Doncaster Airport PCN claim form received

Le_Kirk

5.1. whilst the Defendant was trying to start the car, the driver of the mobile CCTV van used by this Claimant made no attempt to offer help or enquire as to the difficulty, but instead, trained the CCTV camera on the car to take misleading photographs in those few minutes, unbeknown to the Defendant.

If it is unbeknown to the defendant, how do you know they were taking photographs? You need to lay it out for the judge.

Cow_bag

Not sure if this is standard VCS WS but please can you take a look and advise
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hbo218z1jccppak/AACaW51Hl4zE3IP9P2L7rcVoa?dl=0
I know how to distinguish from Ward, Beavis and Crutchley but i'm not sure about the rest.
Also they are trying to play "byelaws are not compulsory" card. Can they do that?
My hearing has been scheduled for 28.07.20. I will be posting my WS on here shortly.
Thanks in advance

Cow_bag

In the County Court at Sheffield
Claim No. XXX
Between

Vehicle Control Services Limited (Claimant)
and
XXX (Defendant)

-------------------------
Witness Statement
-------------------------


I am XXXXXXX, I will say as follows:

I am the Defendant in this matter. I am unrepresented, with no experience of Court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the way that the Claimant may do, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience.

In this Witness statement, the facts and matters stated are true and within my own knowledge, except where indicated otherwise. Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents marked PD to which I will refer.

1. On a date of alleged contravention, I paid for parking at Doncaster airport and proceeded to leave the car park when suddenly my car experienced problems with the engine management lights and I had to pull over immediately to avoid blocking an airport approach road.

2. I experienced sudden problems with engine cutting out and no acceleration power so I had no other option, other than stopping in the middle of the lane I was driving, but to steer my vehicle into the zone where it was safe for me to restart my car and drive off.

3. I was focused on trying to restart the car and moving off the area I have entered therefore I did not have the chance to look for and read the signs attached to the lamp posts informing motorists that stopping is prohibited. Even, if I had known this, it would not prevent me from stopping in the ‘prohibited zone’ as described by the Claimant.

4. This was unforeseeable event and the terms and conditions specified by the Claimant do not mention the circumstances in which you can stop in this area.

5. As an evidence I attached a copy of receipt of repair service and description of problems it caused on the day. In my appeal I stated the stoppage happened due to problems with the car but the Claimant still elected to pursue this matter via litigation. The Claimant also chose to pass my personal data onto third parties i.e. BW Legal and DBCltd in the process.

6. It is my position that, the Claimant has no standing, or cause of action, to litigate in this matter. I based it on the case “PCM vs Bull” where defendant was issued parking tickets for parking on private roads with signage stating “no parking at any time”.

5.1 District Judge Glen in his final statement mentioned that: “the notice was prohibitive, and didn’t communicate any offer of parking and that landowners may have claim in trespass, but that was not under consideration”.

6. In my view, the Doncaster-Sheffield airport byelaws should be applicable and considered due to the fact that the Secretary of State, in exercise of the powered conferred upon him by section 63 (1) of the Airports Act 1986 herby makes the following Order:  

Citation and commencement

(1.) This Order may be cited as the Airport Byelaws (Designations) Order 2005 and shall come into force on 16th March 2005.

Designation

(2.) Doncaster Sheffield Airport is hereby designated for the purposes of section 63 of the airports act 1986.

6.1 VCS operates under Doncaster-Sheffield airport byelaws. Problems I have encountered driving that night, fit the criteria specified in DSA byelaws. Below are the ones that are specific, relevant and supportive of my case:


5. PROHIBITED ACTS ON PARTS OF THE AIRPORT TO WHICH THE ROAD
TRAFFIC ENACTMENTS DO NOT APPLY
The following acts are prohibited on any part of the Airport to which the Road
Traffic Enactments do not apply:

“5 (3) Obstruction:
except in an emergency, leave or park a Vehicle or cause it to wait for a period in excess of the permitted time in an area where the period of waiting is restricted by Notice”

and

“5(12) Parking of Vehicles
without reasonable excuse! park a Vehicle elsewhere than in a place provided for that purpose.

7. In his Defence Statement, the Claimant Is relying upon VCS v Ward case. That case can be fully distinguished and is far from persuasive when scrutinised:

7.1 At appeal, the Defendant did not appear at the court and the case ran against the interest of the victim consumer

7.2 Case VCS v Ward involved a business park, not airport byelaws. The case VCS v Ward has no application to an Airport case like this one, where the byelaws lay the facts and rules out in accordance with the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that an emergency such as breakdown, is a 'reasonable excuse' clearly anticipated by the Airport owners to be exempt conduct, and not a contravention at all.

7.3 In VCS v Ward case, the Defendant failed to adduce relevant cases such as Jopson and Ransomes that already existed. In these cases the matters regarding ‘stopping’ as opposed to parking and agreeing a contract, were more thoroughly considered. Both the cases are persuasive and could have helped the Defendant provide winning argument.


