UKPC unauthorised parking country court claim defence

kgirl123

Hi there,

Firstly this forum is a lifesaver to fight back against these notorious parking firms and I'm very grateful to be able to turn here for advice yet again. I have previously successfully won a case against another parking firm in 2018 with the help of the forum moderators, especially Bargepole.

Now for the new claim.. I have a county court claim from UKPC for a charge dated back in July 2017. The vehicle was parked in a gated car park at the back of a restaurant while attending a children's birthday party and having double checked with the venue manager it's ok to park there. The car park has no signage on entry (looking at Google Maps from 2018) and only a couple of signs inside the car park but not above the space where the car was parked. This is visible in the photos provided by them from a SAR request. The signage states 'no unauthorised parking'. 

Having visited the car park last week, UKPC no longer operate there. There is a new sign (presumably by the landowner as it's a standard private property type sign) stating 'private car park / gates will be locked at all times / vehicles left at owners risk'.

I have completed the AOS and started my defence. Please could I ask someone to check my facts below and suggest any revisions?
I have some photos from the birthday party in question which I could screenshot to include with the date shown - not sure if this has any relevance or substance here.

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied.

3. On the day of 1 July 2017, the vehicle was parked at the back of Pizza Express with the verbal permission from the venue manager to do so due to having a birthday cake to bring into the party.

3.2 The car park did not have any signage on entry, and the sign within the car park stated ‘no unauthorised parking’. However, the defendant believes the vehicle was adequately authorised by the venue manager, and was parked in a bay adjacent to where the sign was.

3.3 The sign was illegible and did not visibly state a £100 charge would apply, in fact the lettering of the fines was written in very small font size, both in contradiction to Section 18, sub-section 3 of the BPA Code of Practice, whereby it states that all text written ‘must be conspicuous and legible’ and ‘easy to see, read and understand’. The defendant invites the claimant to present evidence that this was otherwise the case.

4. The ‘notice’ attached to the vehicle was reported to the venue manager who assured the party it would be resolved immediately. No further action was taken.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you

KeithP

kgirl123 said:

I have a county court claim from UKPC...

I have completed the AOS...

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

kgirl123

Issue date - 26 May 2022
AOS - 9 June 2022

KeithP

kgirl123 said:

Issue date - 26 May 2022
AOS - 9 June 2022

With a Claim Issue Date of 26th May, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 28th June 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see that you are not leaving it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

kgirl123

Thank you Keith, that's really useful to have written down. Below is the start I have made on my defence - any advice would be much appreciated

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied.

3. On the day of 1 July 2017, the vehicle was parked at the back of Pizza Express with the verbal permission from the venue manager to do so due to having a birthday cake to bring into the party.

3.2 The car park did not have any signage on entry, and the sign within the car park stated ‘no unauthorised parking’. However, the defendant believes the vehicle was adequately authorised by the venue manager, and was parked in a bay adjacent to where the sign was.

3.3 The sign was illegible and did not visibly state a £100 charge would apply, in fact the lettering of the fines was written in very small font size, both in contradiction to Section 18, sub-section 3 of the BPA Code of Practice, whereby it states that all text written ‘must be conspicuous and legible’ and ‘easy to see, read and understand’. The defendant invites the claimant to present evidence that this was otherwise the case.

4. The ‘notice’ attached to the vehicle was reported to the venue manager who assured the party it would be resolved immediately. No further action was taken.

The rest of paras kept as per the template

fisherjim

Be wary of UKPC they will produce office copies of their signage to try to bamboozle the judge you must discredit this, did you get actual photo evidence at the time?

Why didn't you follow up with the restaurant manager is he still there to provide a witness statement?

kgirl123

fisherjim said:

Be wary of UKPC they will produce office copies of their signage to try to bamboozle the judge you must discredit this, did you get actual photo evidence at the time?

Why didn't you follow up with the restaurant manager is he still there to provide a witness statement?

I didn't take any photos at the time unfortunately as I didn't know I would need them, the photos from the SAR only show the sign within the car park, not on entrance (which i'm fairly certain there wasn't any). 

No the manager isn't there anymore, I reached out to Pizza Express but they were no help as it was such a long time ago

Coupon-mad

Defence looks fine. Says it how it is.

