Stopping at Robin Hood Airport going to court

Coupon-mad

That defence is a good start and the inclusion of the byelaws is vital.

I would add this stuff and definitely remove the assertion about 'no loss'!:


IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: CXXXXXX

BETWEEN:

(Claimant)

-and-

(Defendant)

Defence

1. The Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The Defendant asserts that it will be common ground that this claim relates not to any agreed parking licence under contract, but instead to an assertion of 'stopping' at a site where byelaws apply to the roadways. If the Claimant is of the view that byelaws do not apply to these publicly accessible roadways, then they are by definition, part of the public highway and the usual rules of the Traffic Management Act 2004 must apply.

3. In either case, this is not 'private land' under the definition intended by Parliament in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 ('the POFA'). It is worth noting that multiple cases involving Newcastle Airport have reportedly been struck out in the past year, when another parking firm attempted to twist the facts to suggest that a contract had somehow been 'agreed' by a driver who did not actually park, but was just involved in the minor vicissitudes that can interrupt the action of driving around a sparsely-signed airport site.

4. The Defendant was visiting the Vulcan Experience which was located in a hanger close to Sheffield Doncaster Airport. The Defendant did not access the Airport Approach roads via the main entrance (from the Great Yorkshire Way and Hurst Road roundabout).

5. The Defendant entered the site via Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue. Passing the Vulcan Experience hanger because there was no identifying signage. The Satellite Navigation phone app reported that the Defendant had reached their destination. The Defendant was expecting to have arrived via the airport approach roads before arriving at the Vulcan Experience.

6. Fourth Avenue is shown as a cul-de-sac but access to First Avenue was available through an open gate. Somewhere around this point the Satellite Navigation application crashed and the Defendant had no further guidance. The Defendant had used Google Street View, on the day before, to view the journey from the main approach roads using the directions given in the Vulcan Experience booking confirmation. The Defendant therefore became confused and disorientated on entering the Doncaster Sheffield Airport approach roads as the layout and route did not match the images seen from Google Street View.

7. The Defendant had to find somewhere to stop safely without impeding traffic so as to remove the phone from its cradle to reset the Satellite Navigation application so that the map data could be accessed. The driver did not park or leave the car, and within minutes, worked out their location from the sat nav map and turned around and found the car park for the Vulcan exhibition. Both the exhibition and the adjacent exhibition car park itself, were not sign posted.

[STRIKE]The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.[/STRIKE]

8. The approach Signage is too small and poorly positioned to be read whilst driving on Fourth Avenue. There was no signage at the bus stop forbidding stopping, and under the normal rules of the TMA 2004 a bus stop can also have limited use as a lay by, and is not automatically a 'no stopping zone' applicable 24 hours a day, if not adequately signed to be so.

9. There are no clear signs posted where public [STRIKE]driveway[/STRIKE] highway purportedly becomes private [STRIKE]property[/STRIKE] land, or (in the alternative) land on which Doncaster Sheffield Airport by-laws apply. Neither are there reminders in the form of any 'repeater signs' facing the oncoming traffic, [STRIKE]to all drivers, [/STRIKE]which are clear and readable from a moving vehicle when approaching from Third Avenue.

No contract with Defendant.
10. If a contract is to be formed, upon entering the site a driver must be able to read, understand and agree to the terms and conditions and the conduct must be a deliberate act of parking and accepting clear signs, and this was not. This Claimant will no doubt adduce two appeal cases that their legal representatives managed to win some years ago, with convoluted arguments where the Consumer Rights Act 2015 was not even considered, namely VCS v Ward and VCS v Crutchley. Both are fully distinguished from this situation and both involved business parks/private land, not Airport roads which always remain under statutory control.

11. In case the Claimant tries to point to VCS v Ward and suggest that the driver should have stopped earlier, got out and walked in on foot to read the signs, that is ludicrous and would have resulted in a parking charge or a penalty charge, in any case. At this site, due to the road connections, a driver could not stop in order to read the signs as they enter the road as they by doing so they would block the junction. And as there was nothing to suggest it was private land, the Defendant was reasonably entitled to rely upon the normal regulations that relate to public highways such as this, and/or the Airport byelaws which cover the entire location.

