Bristol Airport, No Stopping, VCS Court Claim

Coupon-mad

And recent good examples are by @jrhys and @Nosy.  Loads of people here were not driving yet still write great WS and yes, you must expand on the points in your defence now, with evidence.

Le_Kirk

rapidon said:

We've got a hearing now in March so are at the witness statement etc. stage. I have looked at the example in the Newbies; however, I am wondering how a witness statement will work when the defendant is not the driver!? What was there to witness?

Should it be along the lines of:

I am the registered keeper...
I did not drive the car on the day of the alleged...
Having researched the site, it is clear that the signage would not be sufficient to form a contract in any case...
etc...

i.e. referring to having witnessed the site retrospectively to the PCN?

How much does the WS overlap with the defence? Is it purely about what was witnessed by the claimant, or do legal arguments - like the presence of byelaws on site - come into it?

A witness statement backs up and supports the defence by providing a narrative of what happened on the day and subsequently plus evidence.  If you were not driver, then your statement about having researched the site after receipt of PCN is perfect.  If you did not drive the car on the day of the alleged incident, that should be in your defence and the evidence to back it up is, for example, a statement from someone at work to say you were there, an appointment somewhere else, your Google time line from your phone etc.

rapidon

Thanks everyone. The Claimant's WS was received today. They reference various cases to say why POPLA does apply despite byelaws. I will post details of this later. 

Le_Kirk said:

If you did not drive the car on the day of the alleged incident, that should be in your defence and the evidence to back it up is, for example, a statement from someone at work to say you were there, an appointment somewhere else, your Google time line from your phone etc.

Registered keeper was in the car but not driving. Indeed, she was being dropped off to catch a flight in her own car, though the flight doesn't in itself prove that she wasn't driving at the time. So I am not sure how it could be proved that she wasn't driving without the driver writing a witness statement and thus revealing their identity.

Castle

rapidon said:

Thanks everyone. The Claimant's WS was received today. They reference various cases to say why POPLA does apply despite byelaws. I will post details of this later. 

Le_Kirk said:

If you did not drive the car on the day of the alleged incident, that should be in your defence and the evidence to back it up is, for example, a statement from someone at work to say you were there, an appointment somewhere else, your Google time line from your phone etc.

Given that's the name of the Independent Appeal Service for the BPA, I very much doubt it.

KeithP

rapidon said:

They reference various cases to say why POPLA does apply despite byelaws.

Or did they perhaps say why POFA applies?  

Le_Kirk

rapidon said:

Le_Kirk said:
If you did not drive the car on the day of the alleged incident, that should be in your defence and the evidence to back it up is, for example, a statement from someone at work to say you were there, an appointment somewhere else, your Google time line from your phone etc.

Registered keeper was in the car but not driving. Indeed, she was being dropped off to catch a flight in her own car, though the flight doesn't in itself prove that she wasn't driving at the time. So I am not sure how it could be proved that she wasn't driving without the driver writing a witness statement and thus revealing their identity.

Whose name is on the claim form?  From your recent posts it appears that you (the OP) is the defendant but according to this, the registered keeper is not you but someone different.  Haven't been back through the whole thread so there may be some explanation there.

Redx

Neither POPLA nor POFA apply , as mentioned above it's the IPC and IAS for ADR , not POPLA

Recently fruitcake won on ADR for a relative after submitting plenty of evidence etc , so have a read through their saga ( at the IAS , not in court )

rapidon

KeithP said:

rapidon said:

They reference various cases to say why POPLA does apply despite byelaws.

Or did they perhaps say why POFA applies?  

Yes, sorry PoFA!

I guess this means fruitcake's ADR stuff isn't relevant right now.

Le_Kirk said:

Whose name is on the claim form?  From your recent posts it appears that you (the OP) is the defendant but according to this, the registered keeper is not you but someone different.  Haven't been back through the whole thread so there may be some explanation there.

Keeper is my partner. I am just doing the bureaucracy on her behalf as she is not very forum-savy. This is earlier in the thread. 

rapidon

I have finally digitised the claimant's WS. If anyone has time to flick through and comment it would be much appreciated. I ran it through OCR so it's copy/paste-able for easy quotes. Please find it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uNDW8sBm2XlcQhp00RBGMeEMbx92s4Li/view?usp=sharing

They seem to complain that I did not send the defence directly to the claimant. Was I supposed to?

As previously stated, they also claim that it doesn't matter that byelaws were present, giving various cases as precedent. But they are not PoFA cases and given that PoFA is explicit regarding byelaws, I feel these points are weak.

They also provide images of the signs on site as shown here:
https://i.imgur.com/jmpslk2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/YT4U2oT.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iwUKN0r.jpg

So the signs say "No Stopping", but also "£100 charge if you stop". Not sure whether that holds up contractually. 

They also provide some images of the signs in-situ in daytime (incident was at night), a map of where the signs are, a map of where VCS operate, a virtually unredacted copy of their "Service Agreement" with Bristol Airport, and a copy of their data held, however I haven't uploaded these as they don't seem relevant to my defence. If anyone wants to see anything specific, just let me know.

Cheers!

Jenni_D

Defence (to an initial claim) is only ever to the CCBC ... and the CCBC then send it on to the Claimant('s legal company). So any complaint in that regard is frivolous and they should already know better. 🙄 If they haven't received a copy of it then that is for them to take up with the CCBC/Court. In fact they should have received it prior to the N180 DQ being issued, as they need to advice the CCBC that they plan to proceed before any DQ is issued.

BTW I'd take that down and redact any personal info such as the vehicle reg before posting back up. e.g. there is some redaction in point 5 but the reg is still showing.

Re. No stopping - that's what's known as a forbidding term therefore there cannot be any contract - one cannot contract to do that which is forbidden; ergo it can only be a penalty clause, and a private business has no authority to impose a penalty on a consumer.

Their contract with the landowner is ALWAYS relevant to a defence - look again at what your defence said.