Witness Statement and Trial Date - CEL Parking fine

Coupon-mad

mamangam said:

Umkomaas said:

1. Should I mention that I had offered £50 for settlement which they have rejected especially because the court is directing to settle outside?

Was this in writing?  Did you mark the offer 'Without Prejudice, Save as to Costs'?

It was via email and the offer was not marked without prejudice. Below is what I wrote:
Hi

Could you please let me know whether you would like to settle the above claim for £50? 

The costs which you have added in your claim are disproportionate and blown up which I cannot accept and neither you have any arguments to support the claim. I am also aware of the fact that that you are currently misusing and abusing the process to threaten the people to claim these money form people. Court is no were going to accept all these costs.

Still I am ready to settle this case by paying £50 as this will help in court's  time for other important cases than these kind of petty issues aware. 

Let me know asap if you are willing to settle this case or not.

Their response was:

Dear Sir,

Unfortunately, we are unable to accept £50 at this time and as stated in our cover letter with our witness statement, we are willing to accept £125.

Seeing as neither party marked that 'without prejudice' stick it in as evidence and state that they refused to consider a reasonable offer made with the good intentions of saving the court time, and in no way was it any admission of liability.

mamangam

Thank you @Le_Kirk, @Coupon-mad, @1505grandad  @Umkomaas for your valuable comments. Please find attached my final Witness statement bundle adding all the details as requested. Request you to kindly have a look and let me know if anything needs to be changed or added. Also please let me know if the ordering of the pages is fine or not. Please note I have not yet received the revised hearing date after the previous one was adjourned. So I believe I still have time to send this. Hence would like to use the time for a good WS with your help.

Fruitcake

You should have date stamps on your photos, or show the metadata, or at least state the date the photos were taken. Ideally you should have photos taken in the same light conditions. However, if a photo in broad daylight showed the signs are difficult to read, then a reasonable assumption would be that the signs cannot be seen at all in the dark and rain.

I assume the WS you are going to submit has the headings at the beginning of each section as they are not included in the version you have shown here.

Have you received the scammer's WS and exhibits yet to show us?

Coupon-mad

Android = Auto Stamper for Photo

IOS =   TimeStampIt – Photo Stamper

The above is how to add the date/time to the photo evidence, using the metadata.

You don't need page 3 of the CRA Sch2.  Only the first 2 pages.

mamangam

@Fruitcake @Coupon-mad I shall update the photographs to include the time. Those were taken recently in May. I hope its not a problem? By headings for each section do you mean that I need to add it for the Appendix for judgement & CRA Schedule? I can see heading for all other pages. Please confirm. 

any other changes required please? Also is ordering of sections fine? Do I need to put the Schedule of cost earlier than the last page?

mamangam

Please find attached CEL WS

D_P_Dance

142 pages for a pidding  little parking ticket is absolutely  absurd.   What a waste of time.  This borders on unreasonable behaviour imo.

Fruitcake

D_P_Dance said:

142 pages for a pidding  little parking ticket is absolutely  absurd.   What a waste of time.  This borders on unreasonable behaviour imo.

No wonder it's taking a month of Sundays to load!

Fruitcake

mamangam said:

@Fruitcake @Coupon-mad I shall update the photographs to include the time. Those were taken recently in May. I hope its not a problem? By headings for each section do you mean that I need to add it for the Appendix for judgement & CRA Schedule? I can see heading for all other pages. Please confirm. 

any other changes required please? Also is ordering of sections fine? Do I need to put the Schedule of cost earlier than the last page?

Just make sure the GSV image is from before the date of the alleged event so you can show nothing has changed. Use the the date slider that appears when you click on the clock icon with circular arrows in the information block near the top left of the image. Once you have selected the date and image you want, click on the image to select it. The date the image was taken will appear at the bottom of the image. Make sure that is visible in the your WS/Exhibits.

Coupon-mad

You need to add a section about observations on CEL's WS (using their para numbering):

re 1. Scott Wilson is ex-Wonga, as seen from his LinkedIn page, so the fact he is a qualified barrister is somewhat balanced by his track record in a company banned for aggressive and misleading debt demands. This is exactly the sort of witness who should reasonably be expected to attend a remote telephone hearing to be questioned. There is no evidence of the ‘system working properly’ nor even who supplied that evidence to him and/or who supplied the photographs. Scott Wilson neither placed those signs, nor checked the ANPR system himself, nor has he appended any evidence at all to back his assertions. His words in this witness statement are assumptions – mere hearsay evidence.

re 3. Whilst they are a member, it is not accepted that CEL comply with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) on signage. I question why the witness has decided to put v8 (January 2020) of the CoP into evidence, given that this didn’t exist at the time of the parking event. The BPA Codes are easy to find online for each new version, and this conduct by the witness appears sloppy at best, and misleading to the court and consumer, at worst.

re 10. Whilst the POFA does exist as the only law to invoke ‘keeper liability’ on private land, it is not accepted that CEL complied with either the wording for a NTK issued under para 9 (in full), or the requirement for ‘adequate notice’ of the parking charge itself, on prominent signs.

re 14. The Beavis case is fully distinguished from the facts relating to this case, in particular the marked difference in the signs and size of the parking charge (hidden in smaller/more faded text, in this case).  However, the Beavis case assists consumers in paragraphs 98, 193 and 198 by confirming that only £85 (no false added ‘costs) was deemed acceptable and that was because the parking charge already included all the costs of the operation before court action.

re 16. The C has mispresented the situation and authority in Vine v Waltham Forest. Miss Vine won because the signs were not seen as a matter of fact and law, partly due to the sign not being near her parking place.

re 25. How can Scott Wilson confirm that photos of signs taken in March 2017, nearly two YEARS before the pre-Christmas 2018 parking event were signs that ‘were in place at the date of the violation’. This would be outside of his knowledge; Mr Wilson didn’t work for CEL until August 2019 (see LinkedIn profile) and he only joined in a putative ‘legal/claims’ capacity and not a signage operative. It is highly improbable in fact, that a red sign saying ‘TAKE CARE, ALTERED ROAD LAYOUT’ was there almost two years later! The aerial view is a mock-up of an image from GoogleEarth, with odd white squares dotted on it (who by and when and what they are supposed to represent, has not been shown and so this image has no probative value whatsoever). Equally, one would want to question how this witness can possibly ‘confirm that the ANPR system was operating properly on the date and time in question and no technical issues have been recorded which would have affected the proper and accurate recording of images by the system at that location.’

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/scott-wilson-88ab3a20

re 26. Mr Wilson’s evidence merely shows that they proceeded to harass the Defendant, with demands from a notoriously unscrupulous debt collection company (DRP and Zenith are the same company using different letter headings). The Zenith letters are even marked ‘without prejudice’ which to me suggests they are not admissible as evidence, save as to the question of costs (Mr Wilson being a barrister will be aware of the limitations in using ‘without prejudice’ offers as evidence). In any case - and vitally to expose the untruths in this evidence - it is not true to say this series of red letters caused an additional cost to the Claimant for 'debt recovery'.  DRP are on record as advertising their dubious ‘service’ to car park operators free of charge*

*anyone got that DRP screenshot as evidence?

re 28. Mr Wilson is not being truthful. There were and can be NO ‘debt recovery costs’. See Supplementary Witness Statement and the decision from Southampton court (Britannia Parking v Crosby)when another BPA AOS member parking firm and robo-claim solicitor tried to argue against strike-outs due to adding £60 in false costs. This has been tested three times and the parking firms have lost every time (Caernarfon, Skipton and Southampton).