Parking fine going to court - advice welcome

PaulBurrell

Any and all advice welcome - I believe my case to be fairly unique & strong. It’s also fairly lengthy which I will attempt to keep brief & to the point.

• October 31st 2016 I received a parking fine (PCN - private land). Having previously seeked permission from a ticket inspector to park my car in a position to delivery emergency stock to a restaurant I came back to find my car being issued with a ticket from two different inspectors.
• I waited until I received a letter to lodge my appeal. Letter arrived 7/2/2017. Appealed that day.
• 18/5/17 - letter received saying passed on to debt collectors, no acknowledgement of appeal.
• 31/10/17 - a legal team (company name purposefully being kept off here) stated they were taking up the case
• 7/12/17 - responded to my email by letter, stating my appeal wasn’t valid as it wasn’t within the timeframe. First letter to arrive with details on how to appeal was not the first letter. They later, upon request, sent a copy of a letter dated 23/12/16.
• 29/1/18 - queried why I am only just appealing the fine. I sent them evidence of sent emails stating my intent to appeal.

This is when the correspondents stopped with the company until early/mid 2021 where I received a letter threatening to take case to court unless I paid nearly £300. I ignored this letter as I thought it was a scam after not hearing from them for over 3 years (I had ended the last letter with “I consider this matter closed”).
Claim came through July 2021, forms filled & defence submitted.
Mediation recently completed but not resolved so now waiting on a court date.
 If you’re still with me… THANK YOU!

Advice on the following would be greatly appreciated.

1. Given my defence is that I was given to park temporarily by a member of their team, they claimed in the mediation that it’s for me to prove that, which I haven’t other than my word. Is this correct? Does “innocent until proven guilty” not apply ie - they have to prove it didn’t happen?
2. I have given them details of how to trace the person who told me (they were issuing a ticket when I spoke to him). I intend on requesting minor details from the company of parking tickets issued during that date & small timeframe I was there. Is this wise? I expect it to be rejected but wouldn’t this look bad, withholding evidence? Would this play into my hands?
   
3. They can not prove that the first letter was sent to me. Their argument is that “all the other letters got to you, no reason to see why the first didn’t so therefore your appeal was out of time”. They’re saying I can’t prove the conversation happened yet they can’t prove the letter was sent? Isn’t this applying a lack of evidence argument then defending your own actions with the same sort of argument?
4. The length of time it took for them take this to court, thus incurring greater charges? Is this standard? Could this be turned on them to look like an disorganised company, thus backing some of my other points?

Intend to ask them, along with the evidence request, for all the information they have on me, including emails received from me & sent internally under the Data Protection Act 2018 & all letters sent to me. Would anyone advise anything else to request.


Thank you in advance for any advice.

Umkomaas

Have you read the NEWBIES FAQ Announcement, second post, which takes you through the whole court process?  Lots of answers are there. 

Please tell us the name of the parking firm and solicitors as advice can often vary depending  who the protagonists are. No need for any MI5 stuff - it's a bog standard private parking ticket, not a murder.

PaulBurrell

Vehicle Control Services Limited & DCB Legal Ltd. 

I have read that, I’ll read it again to ensure I’ve not missed anything.

PaulBurrell

It’s not my name, I was overly cautious with naming the companies involved, I definitely wouldn’t use my real name on a public forum.

Le_Kirk

PaulBurrell said:

Any and all advice welcome - I believe my case to be fairly unique & strong. It’s also fairly lengthy which I will attempt to keep brief & to the point.

No, UNIQUE is an absolute term and cannot be slightly or any degree of uniqueness; besides there are no unique cases on here and, if you read the NEWBIE sticky you will see why and what to do.

Not_A_Hope

You may also have a defence that loading and unloading is not actually classed as parking. You can include this in your defence and quote the relevant court case that determined this.

PaulBurrell

Not_A_Hope said:

You may also have a defence that loading and unloading is not actually classed as parking. You can include this in your defence and quote the relevant court case that determined this.

Finally… a constructive comment. Thank you, I will bare this in mind.

PaulBurrell

Le_Kirk said:

PaulBurrell said:

Any and all advice welcome - I believe my case to be fairly unique & strong. It’s also fairly lengthy which I will attempt to keep brief & to the point.

No, UNIQUE is an absolute term and cannot be slightly or any degree of uniqueness; besides there are no unique cases on here and, if you read the NEWBIE sticky you will see why and what to do.

Thank you for the English lesson, wasn’t exactly what I intended to learn from the post but beggars can’t be choosers.

Fruitcake

It is not a fine.

I believe all the comments on this thread from the regulars who give up their time for free have been constructive.

What happened when you complained to the landowner and restaurant owner if different.

With regards to the comment about loading, have a look at the Jopson vs Homeguard (Laura Jopson vs Homeguard Services) case where the judge said, around para' 19 or 20, that loading or unloading is not parking.
The transcript is available on line.

PaulBurrell

Fruitcake said:

It is not a fine.

I believe all the comments on this thread from the regulars who give up their time for free have been constructive.

With regards to the comment about loading, have a look at the Jopson vs Homeguard (Laura Jopson vs Homeguard Services) case where the judge said, around para' 19 or 20, that loading or unloading is not parking.
The transcript is available on line.

Thank you, I will look this up.

Fruitcake

What happened when you complained to the landowner and restaurant owner if different.

It is never too late to get a landowner cancellation.