Being taken to court for two PCNs from VCS for stopping at Liverpool Airport in 2018

Coupon-mad

It is terrible.  There was no basis in law to hold a keeper liable.

mcan541908

So sorry to hear the result.

Unbelievable that the system allows this 'judge bingo' to happen and these incorrect decisions to stand.  Can't anything be done about it without the cost of appealing?

I feel even more appreciative of the result I got now.

uptonbubbles

wow, harsh ruling and seems a bit unfair when you consider how many cases vcs have lost recently.

Minor question, did vcs sent you a WS for both cases? Like you, I have 2 claims made by vcs but they have only sent 1 ws

Doddle1

uptonbubbles said:

wow, harsh ruling and seems a bit unfair when you consider how many cases vcs have lost recently.

Minor question, did vcs sent you a WS for both cases? Like you, I have 2 claims made by vcs but they have only sent 1 ws

I had two PCN's 5 days apart and two cases - one yesterday and the other scheduled for September. As they were almost identical I asked in my WS whether they could be combined (in the hope that a decent judge would understand that airports have byelaws and that the RK can't be held liable under POFA grrrrrr)!!!!  Sorry, still feeling bitter about the dreadful judge!

Coupon-mad

Ok so they weren't combined.

You still have the case in September so learn from this, hope for a different Judge, don't refer to this claim AT ALL in your papers for the September one and include more stuff to educate a Judge what 'not relevant land' means.

That includes the DFT Guidance on section 56 POFA.  Google it. It says which land keeper liability applies to, and which land it doesn't.

Also VCS v Quayle and Excel v Lamoureux and Excel v Smith (appeal case) which are all available from the Parking Prankster's case law pages.

This parking charge had zero to do with byelaws.  It isn't a byelaws penalty and never was. It is a non-POFA parking charge and ONLY applicable in law against the driver.

KeithP

Coupon-mad said:

Ok so they weren't combined.

You still have the case in September...

From my reading of the OP's post on 14 June at 5:26PM it looks like both cases have been dealt with...

Doddle1 said:

He gave me the option to negotiate a settlement based on combining the two cases and given that he'd just told me how weak my case was I took it.   

Doddle1

KeithP said:

Coupon-mad said:

Ok so they weren't combined.

You still have the case in September...

From my reading of the OP's post on 14 June at 5:26PM it looks like both cases have been dealt with...

Doddle1 said:

He gave me the option to negotiate a settlement based on combining the two cases and given that he'd just told me how weak my case was I took it.   

Yes that's right - sorry I din't explain it very well. 

The judge agreed to combine the cases and left me and the VCS rep to negotiate a settlement for both cases with the judges heavy reminder that I had a very weak case and was liable as the RK under POFA because he didn't know about airport byelaws. I read him the extract from the WS which spelled out that the RK can't be liable but it fell on deaf ears as he'd already decided the outcome of the case based on his own experience or bias!

Coupon-mad

You could appeal this.

Doddle1

Coupon-mad said:

You could appeal this.

That's tempting! Would I have grounds as it was an agreed outcome of a negotiation rather than the judges decision. I did feel railroaded into negotiating as it was made clear that I was going to lose. The jusge made an order (not sure what type) that the fine of £317 has to be paid to VCS within 14 days. 

Also, I didn't receive the WS from VCS as it had been sent in error to an old email address. The Judge read out my current email address from the most recent paperwork and agreed that VCS should have sent it to the correct one. He said that I had a choice to spend 10 minutes looking at it and procede or have the case adjourned. At that stage I thought I had a very good case because I wasn't the driver and had statements from the passengers to say I wasn't in the car. I should have adjourned and hoped for a better judge next time.

Doddle1

I've had a look at the appeals process and it says: 

When you can appeal against the outcome of a case

You cannot appeal against the lower court’s decision just because you think the judge ‘got it wrong’. You can only appeal if you have proper legal grounds – for example, if you can show that the decision was wrong because of a serious mistake or because the procedure was not followed properly.

The Judge got it wrong in my opinion but I don't think that's enough for me to appeal. I'll just pay the fine and hope that karma visits VCS one day soon!

Thanks again everyone for your comments and help.