Accidental small underpayment

Jimsnap

KeithP said:

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

Change that to...
2.  My wife and I arrived at the PPL carpark at approximately 7.20pm.

Changed it now, thanks.

Coupon-mad

Why don't you just grab Excel v Wilkinson from all the times people have posted the Dropbox link to it?

D_P_Dance

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V Excel v Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

Jimsnap

D_P_Dance said:

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V Excel v Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

Thanks for this, I had already included the Excel v Wilkinson reference under Abuse of Process,  now I can add the PDF

Snakes_Belly

Did you manage to obtain a WS from the other poster who had a similar experience in a PPS car park in Birmingham? That would be useful.

It is too much of a coincidence and a WS from the other poster could see this off.

Jimsnap

Snakes_Belly said:

Did you manage to obtain a WS from the other poster who had a similar experience in a PPS car park in Birmingham? That would be useful.

It is too much of a coincidence and a WS from the other poster could see this off.

No, they seemed to disappear from the thread, I've just messaged them though, hopefully hear back soon.

Jimsnap

Can anyone advise on how I'd use the De-Minimis argument? It was mentioned way back in this thread, I'm just wondering whereabouts I'd insert it?

D_P_Dance

Read some of these

https://www.google.com/search?q=de+minimis+parking+fine&oq=de+minimis+parking&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0i22i30j0i390.10311j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Le_Kirk

Jimsnap said:

Can anyone advise on how I'd use the De-Minimis argument? It was mentioned way back in this thread, I'm just wondering whereabouts I'd insert it?

The full term in Latin is De minimis non curat lex, which means the law does not concern itself with trifles.  You would use it when, for example, arguing that you paid for parking but the PDT failed to register the VRM correctly and was one digit or number wrong.

Jimsnap

Revision 3

I've added the de-minimis point but I'm not sure I've done it correctly.

Attachments included:

Exhibit 1. Photo of windscreen PCN taken by attendant

Exhibit 2. Photo of windscreen PCN taken by defendant

Exhibit 3. Excel vs Wilkinson Approved Judgement - Bradford CC

1.  I am Mr xxxxxx xxxxxx, and I am the defendant against whom this claim is made. 

     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. My wife and I 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 PCN on 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.

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.

12. I believe there are grounds here to argue de-minimis, PPL are trying to make money out of a small technicality where there has clearly been no attempt to underpay for parking.

Abuse of process – the quantum

13. 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.

14. 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

15.  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?

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.