Witness statement advice

Fruitcake

Court filing fee, £25, solicitors costs, £50, and court hearing fee, £25 are allowed.

Coupon-mad

It's almost there although I would break some of the longest paragraphs into two, for ease of reading.

Re the 'abuse of process' stuff, I'd cut a lot of it, given the new Code of Practice coming in, and replace it with the wording I wrote last week about the new Code of Practice having banned debt recovery add-ons and where I quoted the Ministerial Foreword.

You can find it by searching the forum for 'discussions' and filtering to 'newest'.  Your keywords could be 'parking Ministerial Foreword'

EDIT - found it in the thread by @brandsoda

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79013061/#Comment_79013061

Also do read the new Code and find the bit in the Appeals Annex where it says PCNs should be cancelled for broken down vehicles.  Add these words too:

Whilst the new Code is not retrospective in such rules, it repeats what is/was always 'best practice' in fairer parking appeals models and the fact that Highview refused to cancel or even give a POPLA code when they knew the car had broken down, is a sad indictment and exactly why the Government had to step in to protect consumers.  The competing Trade Bodies (their Boards dominated by roboclaim legal firms and debt chasers) had led to what many motoring groups, District Judges and national press described as a 'race to the bottom'. This included what appeared to be 'self-serving' and non-independent appeals services and inflated costs as motorists' data was passed around and people like me were told it was 'too late' for mitigating circumstances to even be considered.

Re this I would add as shown:


7.  Further attempts were made but I was unable to move the vehicle. I panicked and called my son-in law. He talked me through various issues that the car may have and we concluded that the battery was flat. He was working away and could not assist. I called my son who did not answer and then sought assistance from Tesco. The lady at customer service said they could give me the number for a recovery service. Having not been a member, I knew this would be a costly option.

8.  Surprisingly - with hindsight - the Tesco lady did not offer to put the vehicle on the Highview 'whitelist' for the day, which I only know now was an option that should have been offered. Highview slso failed to tell me that Tesco could do this and could have cancelled any PCN at the time.  No communication told me anything about how to exempt a broken down vehicle.  I believe my case falls under 'frustration of contract' and either Highview or their client should have exempted the car and cancelled the PCN, given that I alerted both.

{...new paragraph:}
9.  My son eventually returned my call and said he would need to source some jump leads....{etc.}

cathryn1988

I’ve just had their witness statement, can I add it here if I remove details? Thanks coupon, that’s so helpful. Their landowner contract is a third party company and signed by A manager. I’d need to alter a lot wrt that part? They’ve also used photos that show £85 fine but I don’t believe these were from 2017, I have no way of querying. They say their costs are due to dent recovery but she had no letters and they’ve not included an invoice or any letters to debt recovery services. 

Fruitcake

cathryn1988 said:

I’ve just had their witness statement, can I add it here if I remove details? Thanks coupon, that’s so helpful. Their landowner contract is a third party company and signed by A manager. I’d need to alter a lot wrt that part? They’ve also used photos that show £85 fine but I don’t believe these were from 2017, I have no way of querying. They say their costs are due to dent recovery but she had no letters and they’ve not included an invoice or any letters to debt recovery services. 

As I said this morning when I referred to the claimant's WS, 

"please upload it to Dropbox or similar and post the link here. Change https to hxxps if you need to.
Redact personal information, but leave anything already in the public domain."

Have you told us when and where the alleged event occurred? My apologies if I have missed it since I asked this morning.

Now you have the claimant's WS you will be able to see if a contract with or flowing from the landowner has been included, and whether or not it has been redacted, therefore you will know whether the redactions in disclosure point is relevant or not.
Note that redacting commercially sensitive information, such as how much a PPC will charge to cancel a PCN is acceptable. Redacting names, dates, and signatures is not.

cathryn1988

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9x6c5apecucdow7/Witness%20Statement%20and%20Evidence%20bundle%20%28pag%29.pdf?dl=0 

Yes, Jan 2017. I just downloaded it, hope that is right. 

Coupon-mad

They say their costs are due to debt recovery but she had no letters and they’ve not included an invoice or any letters to debt recovery services. 

Because they didn't pay any such costs. They are false (and did you notice that the 2017 PCN said the costs would be £40?!).  Not that they are true or recoverable!

I'd already advised you in the reply above your reply, that those damages are banned and how to word additions to your WS to tell the Judge this.

Now I've seen their useless WS and realised you were only 19 minutes over, I suggest adding another thing to the WS:

- the fact that the BPA Code of Practice in 2017 allowed a consideration period (unspecified and the BPA said that was because it could take one person 5 minutes and another person 10 mins or more) PLUS a mandatory grace period at the end of at least 10 minutes (a minimum based on circumstances.  Not a maximum).  Therefore there was no overstay based on the mandatory consideration and grace periods (10 mins would be reasonable for each, as it's a large site).

Add the BPA code of practice from Jan 2017 as an exhibit:

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS_Code_of_Practice_October_2015_update_V6..pdf

 (specifically, the pages with consideration and grace periods which is para 13).

To support this point, another Exhibit can be this official BPA News article from around the time of the 2017 parking event:

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/News/good-car-parking-practice-includes-grace-periods

What Kelvin Reynolds (Director of Corporate and Public Affairs) says about 'observation' periods is what the BPA used to call 'consideration periods' (same thing) and he confirms there that they are separate.  As does the Government's new February 2022 Code of Practice which confirms both are standalone additional moving traffic time allowances, either side of a parking period on private land and large sites need longer allowances.

cathryn1988

Thank you, yes I did see conflicting debt recovery costs. This is amazing, thank you.. 

cathryn1988

I have received notification of the bundle from the solicitor’s. My ‘defence’ is the first submission, the one that I attached before the questionnaire, not the full defence with exhibits. I called the court and they said the judge would have what I had sent in. 

Is this right? I feel that my full witness statement should have been in that pack? 

Coupon-mad

Yes - your WS and evidence MUST be in the bundle.  We assume you filed and served it in time?

Email and tell the solicitor this is NOT a proper agreed bundle and you require them to add your WS and exhibits in full, which were filed and served in time, and re-send the bundle to the court and yourself, without further omission or obfuscation.

Do not call it a 'defence with exhibits'.  It is your witness statement.  There is not an 'old' defence and a 'new/full' defence.  

cathryn1988

Thank you.