1505grandad

As you state you are the driver in the paras you should add "and driver" after "registered keeper" in para 2  -  presumably you deny liability as driver as well as RK?
Although if using the latest D template liability will be covered in para 1

kgirl123

Thanks all, I have been doing some further research and reading more recent threads, and just adjusted the defence as below. I have also been in touch with the venue and have been instructed to reach out to their legal department to request information on why UKPC no longer operates there (for at least 3 years now) and when exactly their tenure ceased - hopefully I hear back from them before Tuesday to include in the defence, but for now..

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied. It is further denied that the Defendant was the driver of the vehicle.

3. On the day of 1 July 2017, the vehicle was parked in the car park at the back of the Pizza Express facility with permission from the venue manager to do so due to having a birthday cake to bring into the facility for a child’s party.

3.1 Due to the length of time, the Defendant has only a vague recollection of the day in question, and as the Defendant was not the only insured driver of the vehicle, the identity of the driver at the material time is unknown to the Defendant. It would not be reasonable to expect a registered keeper to be able to recall the potential driver(s) of the car 5 years later, nor to expect the staff within the facility to remain unchanged and/or recall this event to provide clarity on authorisation.

3.2 In any case, there is no such obligation in law and this was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by parking expert barrister and Lead Adjudicator, Henry Greenslade, who also clarified the fact that registered keeper can only be held liable under the POFA Schedule 4 and not by presumption or any other legal argument.

4. The Defendant was issued with a Claim Form by DCB Legal Limited acting on behalf of UK Parking Control Limited for a total amount of £314.56 (inclusive of £35 Court Fee & £50 Legal representative’s costs) to an £60 Parking Charge Notice (‘PCN’).

4.1 The allegation appears to be that the ‘vehicle was not authorised to use the car park’ but there is no evidence of ‘No Authorisation’ or not being a patron at the facility. The car park does not have any signage on entry, and the sparse signs within the car park do not clearly state what was required to be ‘authorised’. The defendant believes the vehicle was adequately authorised to park there by the venue manager, and was parked in a bay which had no signage attached to it.

4.2 The signage in the car park is illegible and did not visibly state that a charge would apply or how much this charge would be, in fact the lettering of these fines was written in very small font size, both in contradiction to Section 18, sub-section 3 of the BPA Code of Practice, whereby it states that all text written ‘must be conspicuous and legible’ and ‘easy to see, read and understand’. The defendant invites the claimant to present evidence that this was otherwise the case.

5. In the Particulars of Claim ('POC') it is stated that the Defendant is liable as the driver or keeper but the Claimant has failed to provide any evidence that Defendant was also the driver. The Defendant cannot be held liable for the charges as the keeper of the vehicle. 

5.1 The Claimant has included a clear falsehood in their POC which were signed under a statement of truth by the Claimant's legal representative who should know (as the Claimant undoubtedly does) that it is untrue to state that the Defendant is 'liable as keeper'.  Not only does the POC include this misleading untruth, but the Claimant has also added an unidentified sum in false 'damages' to enhance the claims.  So sparse is their statement of case, that the Claimant has failed to even state any facts about the alleged breach or the amount of the parking charge that was on the signage, because it cannot have been over £100. Which then leads to the question, how does the Claimant arrive at the Amount Claimed for a Total of £229.56. The Defendant has excluded the £35 Court Fee & £50 Legal representative's costs from the Total amount for the purposes of this defence point.

5.2. The Parking and Traffic Appeals Service (PATAS) and Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) Lead Adjudicator and barrister, Henry Michael Greenslade, clarified that with regards to keeper liability, “There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver and the operators should never suggest anything of the sort” (POPLA report 2015). 

6. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  To pre-empt the usual template responses from this serial litigator: the court process is outside of the Defendant's life experience and they cannot be criticised for adapting some pre-written wording from a reliable advice resource. The Claimant is urged not to patronise the Defendant with (ironically template) unfounded accusations of not understanding their defence. 

Umkomaas

It is further denied that the Defendant was the driver of the vehicle.

Are you saying that you were definitely not the driver of the vehicle on the day?  It's not the impression I've gained in reading your thread. 

You will be making every point in your Defence under a signed Statement of Truth, with potential contempt of court consequences if any are found to be deliberately untrue.