Claim form from PCM using gladstones - First time going to court! - CASE WON

slick490

Hi all,

I received a few tickets from these thieves almost a year ago during peak covid times.

A little bit of a background: I was newly appointed as a pharmacy manager in an independent store in a privately owned area. During this time the local council decided to lift all permit restrictions on all parking in the area. The private area in which my work place resides is also part of this local council and decided to follow suit. Long story short the private area decided suddenly to lift their own parking restriction and I had received two tickets on two separate occasions. The first I never saw any ticket on my windshield and the second time I had received a ticket on my windshield. When this happened I moved my car literally two mins down the road outside the private area into the council area (which I could have done the whole time but no one told me the restrictions where lifted) I spoke to the security and essentially the manager of the site which he explained an email went around to all the residents and there was nothing they could do about the tickets. Obviously I wasn't too happy about this and decided to ignore the tickets since I was too busy during this pandemic to really care about these measly tickets and secondly I was adamant that I would not pay it. (and now here I am in the thick of it!!). I cannot remember disputing the tickets or emailing them since it was such a long time ago and I honestly cant remember if they even sent me any follow up letters. 

A bit about the parking spot; The bay in question is a loading bay which has two double lines going through the bay and says loading bay across the floor.  There are no clear signs saying anything about any restrictions about parking or any fines that would incur if parked there. 

A bit about the claim:
particulars of the claim - the vehicle parked in breach of the terms of parking stipulated on the signage (the contract) thus incurring the parking charges (the PCNs). The pcns where not paid within 28 days of issue. The claimant claims the unpaid PCNs from the defendant as the driver/keeper of the vehicle. Despite demands being made the defendant has failed to settle their outstanding liability. The claimant claims £100 per PCN, £60.00 per pcN contract costs to the contract and PCN terms and conditions together with statutory interest of £16.99 pursuant to s69 of the county courts act 1984 at 8.00% per annum, continuing at £0.07 per day.
They are asking for a total amount of £421.99 broken up like so:
Amount claimed- 336.99
Court fee - £35.00
Legal representative costs - £50.00
Total amount - £421.99

Issue date was 03/03/2021
(so im guessing i've got till the 5th April to submit everything?)
I've already done my AOS and my defence is written down as below. I'm posting just for some moral support really... a little nervous about the whole process.
Any tips or any amendments I can add? Can I add anything about the fact that they randomly decided to implement the fines again? anything that I could add about me being a key worker during the peak onslaught of covid?
Shall I send a SAR to PCM? How do I go about doing so if I have to?

Thanks all for reading

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The Claimant has failed to provide the Defendant in a 'letter before claim', with essential information including details of what the alleged breach was, any photographs taken, what it time occurred and for how long, and proof that a breach actually occurred. This amounts to a failure to comply with Practice Direction 6 (a). This claim is being made over 3 years after the alleged breach took place, and after all this time without adherence to Practice Direction 6. The expectations of the court outlined in Practice Direction 3 have not been met.

3. The Particulars of Claim (PoC) do not specify what are the terms breached by the driver of the vehicle. As such, the Claim fails to meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies what the terms were and how they were breached.

4. It is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

5. Further and in the alternative, examination of a parking sign at the location of the alleged breach shows the sign to be completely unreadable and not fit for purpose. It is denied that the sign sets out terms in a legible manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them.

6. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

7. The claim includes interest charge but does not include dates used for calculation. As such, this is in breach of Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 (2)

8. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. This claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

9. Overall the costs on the claim are disproportionate and are an abuse of process. CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –

(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and

(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

10. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

11. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

12. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims.

13. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

14. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

15. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:

The Judge stated:-

''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

16. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

17. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

18. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name

Signature

Date

THANKS AGAIN!!

KeithP

slick490 said:

Issue date was 03/03/2021
(so im guessing i've got till the 5th April to submit everything?)
I've already done my AOS...

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

For the moment I am going to assume you filed an AoS sometime after 8th March and before today. 
If so, you are right with your Defence filing deadline.
Please confirm.

With a Claim Issue Date of 3rd March, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 5th April 2021 Tuesday 6th April 2021 to file your Defence.

That's nearly two weeks 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.

Redx

your statement of truth is a year out of date for starters , use the newer and much longer one from the template defence

use the coupon mad template and only post the paragraphs 2 & 3 below for critique and advice, not the rest

yes email a SAR as per the newbies FAQ sticky thread to PCM , to their DPO, attaching a copy of the claim form as proof of I D , do it tonight , takes 10 minutes at most , the DPO details are on all companies privacy page , so check it for the correct details

these were never FINES, they are Parking Charge Notices, the correct name being INVOICE, so never , never refer to them as fines, which has a legal meaning not applicable here

stick to legal points and only a bit of background in your defence, save the jackanory stories for your witness statement in several months time

KeithP

Just a passing observation....

This is your eighth thread on the Parking Board.
You have received advice and guidance on all your earlier threads, but not once have you bothered to tell us the outcome of any of them.

