County Court Claim - ParkingEye- Defence-Wrong Reg?

Coupon-mad

It doesn't matter in this case really as the D was not the driver and they don't have his wife's name.

It's P/Eye, who will (probably) have used the POFA - check the back of the PCN.

Rusty_Rawplug

IN THE COUNTY COURT
CLAIM No:

BETWEEN:

(Claimant)

-and-

(Defendant)

DEFENCE

1. Background – the Driver was an authorised patron of ######

1.1. The Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question although he was not the driver of the vehicle in question. The Claim relates to an alleged debt in damages arising from the registered keepers alleged breach of contract, when parking at ####### on ######.

1.2. Any breach is denied, and it is further denied that there was any agreement to pay the Claimant's £### 'Parking Charge Notice ('PCN')'.

1.3. The allegation appears to be based on images by the Claimant’s Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera at the entrance and exit to the site. This is merely an image of the vehicle in transit, entering and leaving the car park in question and is not evidence of the registered keeper 'parking without a valid paid parking ticket’ or of the registered keeper not being a patron of ######.

1.4. At the time of parking on #######, the driver was a patron of the ######, and the driver has a transaction on a bank statement which shows payment which entitled them to park for free in the car park in question.

1.5. The Driver made all reasonable efforts to make payment for a valid parking ticket by using an approved payment channel.
(a) Payment for parking was made via entering the correct vehicle registration number (VRN) into the parking validation terminal within the ######## complex.
(b) The service makes no provision for the printing of a valid paid parking ticket to display or keep as proof.
(c) The driver followed the instructions exactly as shown on the validation terminal.
(d) The validation terminal did not indicate any failure to input the VRN correctly and responded as if the VRN had been accepted. As such the driver believed the necessary process had been carried out successfully to obtain free parking for the duration of the stay.

1.6. It is the Claimant’s own failure caused by their validation terminal that has given rise to a 'PCN' being not properly issued from the outset.


2. Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPUTR) and British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Practice (CoP) - Breach

2.1. The Defendant, through research, has discovered that if a complaint had been made at the time of receipt of the parking charge notice (PCN), then the businesses on site (including #####) had the authority to cancel the charge.

2.2. The Defendant avers that no signs and no paperwork from the Claimant gave any hint to the registered keeper, that the onsite businesses could easily cancel a charge. By withholding the ###### route of cancellation/complaint from a consumer the Claimant is 'misleading omissions' of material facts. These breaches of the CPUTRs 2008 have caused the unfair PCN, prevented its cancellation before proceeding started and this conduct by the Claimant has severely disadvantaged the Defendant.

2.3. The Defendant, through research, has discovered that the Claimant is a member of the British Parking Association (BPA) Approved Operator Scheme (AOS) and is in breach of its own Trade Body’s 2020 Code of Practice (CoP) that protects drivers in ‘keying error’ cases.

2.4 The Claimant knew in the pre-action phase in 2019, that this change to the CoP was coming, and the CoP now says that AOS members are expected to offer to recover a modest charge of no more than £20 for a 14-day period from when the keying error was identified before reverting to the charge amount at the point of appeal, but this was never offered. If a keying error did occur in this instance, then the Claimant is in breach of the BPA 2020 CoP.


3. Data Protection concerns

3.1. The registered keeper was not an occupant of the vehicle but can prove that the driver was a patron of ########. The registered keeper or driver had no idea about the ANPR surveillance and received no letters after the initial 'PCN', only a vague document which gave no indication as to what the alleged breach was. No photographic evidence of the terms supposedly on the car park signage has ever been supplied, not even in the postal PCN.

3.2. The Claimant is put to strict proof of any breach and of their decision-making in processing of the data and the human intervention in deciding to issue a PCN and why, as well as the reasoning behind trying to collect £#### instead of seeking to recover a modest charge, if it is their case that this sum went unpaid.

3.3. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Claimant is also put to strict proof regarding the reason for such excessive and intrusive data collection via ANPR surveillance cameras at a car park where there would likely be no vehicles unconnected to patrons, no trespass nor 'unauthorised' parking events.

3.4. It is one thing to install PDT machines, but quite another to run a hidden ANPR camera data stream alongside the PDT data stream, and then use one against the other, against the rights and interests of unsuspecting but circumspect visitors to the #####, who get caught out by this trap.

3.5. Collecting VRN data in order to inflate the 'parking charge' to £### and write (weeks later) to registered keepers, whether they were driving or not, is excessive, untimely and intrusive to registered keeper data subjects.


4. Denial of contract and denial of any breach, or liability

4.1. Due to the sparseness of the Particulars of Claim (POC) it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, it is denied that the registered keeper, or the driver of the vehicle breached any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

4.2. According to the POC the Claimants ANPR system captured a vehicle entering and leaving the site without a valid paid parking ticket, however, a VRN was correctly entered into their parking validation terminal so any perceived breach is denied.


I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.


Name

Signature

Date