Trace Recovery - 2 years on!?

nosferatu1001

How many witness statements have you read? 1? 10? more? 
Thats your starting point
A witness statement is a statement of facts backed up by other evidence where possible. So can you prove,  other than by your statement, that you were not the driver?

md9

I can’t say I’ve read any Witness Statements? 

Other than my partner vouching for my whereabouts at the time, which is hazey as it’s years ago now, I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do.. 

Just get her to write a statement and have it to hand for the court session? 

Fruitcake

There is an example of a WS in the NEWBIES. You can do a forum search for other cases where a WS has been produced. Most of the posts we see here on a daily basis are about court claims, many of them include a witness statement. They have to be produced in support of the defence already submitted.
The guide to NEWBIES tells you what you need to do and when, including submitting witness statements. You can't just produce something at the court session. It's far too late by then, and you won't be allowed to submit it on the day.

Jenni_D

As above.

Remember this is YOUR CASE NOT OURS, so YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK. The guys here will help, but they won't spoon-feed - especially not when the relevant advice is already written in the NEWBIES FAQ.

md9

Many thanks, and I understand that, but there’s a huge amount of info and links and pages to navigate on here and sometimes it can be easier to ask rather than getting lost on 79533678 pages. 

Hence the point of a separate thread, to ask questions. 

If the answer to every question is “look at newbies thread, find it yourself”, when it may not be the easiest to navigate for people, the the threads may as well just be closed. 

So as of right now, I’m not sure when or where I’m supposed to send a witness statement, prior to court date, and haven’t seen on the newbies thread where it says that stuff, so would be helpful if someone said “it’s here, here’s the link” but instead it’s just smart Alec comments. 

So I’ll have a fudge around again and try and find it 👍🏽

Redx

md9 said:

I can’t say I’ve read any Witness Statements? 

Other than my partner vouching for my whereabouts at the time, which is hazey as it’s years ago now, I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do.. 

Just get her to write a statement and have it to hand for the court session? 

The court orders you to provide your witness statement plus exhibits by a certain date , orders , not asks or requests , so you do what they order , or probably lose the case due to not complying with the court order. The claimant is also ordered to do it

Your partner's WS can be one exhibit of many

Reading witness statements by other people enable you to formulate your own , foolish not to read any !!

This isn't a game , you were picked to play as a full back , to protect your own goal , so get your boots on and prepare to face off with Marcus or Prowse

NB , you are not allowed to ambush in court , hence your court order

md9

Ward-Prowse is central so I wouldn’t be worried about him if I was at Full Back, but thanks, that’s helpful! 

The suggested WS to see in the newbies thread doesn’t seem to open as a document, nor the defence, but I’ll try searching up some more and see if any are similar to my case, as I’m assuming ones that aren’t about ‘keeper not driver’ won’t be much help.

Fruitcake

I don't believe you showed us what you put in your defence, so we are operating blind in that respect.

You don't necessarily need to find a WS that is similar to your case. What you want is to understand the style. What sort of things to include in support of your defence. What exhibits (evidence) you are going to include. 
Do you have any of your own photos, or have you viewed Google streetview images to see if they help.

Your WS should probably say something about the driver entering but not seeing signs, or you have subsequently looked at the signs (or images of them) and determined that they are inadequate.
Have you determined if the scammers own the car park? If not then you should be stating that the scammers have not proved they have any standing to operate, issue charges, or court claims.

If/when you get the scammer's WS, please show it to us. Only redact YOUR personal data. Hopefully you will get it before you need to submit yours, so will be able to add comments about it to yours.

Redx

The template defence Oct 2020 is a forum post , not a document , so is copy and paste for new users , but too late for you as yours was submitted months ago so before October most likely

The linked example witness statement download is in PDF format (as was their actual defence) so are downloaded and opened using a PDF viewer program or app or tool , so the problem is on your device , all ok for me on a tablet or a Windows laptop using pdf programs or apps , so use the correct tools for the job to view them

Your court order tells you to submit your WS plus Exhibits to both your court and claimant , only you know the court because you chose it on the N180 form you filled in months ago and they are the people sending you the court orders by post so should be on the latest letters , use email if possible

You have the original N1 claim form , which shows the claimant and sometimes their lawyers , use the lawyer where possible , or Claimant only if no lawyer , preferably using email due to covid19

The newbies thread tells you to send to the court , plus to the claimant (or more usually the lawyer) , because those vary on every case , you know them both from your paperwork , most cases being Court and Lawyer , but email has replaced printing and posting for the last 12 months so rarely by post

Ideally read recently concluded court cases over the last 12 months where it was keeper not driver , if that is your defence ? There are a few , not many but there are some , read the approved WS to see what they wrote , for inspiration for your own statement , read what exhibits they included , and why , do some digging , like Poirot , research is your best tool here , on here

If it's a keeper and driver defence , there are dozens of WS on here to plagiarise

It's what I would do , after watching Ward Prowse , Calvert Lewin , Sterling , Watkins etc scoring some England goals , so don't be a San Marino defender 😜😜😜 , get a game plan going

Le_Kirk

md9 said:

I can’t say I’ve read any Witness Statements? 

Other than my partner vouching for my whereabouts at the time, which is hazey as it’s years ago now, I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do.. 

Just get her to write a statement and have it to hand for the court session? 

A witness statement (WS) is your account, a narrative of what happened on the day and subsequently, it is written in the first person "I" and is "in support of my defence as already filed".  It backs up your defence points and provides evidence of what you said.  You won't find witness statements written for your exact situation in the NEWBIE sticky but the links (which will open if you click on them - unless on a phone) are a guide to style and format.
Use the forum search facility and put witness statement in the search box and read as many as you can.  If you can also see the defence in the same thread you will be able to see how the WS relates to the defence.