8. Reason for stopping should be considered. In case “Jopson vs. Homeguard Services Ltd” (9GF0A9E), the Defendant stopped for a few minutes to unload some furniture and a desk outside the entrance to the building containing her flat and was issued a parking ticket. In his verdict/statement Judge Harris QC, made the following statement regarding the definition of the word “parking”:

“20. […] However, the Shorter Oxford Dictionary has the following: “To leave a vehicle in a carpark or other reserved space” and “To leave in a suitable place until required”. The concept of parking as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it, and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture. Merely to stop a vehicle cannot be to park it’ otherwise traffic jams would consist of lines of parked cars. “

8.1. Based on the above statement, I consider the issues I have encountered with my vehicle as minor vicissitude.

9.The terms of the warning sign are of particular importance in this case. The print is larger at the earlier part of notice and gets smaller as one works one’s way through it. But in big letters that are legible to any passing motorist, it says:

“Restricted Zone No Stopping at Any time”

9.1 Then in smaller print, legible but only if one positively stopped to read it carefully, one reads the following:

Mobile CCTV & Number Plate Recognition Enforcement cameras in operation. Vehicle keeper details may be requested from the DVLA
Strictly no parking, stopping or waiting on double yellow lines, red route zones or roadways at any time.
£100 Automatic Parking Charge Notice discounted to £60 if payment is received within 14 days of the Parking Charge Notice issue date.

9.2 Not only, the small print can not be fully read from the moving vehicle but offer of entering a contract is not displayed by the Claimant.

10. No offer of contract is being presented by the Claimant. In case “Ransomes vs Anderson”, the Defendant went to the industrial estate and after not being able to get into their designated parking area, he parked on the road, on a double yellow line, for which he was issued a parking ticket. In his judgement the district judge rejected the contract claim on the basis that the noticed was too vague and uncertain to generate contractual liability. The sign, in question, started with:

“Warning: Private property. Not Trespassing. No Parking. No Stopping. No Waiting. You have entered this private property. You are now subject to the terms and conditions of the land owner listed below”.

10.1 District Judge accepted in principle that Mr. Anderson committed a trespass and that trespass must have caused some loss to the claimant, in terms of expenses incurred, but made no award of damages in relation to it and dismissed the claim.

10.2 It is my belief, that by entering the private property and not obeying to the rules displayed on the notice, I did not form any contract with the Claimant because no such contract was presented to me.

11. In “Ransomes vs Anderson” case, the District Judge said:

“the notice was insufficiently clear to constitute a valid contractual offer capable of acceptance by conduct. […] Although the doctrine of acceptance by conduct, on the basis of the terms on a notice in a parking place or similar zone, is an obviously right, valuable and useful one, it is an essential minimum that the contract be sufficiently simple and clear that the motorist is in no doubt before he performs the accepting conduct what he is letting himself in for”.

11.1 The district judge was plainly right to say that this notice, in contractual terms, was too vague and uncertain to have the requisite effect

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.

Statement of Truth

 

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

Signature
Date

Coupon-mad

Very good.  

You need to put these into evidence with an exhibit number:

the Doncaster-Sheffield airport byelaws 

and

5. As an evidence I attached a copy of receipt of repair service and description of problems it caused on the day.

and

In case “Jopson vs. Homeguard Services Ltd” (9GF0A9E)

and

 In case “Ransomes vs Anderson”,

Are you also putting in the usual Supplementary WS aboout the abuse fo process of filign £160 claim when the maximum PCN on private land is capped at £100 due to the ATA CoP ceiling, plus the POFA, the Beavis case and the CRA 2015? 

Add something about the CRA 2015 fairness test and use this phrase: a contractual term cannot deprive a consumer of an advantage that they would otherwise enjoy under law, in the absence of the term. 

1505grandad

Paras seem not in order  -  5, 6, 5.1, 6

Para 10  -  " In his judgement the district judge"  -  no "e" in Judgment in this context

D_P_Dance

 no "e" in Judgment in this context

You seem very sure, read some of these

https://www.google.com/search?q=e+in+judgement&oq=e+in+judgement&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3j69i64.7836j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

1505grandad

@D_P_D

I was originally alerted to the correct conventional spelling when proof reading a document prepared for me by a well respected member of this forum. I queried the missing middle "e" and was told, quite rightly, that I had made a "schoolboy error".

On checking Court Docs this was confirmed, in most, if not all, Court case reports I read.

If I may refer you to examples  -  a Supreme Court case where the word is conventionally spelt without the middle "e":-

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2014-0087.html

or indeed C-m's killer case:

BRITANNIA PARKING GROUP LTD  V  CC   -   which is available on this forum

I believe that it has been stated on the forum that posters are at liberty not to take another poster's advice, so, if it is o.k. I will continue to alert that the convention is middle "e" less, even though these are only SCC .

D_P_Dance

...  if it is o.k. I will continue to alert that the convention is middle "e" less, even though these are only SCC .

When I was employed in the Foreign Office Legal Department drafting International Treaties the preference was to include an "e".   It is not okay, imo your  "alerts" are otiose. 

Le_Kirk

D_P_Dance said:

...  if it is o.k. I will continue to alert that the convention is middle "e" less, even though these are only SCC .
When I was employed in the Foreign Office Legal Department drafting International Treaties the preference was to include an "e".   It is not okay, imo your  "alerts" are otiose. 

Che? Que? What? 

nosferatu1001

Serves no practical result.