Civil Enforcement ltd Court claim

Mini2274

Hello,
I am new to this so excuse me if I have posted in the wrong thread ect!

Received a county court claim last week from CEL have done a lot of research and have read all the newbie threads.

The parking fine is from 2019 when parking in a shop car park you put VRM into the till and you get the permit. I did all of this correctly when I first received the fine I thought it was an error used the car park a lot, I threw it away didn't hear from them for a while. 

This year I received a couple of letters which they have sent the Beavis vs parking eye letter in order to try and scare me. Also have increased the fine to £186 but have not broken down any of the price increases( the first fine was £100). I have ignored all these letters because I was advised if I appeal I would be admitting liability and CEL tend to turn down any appeals. The court claim with their added legal costs is £270 now. The issue date is 23/4/21, i have already completed acknowledgment of service. 

I have used the 2020 updated template of defence and started working on it.

If anyone has any advice it would be really appreciated.  

D_P_Dance

Also have increased the fine to £186 

It is not a fine, read this

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

Redx

Login to MCOL and check the claim history and post it below , in case you did the AOS too early

Email a SAR to the DPO at CEL attaching a copy of the claim form as proof of I D under the GDPR law to obtain all your data

You should have appealed the original PCN at the time , do not make that mistake in future

Coupon-mad

I wrote some wording for someone to add to the template defence a few weeks back, that talks about the fact that when entering a VRM on a keypad, the Claimant is at fault for not providing an email receipt by way of a durable medium, as required by Consumer law for distance contracts.  This is a distance contract using data on a tablet and the law says there must be a receipt (otherwise people get trapped like you have, if the system didn't work, you could never have known).

Search the forum for durable medium as the unusual keywords but the search function is crap these days.

Mini2274

A claim was issued against you on 23/04/2021

Your acknowledgment of service was submitted on 26/04/2021 at 20:53:18

Your acknowledgment of service was received on 27/04/2021 at 08:08:18

Yes I have emailed a SAR request to CEL yesterday. 

Yeah i wish I did appeal it at the time but didn't know what to do at all but I will know for the future.

Thank you for that, that will definitely come in handy.

Coupon-mad

Hopefully you can find it - and your defence must go in on time so show us your draft.

Mini2274

Thank you I will have a look for that now that could be very useful!

At the time I was working so I took my service user to the shops, he did his shopping so therefore had any receipt but I will keep all of this for my witness statement. I no longer work for the company but I will get some evidence proving that I was on shift that day and I'm sure the judge will appreciate all of this. From what I've heard CEL don't usually show up to court.

I plan to write to my MP about CEL as their precise is just completely unethical. These parking companies are a joke. Doing some reading about CEL they tend to shut down any appeal and I was advised that I should not take any liability.

Mini2274

Struggle to find the thread I don't suppose you could put the link in? 

Mini2274

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6163488/pcn-issued-but-reg-no-was-entered-in-machine-in-store-newhall-walk-car-park-sutton-coldfield/p3 

Is this the right one? 

Coupon-mad

Far too old.  Sorry we can't find it any quicker than you can, we all use the same broken search facility (used to be so much better and now it shows old results, in no order).

Mini2274

I did go back into the store last year (pre covid) to make a complaint but this is an independent shop and they said they couldn't do anything because it is CEL who owns the car park so they were no help at all.