12. [STRIKE]In any case, as VCS are only an agent working for the owner, mere signs do not help them to form a contract. VCS-v-HMRC 2012 is the binding decision in the Upper Chamber which covers this issue with compelling statements of fact about this sort of business model.[/STRIKE] In this instance, there was no contract formed whatsoever; no consideration was capable of being offered to the Defendant. The Defendant who was, in an emergency, accessing map data on their phone and re-orientating themselves acted under 'The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2003' prohibits motorists using a hand-held mobile phone, or similar device, while driving.

13. Doncaster Sheffield Airport, Bylaws, 2005 states: (see 5(4)) ''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''. As per section 5(4) above, the Defendant’s situation should be regarded as an emergency, as it was an unexpected and serious situation requiring an immediate action, whereby stopping at the bus stop layby where there was an absence of any 'hours of operation' or 'no stopping' information plate, was the said immediate action taken by the Defendant.

14. Doncaster Sheffield Airport, Bylaws, 2005 5(1)b states: ''without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using that part of the Airport''. Handling a mobile phone while driving would be driving without due care and attention.

15. The Claimant is not the land owner so they have no standing to sue under the tort of [STRIKE]cannot take out a case of[/STRIKE] trespass, where only a landowner could pursue damages, or the rules of the byelaws would take precedence. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge, unless specifically authorised by the principal and this is not a parking event on private land. Accordingly, it is denied that the Defendant breached any of the Claimant's purported contractual terms, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

[STRIKE]Also the Claimant has suffered no loss.[/STRIKE]

Exaggerated claim - serious repeated abuse of process
16. The POFA states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper. Even in cases where the driver is known, Courts generally pay regard to that legislation, just as the Supreme Court did in the case of ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67. This claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which is an abuse of process and an attempt at double recovery.

17. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred £60 costs to pursue an alleged £100 debt. The Defendant is of the view that this Claimant knew, or should have known, that their double recovery attempt to claim a false 'principal debt' of £160, is expressly disallowed under the CPRs and with regard to Beavis, the POFA and the 'grey list' of unfair terms as set out in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2 ('the CRA 2015'). This Claimant is a serial litigator with an in-house Legal Department and there can be no excuse or justification for this exaggerated claim. Relief from sanctions should be refused.

18. Claims from parking firms in the IOW, Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire circuit are frequently being summarily struck out. On 11th November 2019 in Southampton County Court, District Judge Grand heard a parking firm's barrister in person but refused an application to reinstate multiple 'struck out' parking charge cases. This was wholly due to the added exaggerated costs, similar to the instant case, with pre-written template witness statements and where a high percentage in false costs is set to be extracted from any Defendant who suffers a judgment against them. DJ Grand declared that these claims represent such a serious abuse of process that the entire claims are tainted, not just the added costs. There is no indication that this decision was appealed, and DJ Grand refused this when asked at the hearing, declaring that falsely exaggerated claims, which breach statute and case law, have no prospects of success.

19. In December 2019 in a different Court circuit, Deputy District Judge Josephs sitting at Warwick County Court agreed, citing the POFA and the Supreme Court decision in Beavis and determined that ''it is an abuse of process for the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover.'' Further, in issuing his Order without a hearing, the Judge stated that he had ''considered S71(2) of the CRA 2015 for the fairness of the contract terms and determined that the provision of the additional charge breached examples 6, 10 and 14''.

19.1. A copy of that judgment is appended to this defence.

20. The Defendant requests that this Court - using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4. - recognises its duty under paragraph 71 of the CRA 2015 in the same way as the Southampton and Warwick courts recently have done, and opts to summarily strike out this claim.

21. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating and misleading in terms of the falsely added 'costs' and the lack of prominence of clear terms on signage, which was incapable of being construed as a contractual offer by visitors who were de facto 'authorised'.

