Accidental small underpayment

Jimsnap · 26 June 2021 at 12:25AM

I'll get the hang of this one day

Jimsnap · 27 June 2021 at 3:58PM

My second WS draft.

I've included the 'Abuse of process - the quantum' section from @jrhys WS but not the Beavis one.

1. The facts below are true to the best of my belief and my account has been prepared based upon my own knowledge

Sequence of events:

2. I arrived, along with my wife arrived at the PPL carpark at approx 7.20pm.

3. It was a dark night, we were running late for a show at The Hippodrome.

4. For the aforementioned reasons, instead of going to the payment machine I went over to a parking attendant, (who was in the process of issuing a ticket to another car) to ask what the charges were, he informed me they were £3 for one hour or £6 to park until 8am the following morning.

5. I went back to the car and my wife gave me 6 one pound coins from the purse of change we keep for parking meters, I inserted them into the payment machine, took the ticket and placed it on the dash, happy that although we only needed 2-3 hours we had plenty of time in hand if needed.

6. There was no indication from the machine that anything was amiss.

7. When we returned to the car after the show I was shocked to see a parking notice on the windscreen, and at first thought that somebody had placed it there as a joke but soon realised it wasn’t.

8. When I examined the ticket I’d paid for I found it showed the machine had issued a ticket to the value of only £5, which was printed on the ticket, and that the ticket only allowed one hour parking time.

9. I was confused by this because there was no £5 tariff and in fact, as I found out later, there was a notice on the machine stating it will only issue a ticket when the correct fee is inserted, this is clearly incorrect.

I would have thought the machine would have refunded the over-payment which would have alerted me to the problem.

10. My assertion is that the machine was faulty and failed to register all of the coins that I'd inserted, or that it had rejected one of my coins, which went unnoticed by me, but still issued a ticket for an invalid amount.

11. My appeal to PPL was rejected because they said the ticket I displayed was incorrect, this is the fault of their machine, not me, they stated I should have checked the ticket; If I’d bought a ticket for a shorter period I would normally check it to make sure I returned in time, but because I’d bought one which was far in excess of the time I needed I didn’t automatically do that, also it was dark and wet and I wasn’t wearing my reading glasses.

I trusted the machine to operate correctly.

12 I contacted the claimants solicitor to request a read-out from the machine in order to see if there was any record from the day in question, this was refused on the grounds that PPL didn’t own the machine.

Abuse of process – the quantum

12. In addition to the disputed Parking Charge Notice claim amount of £100, the

Claimant has added a sum of £60.

The added £60 constitutes double recovery and the court is invited to find the quantum claimed is

false and an abuse of process as was found by District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ

Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) in Excel vs Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, a similar case

in which £60 had been added to a parking charge, heard in July 2020

The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with an improper

collateral purpose. Leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.

13. After hearing this ‘test case’, which followed numerous Judges repeatedly disallowing

the £60 sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims,

Judge Jackson at the Bradford County Court went into significant detail before concluding

that parking operators (such as the Claimant in this case) are seeking to circumvent CPR

27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Others, like Judge Hickinbottom

of the same court area, have since echoed Judge Jackson’s words and struck out dozens of

cases. Judge Hickinbottom recently stated "I find that striking out this claim is the only

appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown".

Evidence of payment

14. I have attached a copy of the disputed ticket along with the photo taken by the parking attendant of the ticket in place.

As you can see from the attendants photo, only the time is legible, maybe if he had been able to read the amount paid he would not have issued the penalty ticket.

15.

16. 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.

Le_Kirk · 27 June 2021 at 4:07PM

2. I arrived, along with my wife, arrived at the PPL carpark at approx 7.20pm.

Edit as above

3. It was a dark night, we were running late for a show at The Hippodrome.

I wouldn't put that you were running late as it might lead the judge to suppose you did not take care with inserting coins into the PDT. If you are going to say it was a dark night, you have to add some relevance to it for example "it was a dark night and the signs/PDT were not [properly] illuminated".

Jimsnap · 27 June 2021 at 4:13PM

Le_Kirk said:

2. I arrived, along with my wife, arrived at the PPL carpark at approx 7.20pm.
Edit as above
3. It was a dark night, we were running late for a show at The Hippodrome.
I wouldn't put that you were running late as it might lead the judge to suppose you did not take care with inserting coins into the PDT. If you are going to say it was a dark night, you have to add some relevance to it for example "it was a dark night and the signs/PDT were not [properly] illuminated".

Good point, thanks for that.

Redx · 27 June 2021 at 7:17PM

9 does not seem right , as I commented on earlier , there was no overpayment , 6 £1 coins were inserted and accepted for a supposedly £6 ticket , the machine did not indicate anything was amiss when it dispensed the ticket , making the buyer think all was well

So to repeat , there was never any overpayment , that assertion is completely false !! Capiche ??

Jimsnap · 27 June 2021 at 7:58PM

Redx said:

9 does not seem right , as I commented on earlier , there was no overpayment , 6 £1 coins were inserted and accepted for a supposedly £6 ticket , the machine did not indicate anything was amiss when it dispensed the ticket , making the buyer think all was well

So to repeat , there was never any overpayment , that assertion is completely false !! Capiche ??

My mistake, I had taken it out as you said, I then somehow posted a mid-draft version.

Below is the correct one.

1.The facts below are true to the best of my belief and my account has been prepared based upon my own knowledge

Sequence of events:

2. I arrived, along with my wife arrived at the PPL carpark at approx 7.20pm.

3. It was a dark and wet night, so instead of going to the payment machine and trying to work out how much to pay, I went over to a parking attendant, (who was in the process of issuing a ticket to another car) to ask what the charges were, he informed me they were £3 for one hour or £6 to park until 8am the following morning.

4. I went back to the car and my wife gave me 6 one pound coins from the purse of change we keep for parking meters, I inserted them into the payment machine, took the ticket and placed it on the dash, happy that although we only needed 2-3 hours we had plenty of time in hand if needed.

5. There was no indication from the machine that anything was amiss.

6. When we returned to the car after the show I was shocked to see a parking notice on the windscreen, and at first thought that somebody had placed it there as a joke but soon realised it wasn’t.

7. When I examined the ticket I’d paid for I found it showed the machine had issued a ticket to the value of only £5, which was printed on the ticket, and that the ticket only allowed one hour parking time.

8. I was confused by this because I’d paid £6 and there was no £5 tariff and in fact, as I found out later, there was a notice on the machine stating it will only issue a ticket when the correct fee is inserted, this is clearly incorrect.

I would have thought the machine would have issued a refund which would have alerted me to the problem.

9. My assertion is that the machine was faulty and failed to register all of the coins that I'd inserted, or that it had rejected one of my coins, which went unnoticed by me, but still issued a ticket for an invalid amount.

10. My appeal to PPL was rejected because they said the ticket I displayed was incorrect, this is the fault of their machine, not me, they stated I should have checked the ticket; If I’d bought a ticket for a shorter period I would normally check it to make sure I returned in time, but because I’d bought one which was far in excess of the time I needed I didn’t automatically do that, also it was dark and wet and I wasn’t wearing my reading glasses.

I trusted the machine to operate correctly.

11. I contacted the claimants solicitor to request a read-out from the machine in order to see if there was any record from the day in question, this was refused on the grounds that PPL didn’t own the machine.