Napier Parking - BW Legal - x3 PCNs

ref2468

Long-time reader of this forum - first time poster.

Firstly, my many thanks to everyone who gives up so much of their time to advise and support others on this Forum. I have been reading up and following the advice in the Newbies thread an on other posts since first receiving a PCN from Napier Parking (now several) from October 2020 and all the guidance has proved invaluable. 

To date I have;

• Appealed to Napier Parking using the Newbies template
• Complained to my MP
• Ignored all follow up demands for payment
• Once passed to BWLegal, ignored everything until the 'Letter before claim' 
• Sent a Subject Access Request to Napier Parking
• Asked for BWLegal to put on hold for 30-days.

That 30-days is soon to be up so I am waiting for the next stage and currently researching to prepare for my defence. I will include more details about the specifics once I have written up but I just have these quick questions which I have been unable to find anything on the forum so far. 

1) I have received x3 tickets from Napier (all from within the space of 7-days). They came through the post retrospectively, so I was unaware of the first until they each came through. They all related to the same car park. I appealed to Napier for each incident separately as per each correspondence. Following this being passed to BWLegal, they have added on the £60 to each (so total of £160 for each). BWLegal have put two of the 'fines' together (consecutive days) as one correspondence, and the other from 7-days earlier separately (so basically I am dealing with two separate cases). My question is should it just be one communication? When it comes to the (likely) next stage will have to do two defences and thereby (potentially) two court cases?

2) Payment for parking was made via RingGo (payment over the phone). On the Subject Access Request, Napier replied "You have requested PDT machine records, this has not been enclosed with our response as the information we hold does not contain your personal data." They have provided 3 separate attachments for each PCN but only on one have they provided information showing all historic payments via RingGo. Does this matter they have only provided the proof of payment history data for of the PCNs?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Redx

1) you can tell B w legal to combine everything into one case and if multiple court cases are issued you will be asking the court and judge to consolidate multiple cases into one single case , one hearing , one set of costs only , plus asking the judge to strike out the double recovery costs , which are tantamount to abuse of process

2) ask for the proof of payment that are missing , if any , including any Ringo payments , mention that the missing documents or data will be brought up in any future court cases

Do this all in writing , no telephone calls

ref2468

Thank you. Should I go back to BWLegal and say this now - or wait for the notification of court action forms to arrive first?

Yes, everything to date has been in writing. On the email reply from BWLegal when asking for the case(s) to be put on hold they replied asking for the following;

"Please complete the following to enable us to discuss this –

BW Legal Reference:

Full Name:

First Line of Address:

Postcode:

Telephone Contact Number:

Vehicle Registration:

Vehicle Make or Model:

Parking Charge Number:

Street Name or Car Park:

Authorised Email address:

Confirmation you wish for us to correspond with you via this email address (Yes/No):"

I belive they already have all of this information? Should I reply to this?

Redx

I would tell them now , in writing , so it can be used as evidence in court of unreasonable behaviour and maybe a future counter claim ?

If they already have your details , it could be their generic reply that everyone else gets , but no harm in repeating yourself

Bear in mind they are all very bad at this , read nothing and make many mistakes , usually because unqualified para legals are doing the heavy lifting

Coupon-mad

You must respond now or you will get 2 separate claims!  You do not want that, you need to tell them to consolidate the cases.

ref2468

Thank you - I have now requested for these two claims to be consolidated. I will update this thread once it progresses to the next stage. 

Coupon-mad

And REALLY IMPORTANT PLEASE: 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78411172/#Comment_78411172

Please, please come back every week to check and make sure your voice - AND YOUR FRIENDS’ AND RELATIVES’ VOICES TOO -  is/are not missed from this final opportunity to take part in the Government Consultation, coming very soon!

ref2468

Following the advice above I emailed requesting for the cases to be consolidated.

BWLegal have replied:

"Please note that we are unable to compile 2 files into 1 account with ourselves.

We received the matters in 2 separate accounts from Our Client."

Would you recommend anything further at this stage?

Coupon-mad

Absolutely.



Dear Sirs, 

Your ref xxxxxxxx

Be advised that I am minded to report BW Legal to the Solicitors' Regulation Authority due to your recent reply, where you have refused to consolidate three (almost duplicate facts) parking charge matters and therefore seem intent on filing separate claims, at double the cost and twice the burden on the court, just because you have two files on the go. 

Am I understanding your position correctly?  

As a firm of solicitors, you must know that you are bound by the pre-action protocol and the overriding objective and unless you wish your conduct to be deemed unreasonable, you must advance your client's whole case in one single claim.  The relevant Protocol can be found here:

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/pdf/protocols/debt-pap.pdf  

There are three disputed charges from Napier (all from within the space of 7 days) where payments for parking were made.  These Notices came through the post retrospectively, so I was unaware of the first until they each came through. They all relate to the same car park and the facts are the same.

You will be aware that by detaching (or allowing to remain detached) elements of alleged debt - or series of alleged debts - and issuing separate claims, each which rely upon essentially duplicate particulars and facts, is an abuse of the civil litigation process.  The courts may estop a second claim where the cause of action is substantuially the same as another filed by the same claimant and should you or your client subsequently file more than one claim, I will apply for the second action to be struck out, with my full costs being borne by your client.

In Arnold v National Westminster Bank plc [1991] 3 All ER 41 the court noted that cause of action estoppel “…applies where a cause of action in a second action is identical to a cause of action in the first, the latter having been between the same parties or their privies and having involved the same subject matter.”

In Henderson -v- Henderson [1843] 67 ER 313 the court noted the following:

(i) when a matter becomes subject to litigation, the parties are required to advance their whole case;
(ii) the Court will not permit the same parties to re-open the same subject of litigation regarding matters which should have been advanced in the earlier litigation, but were not owing to negligence, inadvertence, or error;
(iii) this bar applies to all matters, both those on which the Court determined in the original litigation and those which would have been advanced if the party in question had exercised ''reasonable diligence''.

Your clients must take stock of their position and cease immediately and/or deal properly with the dispute as one claim. I require more information due to Napier's omissions which have failed to narrow the issues. 

The facts that I am aware of, are that payment for parking was made via RingGo (payment over the phone) and I am having to assume that there may have been a systems or keying error that failed to record the VRM properly, but Napier have failed to clarify their allegations or liaise with RingGo to resolve the issue. 

I will contact RingGo to check in case they registered my payments against a different car stored on the account or a wrong location code but would have expected Napier to be able to clarify that from the records from their phone payment partner.  Do Napier not know that payment was made and did they not receive all payments relating to that day from RingGo? 

Yours faithfully,  

D_P_Dance

Have you complained to your MP?

ref2468

Yes I did complain to my MP and recieved the following reply from their caseworker:

"Thank you for your email to *** MP regarding private parking companies. 

As a caseworker for MPs, I am very aware of the situation and when Sir Greg Knight MP introduced his Bill – the Parking (Code of Practice) Act – the number of cases and PCNs issued that the two *** MPs were alerted to did drop dramatically. I know that does not help you and I agree that these companies should be shut down as the private clampers were.

I also understand that these companies pay DVLA for the database."