County Court Business Centre Claim - Help with defence facts

diffie

Hi all,

I'm preparing the defence document for the county court claim and need you help with the facts section. I've added that the section 18 but have no clue what to put at section 17.

Case particulars:

PPC: BANK PARK MANAGEMENT LIMITED

Solicitor: DCB LEGAL LTD
Claim date: 08 Jul 2020
AoS date: 14 Jul 2020

Here the section 18:

18.    The parking was paid regularly. The first of two parking tickets was paid using the machine keypad and all instructions given on the screen were followed. The first payment receipt was printed without the vehicle’s registration number as something went wrong while filling the detail in – the receipt was printed with “0” as registration number. As in any pay-and-display parking the ticket was put on the dashoard for anyone to check. When the ticket was about to expire another payment was made to extend the parking time and the second receipt was printed with regular registration number.

Two years ago I moved house and the PCN was sent to the address I used to live at. The PCN was included in the bundle the previous landlord sent over after few months we've moved out. I then emailed BANK PARK MANAGEMENT explaining what had happened and that it was unfair to be charged as the parking was paid regulary. Bank park then replied and stated that they are not accepting the appeal at this stage as they had already forwarded it on to ZZPS debt collectors and to liaise with them. After that for 2 years nothing happened. Nothing from ZZPS. Suddenly on 10/07/2020  arrived the Claim Form from DCB Legal ltd.

Following your instruction the AoS has been filed on 14/07/2020 and need to submit the defence as adivsed in the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

I've added the detail to the defence template and need your help with the section 17 and 18. Please advise what should be added.

Thanks for the help.

KeithP

diffie said:

Claim date: 08 Jul 2020

AoS date: 14 Jul 2020

With a Claim Issue Date of 8th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 10th August 2020 to file your Defence.

That's less than a week away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

diffie

KeithP said:

diffie said:

Claim date: 08 Jul 2020

AoS date: 14 Jul 2020

With a Claim Issue Date of 8th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 10th August 2020 to file your Defence.

That's less than a week away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

Thank you KeithP. Would you be able to review and help with the defence facts I put in the original post?

KeithP

diffie said:

Thank you KeithP. Would you be able to review and help with the defence facts I put in the original post?

No, sorry. I'll leave that to someone else.

Le_Kirk

You are the one involved with the parking issue so you know the story and the reason why you received a PCN; it is difficult for strangers to come up with a defence for you.  You seem to be relying on a failure of equipment and/or frustration of contract as a reason for the PCN, so that is what you put in your paragraph 18. You just need to put it as a technical/legal argument written in the third person rather than the story of what happened, which will come later at Witness statement stage.  Have a look at some other posters defences and see how they have formatted their defence.  Search the forum for sticky keys or frustration of contract or equipment failure.  You just need your paragraph 18 to refute what the claimant has put in the particulars of claim (POC).

diffie

Thank you @Le_Kirk.

Is the below correct?

17. The Defendant is not the only driver of this vehicle and the Particulars of Claim offer little to shed light on the alleged breach, which relates to an unremarkable date over two years ago. It is not established thus far, whether there was a single parking event, or whether the vehicle was caught by predatory ticketing and/or by using unsynchronised timings and camera evidence to suggest a contravention.

18. The Defendant paid the ticket regularly; however, the pay and display ticket (‘PDT’) machine printed the ticket with the VRN “0” as the Claimant's records will show this. The Defendant can only assume there must have been a machine malfunction, or a simple keying error caused by a sticky key in the old machine, but no evidence has been provided of partial VRMs recorded that day. Nothing has shed light on the allegation and the Claimant is put to strict proof.

Umkomaas

Para 18 suggests the identity of the driver. Are you wanting to do that?

Le_Kirk

The defendant has been informed that the driver ................

diffie

Le_Kirk said:

The defendant has been informed that the driver ................

Thank you. Hopefully got it right this time:

17. The Defendant is not the only driver of this vehicle and the Particulars of Claim offer little to shed light on the alleged breach, which relates to an unremarkable date over two years ago. It is not established thus far, whether there was a single parking event, or whether the vehicle was caught by predatory ticketing and/or by using unsynchronised timings and camera evidence to suggest a contravention.

18. The defendant has been informed that the driver paid the ticket regularly; however, the pay and display ticket (‘PDT’) machine printed the ticket with the VRN “0” as the Claimant's records will show this. The Defendant can only assume there must have been a machine malfunction, or a simple keying error caused by a sticky key in the old machine, but no evidence has been provided of partial VRMs recorded that day. Nothing has shed light on the allegation and the Claimant is put to strict proof.

Coupon-mad

Yes that's fine.  

Please can I flag up now that there are TWO relevant malfunctioning machine case transcripts for you to append to your Witness Statement in due course and I don't want to find later that you haven't appended them months down the line.

One is where a machine printed QQ and another I think where it printed PP or a zero, can't remember.  Anyway they are both in the Parking Prankster's case law pages (he has two pages of them). 

DON'T attach them now.    You will be using them as evidence later, that this is a fault with these machines.

diffie

Thank you @Coupon-mad.

I wanted to share actual fact with you all and have your feedback to see if what I've put in the defence is correct.

<removed>

This is what would be put in the defence document:

18. The defendant has been informed that the driver paid the ticket regularly; however, the pay and display ticket (‘PDT’) machine printed the ticket with the VRN “0” as the Claimant's records will show this. The Defendant can only assume there must have been a machine malfunction, or a simple keying error caused by a sticky key in the old machine, but no evidence has been provided of partial VRMs recorded that day. Nothing has shed light on the allegation and the Claimant is put to strict proof.

Can you advise if this is correct to be put forward to the court defence?