County Court Business Centre query

Umkomaas

Well done on your (your gf's) win. 🥂

A detailed court report with court location, Judge's name, court claim number, did the PPC field an advocate, what did they have to say, what did you say, what did the Judge say, on what point(s) did the Judge make his/her decision, did you get your costs (ordinary and additional) ...... would be very helpful. 

Coupon-mad

One Parking Solution v Ms X 

COURT REPORT - 1 - 0 TO THE GOOD GUYS & GIRLS 

BHCC Council housing land is not relevant land (D was not driving)

DDJ McCloskey at Brighton, by phone, with me as lay rep  - a case assisted also by ParkingMad

First problem: the DDJ had not got Ms X's detailed WS and evidence (emailed in time).  I knew it had been sent but forwarded it so he could read it on the spot.    OPS had received it and it was sent to court in the same email!

The Defendant's partner had parked in bays in Brighton that had a small OPS dirty white sign on a dirty white wall.

Can you see the OPS sign? 
It is NOT the BHCC one on the pole which the driver didn't see in the dark either but would have been taken to mean that this was part of the surrounding CPZ which ends at 8pm. 

The OPS sign is hidden between two pipes...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PICTURE ABOVE BAY 18...
On that night in December, it was pitch black.   The OP parked in the dark at 9pm to take part in a gig at a pub.  The band were told to park in the bays outside and believed that this all fell within the CPZ for the streets or that the bays were actually allocated to the pub because that was the impression given by the landlord. 

Anyway the D wasn't the driver and this wasn't relevant land as it is in fact, BHCC-owned housing bays.

The main points of Defence were that:

1.  This is not relevant land so OPS cannot hold a registered keeper liable and should not have cited the POFA on their Notice to Keeper, which was misleading.  As the RK wasn't the driver, there is no lawful way to find her liable.

2. Claimants had withheld the BHCC landowner contract and just put in a 'variation letter' that tells us nothing, and hid everything.

3.  Ms X put in as evidence, the actual BHCC contract which @ParkingMad and I have in our collection!  

The BHCC contract is a shambles.  In 2018 BHCC varied an old contractor agreement in the old name Ethical, copied from a previous clamping contract.  It talks about penalties, towing away and irrelevant RTA law.  It is merely a bare licence and refers to tickets being issued under the tort of trespass (not relevant to contract law and the claim is not pleaded in trespass).   

 Also, it doesn't give OPS authority to sue in their own name

4.  The photographic evidence supplied by OPS only showed the car and a grey-looking sign on a wall in the dark, which it was at 9pm in the Winter of 2018.    See above for the sort of evidence the D had!

5.  The £60 add-on was unrecoverable and an abuse of process.

First thing DDJ McCloskey said to me was to ask where the WS (that he hadn't read and I'd just emailed to him) talked about what happened when the vehicle was parked.  The WS did have the account of the driver in para 13 so I pointed that out but I said straight away:

''she wasn't driving so her first point is in fact that she is not liable''.  

So, the Judge wanted to know where the WS from the driver was...?   I said the D is defending as keeper and there is no requirement to name the driver.  The D's evidence included Excel v Smith and Henry Greenslade's words about Keeper Liability from the POPLA Annual Report 2015.

DDJ said ''well, she can't give a witness account of what happened then''.  True, but that was never the intention of the WS. 

So I said, even if we disregard para 13 about what the driver's experience was, the keeper first of all relies upon the fact that this is 'not relevant land' and I took him to the exhibits. The DDJ was unimpressed by the DVLA letter to Councils, or the Robert Goodwill letter that told them they must not operate in this way, nor Henry Greenslade's opinion, nor Excel v Smith. 

We also had in evidence,  4.1 from the CMA Guidance about the POFA Schedule 4, where it is explained what 'relevant land' means, in more detail than the POFA.  But the Judge (rightly) wanted to read the actual law, so I took him to the POFA and we looked at the definition of 'relevant land' and then he questioned why I was saying that BHCC was a 'traffic authority'...it took a while but this is also defined in Schedule 4.

OPS' young lad was then finally allowed to speak because the Judge understood the POFA issue and was with me.  OPS' young lad said he had ''no idea'' that they couldn't hold the D liable and hadn't understood it ''until today'' because ''we always use the POFA''

He made OPS sound like a victim company who had just made an error.  OMG...  The Judge sympathised! 

Anyway the claim had to fail so we won, on no keeper liability and there had been no need to look at the crappy sign.

Re the D's costs, they were not going to be granted by Brighton court, and I could tell that was a non-starter.  Fair enough, the hearing had not gone into the realms of whether OPS had acted unreasonably or not, and all that left was 'loss of leave/salary' but the D had joined the call between jobs whilst doing a day's work and had not spoken except to say hello. 

The Judge was happy with ordering no costs and I was OK with that under the circumstances.   

ANOTHER OPS ONE BITES THE DUST!

Coupon-mad

Just a heads up that if anyone gets an OPS PCN in Sussex, me and ParkingMad are here for you.

D_P_Dance

When are you going to update us?

Were_Doomed

D_P_Dance said:

When are you going to update us?

Did you decide after all to buy popcorn and it is now going off?