MET Parking Stansted Mcdonalds

TRIO74

AOS Completed. Will work on the defence over the next couple of days and get it ready before sending over the first 6 paragraphs for feedback.

 

TRIO74

Hi All 

Please see below my first draft of the defence.

Between 4 and 5 are the Chan pages, which i have not attached on this draft as they are the same
as other's.

The reason i used HHGGG, is due to the fact that it is the same location (Stansted Mcdonalds) and i thought
this more relevant.

Please let me know your thoughts on this and i hope you all had a nice Xmas.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

Claim No.:  XXXXXXX

Between

MET Parking Services Ltd

(Claimant) 

- and -  

Mr XXXXXXXX

 (Defendant)

_________________

DEFENCE 

1.  The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver was in breach of any term.  Further, it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as agents) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name. Liability is denied, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the boilerplate text in the Particulars of Claim ('the POC').

2. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  Conversely. the Defendant observes after researching other parking claims with the same POC that this claim sets out a cut-and-paste incoherent statement of case.  The POC is sparse on facts and specific breach allegation, making it very difficult to respond. However, it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle.

Preliminary matter: The claim should be struck out

3. The Defendant draws to the attention of the allocating Judge that there is now a persuasive Appeal judgment to support striking out the claim (in these exact circumstances of typically poorly pleaded private parking claims, and the extant PoC seen here are far worse than the one seen on Appeal).  The Defendant believes that dismissing this meritless claim is the correct course, with the Overriding Objective in mind.  Bulk litigators (legal firms) should know better than to make little or no attempt to comply with the Practice Direction.  By continuing to plead cases with generic auto-fill unspecific wording, private parking firms should not be surprised when courts strike out their claims based in the following persuasive authority.

4. A recent persuasive appeal judgment in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) would indicate the POC fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and Practice Direction Part 16. On the 15th August 2023, in the cited case, HHJ Murch held that 'the particulars of the claim as filed and served did not set out the conduct which amounted to the breach in reliance upon which the claimant would be able to bring a claim for breach of contract'. The same is true in this case and in view of the Chan judgment, the Court should strike out the claim, using its powers pursuant to CPR 3.4

The facts known to the Defendant:

5. The Defendant vaguely remembers the day in question and the hazy recollection is that the car was at all material times properly parked and authorised and who were genuine patrons of McDonalds and/or Starbucks. The Defendant cannot tell from the POC whether the allegation they have to answer is an alleged overstay, or something else.  Any contractual breach is denied. The site is notorious for spurious PCNs for 'parking on the wrong side' and this scam has even featured on national television and national press.

 

6. This site is also Airport land, which is not 'relevant land' as it is already covered by statutory bylaws and so is specifically excluded from 'keeper liability' under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. As the registered keeper, the Defendant is not legally liable as this Act does not apply on this land. This Claimant cannot invoke 'keeper liability' and have simply aimed a speculative claim at a registered keeper which is wholly unreasonable conduct in a case where they know they cannot rely upon the provisions of the POFA. 

KeithP

I would leave out the final sentence of your paragraph 5. It is perhaps getting a bit close to showing that you know what the claim is about, but in the same paragraph you are claiming that you don't know what the claim is about.

TRIO74

Hi KeithP

Many thanks for the feedback.

Is it all good to go after removing this final sentence as per below?

The facts known to the Defendant:

5. The Defendant vaguely remembers the day in question and the hazy recollection is that the car was at all material times properly parked and authorised and who were genuine patrons of McDonalds and/or Starbucks. The Defendant cannot tell from the POC whether the allegation they have to answer is an alleged overstay, or something else.  Any contractual breach is denied. 

Coupon-mad

Yes that's fine.

Le_Kirk

TRIO74 said:

The facts known to the Defendant:

5. The Defendant vaguely remembers the day in question and the hazy recollection is that the car was at all material times properly parked and authorised and who were genuine patrons of McDonalds and/or Starbucks. The Defendant cannot tell from the POC whether the allegation they have to answer is an alleged overstay, or something else.  Any contractual breach is denied. 

