Royal Holloway University - F1rst parking PCN

rocdoc

Update:
AoS filed & SAR requested. 
May I ask for a bit of guidance in terms of the defence. I have noticed from this thread: forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=131033 (sorry I can't post links yet) that their case is almost identical to mine. The PCN/NTK contains all the same wording and use of images.

Although this was at the appeal stage, they had success based on: 9 (2) (e) is not there, 9 (2) (f) is not as prescribed, there is no period of parking (time moving in front of cameras cannot be parking).

Would I be able to use the same points in my own defence?

If anyone else has any information or other examples of successful court claim defences when dealing with F1rst parking and DCB legal, please share them here. 

Fruitcake

If the scammer's NTK failed PoFA and the driver's identity has not been revealed, then of course you should include non-PoFA complaint NTK in the defence. This assumes the keeper was not the driver. Don't tell us, but if they were the same person, you have to work out what you will do if the judge asks you if you were the driver.

Being vague or refusing to answer might make the judge think on the balance of probabilities that they were the same.

Umkomaas

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=131033

As you say, this was a POPLA decision - the substantive one being from 2016. The later appeal in the thread was not contested by First Parking, the OP surmised that it was his PoFA appeal points that frightened them off. I'm not so convinced. PPCs don't contest some POPLA appeals for a variety of reasons, often logistical ones in terms of not having the resources available at the time, or a lack of grey matter to handle. 

Neither am I convinced by the strength of the argument on the PoFA front, all looked a bit on the flimsy side and unless you can get your head around the various clauses and their implications and be able to convince a Judge of your assertions (or he or she is red-hot PoFA knowledgable), then while you might use the arguments, they are not your silver bullet IMHO, IANAL. 

Coupon-mad

Why aren't you adapting the TEMPLATE DEFENCE?

rocdoc

I guess I have time to wait for the SAR to go through to see what they have on me. 
I haven't started adapting the template for defence because I am really unsure on how to start.

1. Should or shouldn't one admit to being the driver..? 

2. What actually happened? Honest mistake and forgot to renew the permit. Renewed it the very next day before knowledge of the PCN (delivered to home address a few days later). I am struggling to think how I can build a defence on this. 

Umkomaas

PoFA only truly helps if you were definitely not the driver and have some evidence to that effect. If the PPC has their PoFA ducks in a row, it's rather irrelevant who the driver might/might not have been, they have the registered keeper to hold liable. Much depends on the results of your SAR, but given their NtK shown in the PePiPoo thread was pretty much PoFA compliant in 2019, I doubt they will have regressed since then. 

Coupon-mad

Not a mistake - not 'forgot'. 

The Defendant has a permit and it was displayed, as always.  There was no reason to expect or know (without a reminder, which did not occur) that valid permits would arbitrarily and suddenly become out of date, except to catch out staff (or whatever your status was).  This is the sort of unfair practice operated by the more rogue parking firms in this unregulated industry, allowing predatory ticketing of known permitted vehicles at a site where everyone - except a trespasser - has a reasonable expectation that they are authorised to park.  It would have been simple to have added VRMs to an electronic white (exempt) list and not created a system where consumers are set up to fail with a system where their permission unnecessarily expires overnight.

nosferatu1001

As above
Their rules are designed to create PCNs. Be annoyed at that!

rocdoc

Hello all, 
Thanks for your help so far.
I received SAR from F1rst parking recently and there doesn't appear to be much useful information within. I will continue to push through the university in parallel with defence. Please may I ask if the following would be appropriate for my defence (para 2 and 3):

2. It is admitted that the defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question but liability is denied.
3. The defendant was a registered student of 4 years at Royal Holloway University of London, when they received a parking charge notice from F1rst Parking for using the university’s sport centre carpark. The defendant had a permit to park which was clearly displayed, as always, in the vehicle’s front window. The defendant however, had no reason to expect or realize that their valid permit would arbitrarily and suddenly become out of date. The defendant received no correspondence or reminder from F1rst Parking to inform them that their permit would no longer be valid.

Would it be appropriate to add that this practice is unfair and designed to create PCNs (as mentioned above)? Or would that be used later.

Comments/thoughts welcome. Many thanks

Coupon-mad

I think you could add that if you want, maybe as a short para 4.  Your para 3 looks fine.