You don't appear to have learnt from them either.
Just one example... a discussion on how to submit a SAR took place in September 2019, but now you are asking again about how to do that.

Coupon-mad

Yep, back to the drawing board and just use the template defence; that is why it is a sticky thread in its own right.

slick490

Hi all,
So I've used the revised template and this is what i've written for paragraph 2 and 3. I only wanted to state the facts as mentioned by a previous user and to only delve deep into everything in my witness statement in a few months time. Please let me know if I should add anything else.

If the below is okay I believe I must then follow KeithPs summary of how to submit a defence by email to the CCBCAQ email address?

THANKS in advance!!

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 and the driver of the vehicle but liability is denied.  

3.  Accordingly the defendant believes that:
3.1. there was an agreement made between the manager of the premises acting on behalf of the claimant and the Defendant or driver of the vehicle allowing all obligations (at all) to be wavered due to the ongoing COVID problems on the land
7.2. there was no obligation (at all) to display a permit;
7.3. the Claimant has not suffered loss or damage or that there is any lawful basis to pursue a claim for loss.

I also wrote to "info@pcm-uk.co.uk" <info@pcm-uk.co.uk> with the below email 

To whom it may concern,

I would like the following information:

- ALL photos taken

- ALL letters/emails sent and received, including any appeal correspondence earlier

- ALL data held, all evidence based on me, and a full copy of the PCN, NTK

- A list of all PCNs outstanding against you me/this VRN, 

I would like to remind you that any claim must be for all PCNs, not several separate claims.

My proof of address is below.

Thanks,

slick490

KeithP said:

Just a passing observation....

This is your eighth thread on the Parking Board.
You have received advice and guidance on all your earlier threads, but not once have you bothered to tell us the outcome of any of them.

You don't appear to have learnt from them either.
Just one example... a discussion on how to submit a SAR took place in September 2019, but now you are asking again about how to do that.

Sorry about this! I will update them all as soon as I am free! I think most of the time, since the car was never mine, I chickened out and paid the fine...

Coupon-mad

You supported and funded the industry that is now suing you...oh, the irony...but I think the scales have fallen from your eyes now!

They are not pursuing a claim for loss.  You CANNOT rely on 'no loss'.  That disappeared as a consumer right in car parks when the Supreme Court had a brain fart and were persuaded by the rhetoric of ParkingEye's expensive lawyers that they could charge something unrelated to any loss and it didn't matter, and all Mr Beavis needed was a watch (blame the consumer, as PPCs always do).

3.1. makes no grammatical sense at all:

3.  Accordingly the defendant believes that:
3.1. there was an agreement made between the manager of the premises acting on behalf of the claimant and the Defendant or driver of the vehicle allowing all obligations (at all) to be wavered due to the ongoing COVID problems on the land
7.2. there was no obligation (at all) to display a permit;
7.3. the Claimant has not suffered loss or damage or that there is any lawful basis to pursue a claim for loss

 

Why not just tell the Judge what happened and what sort of car park it is, as the TEMPLATE DEFENCE thread tells you to do?

Redx

Condense 2 to registered keeper and driver , removing the other mention of driver , keep it factual but concise

3 do what coupon mad said , but a typo , it's waivered , not wavered

The ongoing covid problems on the land makes no sense to a layman , or a judge

beamerguy

slick490 said:

KeithP said:

Just a passing observation....

This is your eighth thread on the Parking Board.
You have received advice and guidance on all your earlier threads, but not once have you bothered to tell us the outcome of any of them.

You don't appear to have learnt from them either.
Just one example... a discussion on how to submit a SAR took place in September 2019, but now you are asking again about how to do that.

Sorry about this! I will update them all as soon as I am free! I think most of the time, since the car was never mine, I chickened out and paid the fine...

YOU PAID A SCAMMER ?? congrats, you have joined that special club called the gullible ?
Tip for the future.... it's normally Gladstones that chicken out ?

slick490

Hi all,

Updated defence statement below 

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 and driver of the vehicle in question and liability is denied.  

3.  Accordingly the defendant believes that:
3.1. there was an agreement made between the manager, acting on behalf of the claimant, and the Defendant which allowed any obligations (if any) to be waivered 

3.2 The Defendant had not been informed of the introduction of the obligations (if any) in advance, and as of when they would be enforced from
3.3. there was no obligation (at all) to display a permit

3.4 there was no clear signage to form a contract between the claimant and the defendant

Coupon-mad said:

Why not just tell the Judge what happened and what sort of car park it is, as the TEMPLATE DEFENCE thread tells you to do?

I'm not sure how to make this sound "legal" ? 

The pharmacy in which I work is located in a private residential area. 

I parked on a loading bay outside of my pharmacy. 

The loading bay had two yellow lines through the bay. 

The parking restrictions were waivered by the residential manager due to COVID.

The first parking ticket was issued and then the second before I found out that they reintroduced the slimy scheme.

They failed to inform me of the scheme.