Court hearing missed call

Umkomaas

Evidence comes at Witness Statement stage, many weeks away. Where are you with your Defence?

Le_Kirk

PPCs (well any private company) have 30 days t reply to an SAR.  That is around today (to use your terminology) so if nothing received today, check your dates and then send a complaint to them with a requirement for results within 7 days otherwise a report will go to ICO.  I would suggest a complaint straight to ICO but they generally come back and state that you have to exhaust the PPC's internal complaints procedure first.

bradders1988

Apologies, thats what I meant with todays earlier post (not evidence), in terms of a defence I am a bit thin due to no SAR back from PPC and environment of charged has changed since the ticket was issued. I have seen the generic defence which I can modify, based on the points of my post at 9.42am should I just add them as a defence in your opinion?
ATB

Le_Kirk

The data that you receive following the submission of a SAR will be of more use to you at witness statement (WS) stage.  Your defence needs to be a series of legal/technical arguments as per the template.  Just edit the points 2 & 3 to refute the particulars of claim (POC), for example, if the POC state "no ticket purchased" your defence is "nowhere to purchase a ticket".  You might add points about the specificity of the signage that you didn't see due to it being too small/obscured/missing and you will provide proof at WS stage.  Just keep it in the third person and talk about "the defendant" not "I".

Redx

Yes , adapt the generic defence with additional info in paragraphs 2 & 3 , short and sweet so you can add your arguments at the WS plus Exhibits plus summary costs assessment stage in several months time !!

You are leaving it late considering your deadline is tomorrow , most people haven't had a SAR reply back by the time they defend , so you can state that the particulars are sparse etc due to a lack of detail

I don't understand why you haven't already read say a dozen or twenty defences on here and see what they wrote in theirs , because your dilemma is extremely common and we have lost count of the number of defences that were written with no SAR evidence to hand

Your defence is based on legal points and some background information , but not war and peace

Get a move on !!!

bradders1988

Hi All, and thanks I was just wondering whether any of the points I made in this mornings email would be relevant. Please find a draft below of the defence sections;

N THE COUNTY COURT

Claim No.: XXXXXXXX

Between

(full name of parking firm, not the solicitor!) 

(Claimant) 

- and -  

Defendant’s name from N1 claim (can’t be changed to someone else now)                        

 (Defendant)

____________________

DEFENCE

____________________

1.       The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that a contract was entered into - by conduct or otherwise - whereby it was ‘agreed’ to pay a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue, nor to form contracts in their own name at the location.

 

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2.       It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. It is also admitted that the defendant was the driver.

 

3. It was unclear to the defendant at the time of the alleged offence that the car park was in fact privately owned land. It is alleged that the vehicle was parked in breach of the terms on the claimants’ signs. As the alleged offence occurred over 2 years ago the defendant cannot recall whether it was dark, with lack of light. However, the defendant confirms that there was not clear visible signage identifying the car park as private land. The defendant has many times parked on the car park adjacent to the car park where the alleged offence occurred, the foremost owned by the gym that the defendant was a member of at the time. It was thought that the car park where the alleged offence took place was an overflow or a general car park which can be used by both customers of the unit situated on the private land and users of the gym.

Coupon-mad

Looks fine. You could add that you requested a SAR to narrow the issues, on xx/xx/2020 but have had no response, so have seen no images or evidence as yet.

bradders1988

Coupon-mad said:

Looks fine. You could add that you requested a SAR to narrow the issues, on xx/xx/2020 but have had no response, so have seen no images or evidence as yet.

Excellent, thanks for your feedback. I see there are two options to sumbit my defence with the most preferred on here being the email option. If I email my defence, do I need to do anything on MCOL to confirm I have emailed my defence. I have of course only submitted my AOS via MCOL. Is it a case of emailing my defence, and wait for next steps ie N180 questionnaire? cheers and ATB

Redx

No

Just email it

Use the MCOL site for checking receipt and progress , read only

Yes it is

Uptown_Boy

As mentioned above ... once they've processed your defence your MCOL account should update. (They send the defence on to the claimant - you don't need to*). If the defence doesn't show as filed a few days after sending it then contact the CCBC to query this. Note: Make sure the claim reference number is clearly noted in the email Subject line and body.

* When it comes to Witness Statement time though - after court allocation - then you need to file your WS with the court and serve it on the claimant ... in the current pandemic then filing/serving by email is generally acceptable, so you can do both at the same time; send to the court and the claimant in the same email.