22. If this meritless claim is not summarily struck out for the same reasons as the Judges cited in the multiple Southampton, IOW and Warwick County Court decisions, then due to this Claimant knowingly proceeding with a claim that amounts to an abuse of process - which has already caused this Defendant hours of wasted time in researching, reading and writing submissions - full costs will be sought by the Defendant at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.

Statement of Truth:

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


Name

Signature


Date




The judgment to attach is the one in CrystalTips' or Jon8838's thread, either will do!

NearlyDone

Not too sure if I can thank you enough for the above Coupon-mad.

Awsome. Thank you for taking the time and thank you for your technical input. I believed that I had found an argument for my defence using your earlier feedback but I feel a lot more confident with my Defence now.

I will read it more carefully tomorrow (I've had enough of working on this today) and then update my Defense and find/add the attachment.

NearlyDone

Just a quick update.

I now have a court date (start of June).

I guess I now need to start developing my WS?   Do I get to see the PPC WS at some point?

Any other advise would be welcome.

Thanks.

Redx

Read your court order again , especially the back

It tells you when the exchange and submission of witness statements and exhibits should be done by , by both sides

We cannot tell you when that is , it's on your paperwork

D_P_Dance

Have you seen this?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8065277/Driver-fined-185-pulling-41-seconds-East-Midlands-Airport-adjust-wing-mirror.html

nosferatu1001

Nearly - no need to gues, the newbies thread is utterly explicit. 
Tell us your deadlines. 

NearlyDone

Sorry did not express myself very well. 

The dates were not really what I was worried about but its the fact that I'm writing a WS statement without knowing what the PPC are putting in their WS. Or is this not how it works.

I'll look at the WS newbie thread again later to remind myself.  I have a vague idea of what I'm going to say/arguments to use and some images that I will incorporate.

I was also surprised that this whole court process can be kicked off without the PPC paying the court fee upfront.

8th May PPC  deadline to pay court fee. 25 May for WS .

nosferatu1001

A WS is YOUR facts. Their WS is THEIR facts. The two are exchanged usuaully on the same deadline. So no, you likely will not get to see their WS first. WHich is usual. As the Newbeis thread tells you. 
You will not be *arguing* in your WS. Arguing is the job of the defence. Stating facts, and supportnig them, is the job of the WS. 
They pay a filing fee upfront. Then they pay a hearing fee. Its obvious why these are split in two. 

NearlyDone

Thank you. Did not know there were two fees for them to pay upfront.

NearlyDone

I’m again looking for further help and advice please. Plus some encouragement, if possible, to get me over the next hurdle (the WS) so I can sprint to the finishing tape at the Court hearing.   (My indignation is still strong but my will with this legal stuff is weak).

Ok so I have my day in court (or what ever happens now that Covid 19 has thrown a spanner into the works) on 8th June. 

I’ve ignored the recent letter from VCS about paying a reduced fine to stop the court case.  It was an offer that I could refuse – I might have been tempted by a lesser amount though.

I want to start on my Witness Statement as I am finding it easy to keep ignoring all this and hoping it will go away. And time ticks away…..

• My WS will contain my story about the day’s events and what happened. 
• Do I/can I repeat the argument about the local bylaws as used in my Defence? I was going to mention that my actions were in accordance with road traffic regulations and that the byelaw states etc…..
• I also intend to show images from Google Street View. This is to show that the (contractual?) signage was inadequate to read when driving (on the route I took (via my sat nav) into the Airport complex, which was not via the main approach road).

• Also, there is no signage to read at the bus stop. Street view confirms this and the same image (from a later date) shows a sign has since been added to the bus stop area. The VCS images also confirm that there is no signage at the bus stop.
• I see Coupon Mad has updated the defence on added costs (Note: unlawful cost and judgements were in my Defence to the court).   Can I still bang on about this in my Witness Statement? (Using the more recent template wording and examples?) .

Thank you  once again.