authority from the land-holder in accordance with the BPA Code of Practice Para 7.2, “If the operator wishes to take legal action on any outstanding parking charges, they must ensure that they have the written authority of the landowner (or their appointed agent) prior to legal action being taken.”, has no legal capacity to bring the claim. If the display of signs was sufficient, the BPA would have had no need to include this condition in its Code of Practice.

5. The POFA states that the maximum sum that may be potentially recovered from the keeper (subject to full compliance by the parking operator, which is not the case) is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. This claim attempts more than triple recovery by adding purported but unsupported damages, admin, debt collector or other costs, which the Defendant submits have not actually been incurred at all. The Defendant avers that this inflation of the considered amount to some £243.11 is a gross abuse of process.



The POFA 2012 and the ATA Code of Practice are against this Claim
16. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 ('the POFA') at paras 4(5) and 4(6) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' ('NTK'). Further, the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is no more than £100, and in this case the parking charge in the small print on the signs, and in each NTK, was stated to be £80 and this must have been set to include the costs of recovering the charge, or it falls foul of the Beavis case.

The CRA 2015 is against this claim
17. Further, the purported added 'costs' are disproportionate, vague and in breach of the CRA Schedule 2 'terms that may be unfair'. This Claimant has arbitrarily added an extra 75% to the parking charge, in a double recovery attempt that has already been exposed and routinely disallowed by many Courts in England and Wales. It is astounding to this Defendant, that this has been allowed to continue unabated for so many years. Even if most courts are routinely disallowing the added £60 'costs' of all parking charge cases now (and it is clear from online reports that almost all courts are disallowing that sum) this is not enough.

6. The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated, and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 'legal representative’s (or even admin) costs' were incurred. In the statement of fact, the Claimant own staff issued the claim and the Legal Representative fee is false.

7. This case can be distinguished from Parking Eye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr. Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. None of this applies in this material case.

8. The Claimant's signage with the largest font at this site states 'PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY'. It is submitted that if this notice is attempting to make a contractual offer, then as it is forbidding they do not fulfil the basic requirement of a contract, which is that each party to the contract must offer valuable consideration to the other party, on clear terms capable of acceptance. In this case neither the Claimant, nor their principal the landowner, is offering anything to motorists. The notices cannot, therefore, reasonably be construed as having created a contractual relationship between the Claimant and the Defendant.


8.1. The above point was tested in the County Court at High Wycombe, in the case of Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd v Bull & 2 Others (B4GF26K6, 21 April 2016), where District Judge Glen dismissed all three claims, stating in his judgment that: "If the notice had said no more than if you park on this roadway you agree to pay a charge then it would have been implicit that PCM was saying we will allow you to park on this roadway if you pay £100 and I would agree with Mr Samuels' first analysis that essentially the £100 was a part of the core consideration for the licence and was not a penalty for breach. The difficulty is that this notice does not say that at all. This notice is an absolute prohibition against parking at any time, for any period, on the roadway. It is impossible to construct out of this in any way, either actually or contingently or conditionally, any permission for anyone to park on the roadway. All this is essentially saying is you must not trespass on the roadway. If you do we are giving ourselves, and we are dressing it up in the form of a contract, the right to charge you a sum of money which really would be damages for trespass, assuming of course that the claimant had any interest in the land in order to proceed in trespass."


8.2. Furthermore, the claimant denies that the sign makes it clear that the driver of the vehicle is entering into a contract. The signs used were not dissimilar to those in the case Pace v Lengyel. Where District Judge Iyer dismissed the claim noting that:

“Nowhere on this sign does it inform the reader that by parking in this car park, he is entering into a contract with the Claimant. Indeed the words “contract” or “agreement” do not appear at all within the sign it merely refers to the driver “accepting liability for a charge”. The phrase “Terms and conditions” are not synonymous with a contract. Further, the opening words of the sign appear to be designed more to ward off trespassers than to enter into a contract with the driver.”
8.3. There were inadequate signs (at the time of the offence) incapable of binding the driver into the contract - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case.

9. The Beavis case confirmed the fact that, if it is a matter of trespass (not breach of any contract), a parking firm has no standing as a non-landowner to pursue even nominal damages.

10. The charge is an unenforceable penalty based upon a lack of commercial justification. The Beavis case confirmed that the penalty rule is certainly engaged in any case of a private parking charge and was only disengaged due to the unique circumstances of that case, which do not resemble this claim.

11. When Directions are given, the Defendant asks that there is an order for sequential service of witness evidence (rather than exchange) or alternatively, for the hearing fee to be ordered to be paid before exchange of documents between the parties, because where a claim from this serial Claimant is robustly defended, this Claimant routinely discontinues after seeing a Defendant's Witness Statement and never pays the court hearing fee.
12. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I confirm that the above facts and statements are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.

Coupon-mad

Must go to bed now but remove this as there was no 'offence':

(at the time of the offence)

And PCM are not AOS members of the BPA so #4 needs scrapping, or replacing with similar words from the IPC CoP instead.

Remove this as well, because a PPC is allowed to use a tracing agent:

The claimant used a third party agents to trace the defendant details and the agent breached the defendant right to privacy according to the data protection act 2018.

Finally, you need to get this into the defence near the start

The alleged ticket was issued on march 2019 but my friend never received it instead it was sent to his brother who have same family name the car never was register to him or his address so my friend simply ignored it it had tge wrong address but after few letter to his brother. My friend decided to give them a call and naively gave the parking company his info hopping that they'll just say 'our bad' and let him off. He explained that the letters they been spending demanding money went to the wrong address he even contacted DVLA to prove to them that neither him or his car were never register to the first address they sent the invoices to.