Accidental small underpayment

brianposter

Jimsnap said:

How about this?

The facts as known to the Defendant:

1. The defendant admits to being the driver

2. The car park was Pay and Display, it was a dark evening:

 The defendant parked correctly and paid the correct amount into the parking machine, £6, the machine only registered £5 and issued a ticket with

 that amount printed on it, this was not noticed by the defendant at the time.

3.  The defendant submits that the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount.

 It issued a ticket for a ‘parking value' of £3 whilst showing £5 was actually registered.

4. The defendant believes the possibility of the machine issuing a ticket for an incorrect amount should be clearly displayed at the point of payment, instead, 

the machine had a notice next to it stating - “ticket will only be issued upon correct fee being inserted” 

This is clearly untrue and gives the impression that it’s not possible to to be issued with an incorrect ticket.

5. The defendant appealed to the claimant but this was rejected, as far as the claimant was concerned the ticket displayed on the screen was invalid and that was all that mattered.

When requested to provide data from the machine to see what had gone wrong, the claimant stated “the machine did not belong to Premier Parking Logistics” and did not reply to a further request.

The defendant decided not to appeal to the IAS having researched as such, and finding it has been described by MP's as "putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank”.

6. The defendant denies any liability has been incurred, and notes that the claimant should put their own house in order before using their heavy-handed tactics on motorists who have clearly tried to follow the rules.

I do not normally post here but believe that you have got paras 2, 3 and 4 in the wrong order.

2.    the machine had a notice next to it stating - “ticket will only be issued upon correct fee being inserted”

3.    The defendant parked correctly and paid the correct amount into the parking machine, £6,

4     the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount.

        It issued a ticket showing £5 was actually registered - £5 being an incorrect fee..

D_P_Dance

Have you raised this with Trading Standards?

Jimsnap

D_P_Dance said:

Have you raised this with Trading Standards?

No, it seemed hard to prove, I could, but at some point you have to decide how much time and effort you can put into it.

Jimsnap

Coupon-mad said:

Why not add that the Defendant has discovered from initial research that this is not the first case where this has happened with the old machines that the C uses and intends to supply corroborative evidence that the fault lies with the machines and other genuine motorists, like the Defendant, have been similarly caught.

Is this true? I haven't found any similar cases.

Coupon-mad

Pretty sure we have other Walton Wilkins car parks with faulty machines, if you search for his name.

Jimsnap

Coupon-mad said:

Pretty sure we have other Walton Wilkins car parks with faulty machines, if you search for his name.

Thanks, I've found some others now and have mentioned them in my defence.

Jimsnap

brianposter said:

Jimsnap said:

How about this?

The facts as known to the Defendant:

1. The defendant admits to being the driver

2. The car park was Pay and Display, it was a dark evening:

 The defendant parked correctly and paid the correct amount into the parking machine, £6, the machine only registered £5 and issued a ticket with

 that amount printed on it, this was not noticed by the defendant at the time.

3.  The defendant submits that the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount.

 It issued a ticket for a ‘parking value' of £3 whilst showing £5 was actually registered.

4. The defendant believes the possibility of the machine issuing a ticket for an incorrect amount should be clearly displayed at the point of payment, instead, 

the machine had a notice next to it stating - “ticket will only be issued upon correct fee being inserted” 

This is clearly untrue and gives the impression that it’s not possible to to be issued with an incorrect ticket.

5. The defendant appealed to the claimant but this was rejected, as far as the claimant was concerned the ticket displayed on the screen was invalid and that was all that mattered.

When requested to provide data from the machine to see what had gone wrong, the claimant stated “the machine did not belong to Premier Parking Logistics” and did not reply to a further request.

The defendant decided not to appeal to the IAS having researched as such, and finding it has been described by MP's as "putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank”.

6. The defendant denies any liability has been incurred, and notes that the claimant should put their own house in order before using their heavy-handed tactics on motorists who have clearly tried to follow the rules.

I do not normally post here but believe that you have got paras 2, 3 and 4 in the wrong order.

2.    the machine had a notice next to it stating - “ticket will only be issued upon correct fee being inserted”

3.    The defendant parked correctly and paid the correct amount into the parking machine, £6,

4     the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount.

        It issued a ticket showing £5 was actually registered - £5 being an incorrect fee..

Thanks, brianposter 
Are you suggesting slimming my defence down on those points?
I can see your edit is more succinct but not sure it tells enough of the story, although I do think mine might be a little 'wordy'
I've had a play with it but have found it difficult to modify it as you suggest, and still say what I feel I need to in order to give the judge enough facts.

Jimsnap

Here's my latest attempt, please feel free to comment.

The facts as known to the Defendant:

1. The defendant admits to being the driver

2. The car park was Pay and Display, it was a dark evening

3. The defendant parked correctly and paid the correct amount into the parking machine, £6, the machine only registered £5 and issued a ticket with

 that amount printed upon it, this was not noticed by the defendant at the time.

4.  The defendant submits that the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount.

 It issued a ticket for a ‘parking value' of £3 whilst showing £5 was actually registered.

5. The defendant believes the possibility of the machine issuing a ticket for an incorrect amount should be clearly displayed at the point of payment. 

Instead of this, the machine had a notice next to it stating - “ticket will only be issued upon correct fee being inserted” 

This is clearly untrue and gives the impression that it’s not possible to be issued with an incorrect ticket.

6. The defendant appealed to the claimant but this was rejected, as far as the claimant was concerned the ticket displayed on the screen was invalid and that was all that mattered.

When requested to provide data from the machine to see what had gone wrong, the claimant stated “the machine did not belong to Premier Parking Logistics” and did not reply to a further request.

The defendant decided not to appeal to the IAS having researched as such, and finding it has been described by MP's as "putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank”.

7. The defendant has knowledge of other faulty machine incidents connected to the claimant, these can be provided if needed.

8. The defendant denies any liability has been incurred and notes that the claimant should put their own house in order before using their heavy-handed tactics on motorists who have clearly tried to follow the rules and have actually paid the correct fee. 

The claimant is simply trying to profiteer based on technicalities where there has been no attempt to avoid parking charges.

Le_Kirk

You need to close up all your paragraphs so that they all come under the number you intended.  For example you have three paragraphs under your number 6 but two of them are not numbered.  This is for ease of reference when at the hearing or referring to them in your witness statement.
In para #6 you might want to expand and say: -

ticket displayed on the windscreen of the vehicle was invalid and that was all that mattered

otherwise it could be take to mean the screen of the PDT.

Umkomaas

4.  The defendant submits that the machine was faulty due to its failure to register all of the coins and subsequently issue a ticket for a non-valid amount.

 It issued a ticket for a ‘parking value' of £3 whilst showing £5 was actually registered.

Maybe say that despite only issuing a ticket for £3, the machine did not return the £2 'overpayment'. It is unlikely that anyone would place 5 x £1 coins in order to purchase a £3 ticket.