Defence Witness statement help required

Armhh

Thank you all for the responses and pointers.  Very much appreciated.  Wish I could properly demonstrate my gratitude to all of you anonymous forumites who tirelessly respond day and night to clueless people like me. :-)

I have put together my WS, which I need to submit now as the deadline is today.  May I just check, does it go to ccbcaq@justice.gov.uk as an email?  I am so tired right now and going cross-eyed with this final bit.

Coupon-mad

A WITNESS STAMENT? NO!!

The CCBC was the conduit to get the case sent out to your local court, they haven't been involved for months and were just an admin centre.

Armhh

Oh no!!!  So does that mean it can't be emailed??

KeithP

Look again at your Notice of Allocation. The Notice that gives the hearing date.

Is there not a paragraph something like:

Each party must deliver to every other party and to the court office copies of all documents on which he intends to rely at the hearing no later than [ . . . ] [14 days before the hearing].

Might be on the back.

If there isn't an email address there somewhere, then use www.gov.uk/find-court-tribunal to find the email address of your hearing court.

Coupon-mad

Of course you can email it.  But not to a Northampton admin centre that were only involved at the start. 

You know it's been allocated for ages to your local court.  The Order came from your local court.  You can easily find their email address.

Armhh

Oh my, what a flap I got myself into.  If, @Coupon-mad hadn't responded, I would have messed up.  I presumed that as all previous documentation had been sent to CCBC, that I just continue sending there.  The N157, Notice of Allocation doesn't have an email address on it and the instruction for correspondence court address is a microscopic footnote.  I thought that for this submission to appear in MCOL I had to send to CCBC.       I literally torpedoed to my nearest post office at 7.40pm and posted it with a rushed note attached to both BWL and the Court.  Obtained a proof of posting just as the post office was about to close.
I have now also found an email address thanks to @KeithP .  I just hope it's the right one, and have emailed it too, to cover all bases.
Thank you again folks.

KeithP

And you have sent a copy to the Claimant, haven't you?

Your Notice of Allocation did say "Each party must deliver to every other party and to the court office copies of all documents on which he intends to rely...".

'Every other party' means the only one other party in this case - the Claimant.

Armhh

KeithP said:

And you have sent a copy to the Claimant, haven't you?

Your Notice of Allocation did say "Each party must deliver to every other party and to the court office copies of all documents on which he intends to rely...".

'Every other party' means the only one other party in this case - the Claimant.

Yes, I posted a copy of the witness statement in separate envelopes, One to the court and the other to BWL.  The emailed copy I sent to the court only though.  Thank you for checking.  

Armhh

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

Hello all.  A huge thanks to all the contributors on here.  I attended my hearing in-person at Cardiff Civil Justice Court this morning and won my case.
I don't have any of the details in writing yet as I couldn't wait to get out of there fast enough, once the verdict was given, lol. The judge awarded me loss of earnings even though I hadn't asked for it!

I presented that:

• signs were illegible (and they clearly were dilapidated) - but the judge didn't accept that.  He did, however, accept that they were too high. 
• Regardless, he said that as I had been using the car park for a whole year, I had had plenty of opportunity to read the signs and make myself aware.
• I wasn't given enough time to go into the building to obtain a parking permit -  the judge accepted this only because he could see on the claimant's photos, a photo of my car without the PCN and then another photo after the attendant had placed the PCN, was a difference of one minute.  He accepted that one minute was an unreasonable amount of time to expect someone to obtain a parking permit from the office. He also rejected the argument the claimant made that I should have parked away from the car park (outside on the street) in the first instance, walked in, obtained the permit, walk out to the street, put the permit on my dashboard and then drive in to park in their carpark!
• the judge pointed out the fact that the premises the car park served were closing down permanently on the day of service of the ticket and that this would corroborate my assertion that the attendant was behaving in a predatory manner - using this last opportunity to gain money before the car park and premises closed permanently.

The judge didn't get as far as the argument about abuse of process and extra £60 charged. He dismissed on the grounds that I had not been given enough time to obtain a parking permit. 

Also, I was very pleased that the judge had thoroughly read both witness statements (mine and claimants) and made points that even I hadn't thought of!

Very happy with the outcome but would agree with other newbies, it has been hugely time consuming and you need stamina to persevere.  

Le_Kirk

Well done on your win!