This sentence does not make sense.  Maybe remove "who" and add "the occupants of the car were genuine..........."

troublemaker22

Sorry if I’ve missed it but I can’t see a copy of the actual PCN in this thread. OP, can you please post copies of the front and back of the PCN redacting your name, address, vehicle number and reference but leaving all dates showing. 

The reason I’m asking for this is that there may be more POFA fails than just the airport land point and, if so, they should be pleaded just in case it turns out that the car park is not actually within the airport perimeter. 

Umkomaas

If it is located on airport (non-relevant) land, and MET have issued a PoFA NtK, then that's complaint time to the DVLA and BPA. 

TRIO74

Hi All

Defence filed and received this email, which i assume is their confirmation?

Thank you for your email which may be in relation to delays you have experienced with our service. I am sorry to hear you are unhappy with the service provided by us. We understand the delays that you are currently experiencing can be frustrating and fall short of the standards you rightly expect of us. As a public service, we record all complaints and regularly review points that are raised to improve our service.

 

This service is currently undergoing a significant transition as we take on new work and expand to meet the growing needs of our customers. This means we have a large backlog of work to clear.

 

The service is focusing on reducing the volume of work in priority order and to do this we are currently prioritising resources to tackle case progression work as opposed to dealing with chase up correspondence, so we ask for your continued patience and trust that your case will be dealt with in due course.  We are aiming to recover our position by the end of the September.

 

The service has also recently introduced new procedures to make sure work is being processed as soon as possible. Please be assured that this is a result of feedback received from our customers, as we are actively looking to improve the service being offered. These procedures have seen a reduction in processing time already and further improvements are expected in the coming weeks. If you would like to track our performance please click on the link below which will take you to our latest available information.

 

The Business Centre Performance update is published weekly

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Thank you for emailing the County Court Business Centre, please accept this as a receipt of your email.  Where a response is required we will endeavour to respond to your email within 10 working days (please do not re-send duplicate messages)

 If you’ve submitted a complaint, please note that the Court will aim to reply within 10 working days. (please do not duplicate complaints)

You should not come to any of our court and tribunal buildings if:

• you have coronavirus symptoms
• you have tested positive for COVID-19 or are waiting for a test result
• you have been instructed by the NHS to self-isolate

If we’re expecting you, let us know as soon as possible if you’re not coming to the court or tribunal.

 

If you should have any queries please forward to CCBC@JUSTICE.GOV.UK

 

The County Court Business Centre is a separate entity to Northampton Combined Court and therefore only deal with CCBC and Traffic Enforcement queries.   We do not deal with Family, Probate or Bankruptcy matters.

Coupon-mad

No need to assume nor ask on individual threads, given it's on others already:

last week:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80503017#Comment_80503017

Week before:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80492398/#Comment_80492398

Week before that:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80479978/#Comment_80479978

A screenshot of it is here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80468394/#Comment_80468394

That last thread suggests that parking scam victims should please urgently do the Justice Committee Inquiry before it closes.

The Inquiry closes in mid January. They extended the deadline:
https://committees.parliament.uk/work/7972/work-of-the-county-court/

Please can you find time to help us push the Government to end these cases even going to court?

Answer some questions in that Inquiry (whichever you wish) and object to being treated as a DEBTOR (the pre-action protocol forms asking for your savings/income data are appallingly unsuitable for parking cases)

... and tell the Committee how horrified you are that the MoJ actually says in this 'auto-receipt' (show them a screenshot) that they plan to EXPAND TO MEET THE NEEDS of what in over quarter (maybe a third) of small claims, is an "outrageous scam" being run against consumers because some half a million parking claims are being filed every year, often to old addresses and causing CCJs, others to the right address but woefully pleaded and with no intention to get to a hearing, instead to frighten and intimidate people into paying extortionately inflated claims.

As MPs said back in 2018:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-02-02/debates/CC84AF5E-AC6E-4E14-81B1-066E6A892807/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill

There is a longstanding all-party unanimous Parliamentary promise to end this scam, not expand to accommodate it.