Help with Defence UKPC - fluttering ticket

obiwon

Hi all,

I have an upcoming court case with UKPC, I need help with my defence.

Details of my case:
- Acquired a valid parking ticket on the date, but the ticket was not visible 
- Received LOC, filed and received the SAR
- Received a Court Claim on 1st July and filed my AOS 11/07/2022 via Money Claim site

Here is my defence, please can you check if this is OK to submit:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question.

3. The Defendant denies liability for the entirety of the claim for the following reasons:

3.1 The Defendant acquired and displayed a ticket so all details could be seen. The ticket was made of very flimsy paper, and was, to the full knowledge of the Defendant at the time, in place the right way up when the car was locked and left parked. The Defendant has no knowledge of the point at which the ticket moved out of sight or why, but made all reasonable endeavours, and complied by conduct.

3.2 The Defendant cannot be responsible for the possibility that:
a) A gust of wind may have later moved the flimsy paper from sight, despite the windows & doors being locked.
b) The employee of the Claimant may have caused the ticket to move from sight, perhaps accidentally when leaning across the car or pushing between vehicles. No suggestion of foul play is intended.
c) A passer-by may have leaned on the car, when squeezing between the small bays to get to their own vehicle.

3.3 None of the above scenarios are within a driver's control (the Defendant was by that time, absent from the location) and it is evident that someone else – or a factor outside anyone's control – was to blame. This appears to have been a case of casus fortuitus "chance occurrence, unavoidable accident", which is a doctrine that essentially frees both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties renders the contract frustrated.

3.4 Notwithstanding the above, the flimsiness of the ticket certainly played its part, and that is within the control of the Claimant, who must be well aware of the problem, which has become known as ''fluttering tickets''. Because they profit from drivers' misfortune caused by their own tickets' inability to withstand British weather, it is averred that this Claimant wilfully failed to address this issue (e.g. by adding sticky backing to the ticket, allowing it to be fixed in place). Several similar court cases have been previously dismissed on the basis that it is deemed by the judge to be the responsibility of the parking company to provide sticky backed tickets (e.g. C8GF30W7 Link Parking v Mr H. 14/11/2016 Port Talbot)

3.5 The Court is invited to consider the fairness of the position in this case, giving due consideration to the flimsiness of the piece of paper provided, which appears to cause significant imbalance in the rights of a consumer, to their detriment, and the Defendant relies on Section 62 of the Consumer Rights Act.

3.6 The parking site signs, from a reasonable distance, indicate clearly to the reader that the first two hours of parking are free, whereas the rest of the writing displayed is ineligible to read due to their smaller font, with no clear visible mention of in what manner the ticket should be displayed in the vehicle. Therefore, the Claimant had failed in its duty to give clear guidance to the Defendant to conform to its rules that the Claimant is accusing the Defendant of breaching.

3.7 The parking ticket was acquired by from a machine at the parking site, however withstanding the need for a ticket to be displayed, the Claimant already had the required knowledge that the Defendant did not overstay the allocated first two hours of free parking, the Parking Charge states the TIME FIRST SEEN to be 12:08PM whereas the issue time for the Parking Charge was given at 12:30PM on the same day. Therefore, the Claimant had a full record of the vehicle seen in the parking site with the aforementioned time, without the need for a ticket being visible. 

3.8 Since the time of this alleged breach, and from at least August of 2020, the same parking site no longer requires a valid ticket to be displayed in any manner, and has since implemented a more efficient system without the need to display a flimsy ticket with the installation of an automated electronic system. This action has been influenced partly by a petition 5 years ago of 1,425 signatories who called for the owners of the Aylesbury parking site to “end their relationship with UKPC and install an automatic camera system similar to that used by Morrisons and pets at home. People working on the site would be able to register their vehicles with the system and everyone else using the car park would automatically get 2 hours free parking without having to try and find a working machine.  At the very least UKPC should install more machines to make them more easily accessible and introduce a regular maintenance program.” The petition against the Claimant also mentions the “total disregard for it's customers by UKPC is an embarrassment to the town”. The petition serves as evidence of the Claimants poor reputation in its management and dealings of the parking site to which it is no longer contracted for.

KeithP

obiwon said:

- Received a Court Claim on 1st July and filed my AOS 11/07/2022 via Money Claim site

Hello and welcome.

With a Claim Issue Date of 1st July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 3rd August 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over a week away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave 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'.

obiwon

KeithP said:

obiwon said:

- Received a Court Claim on 1st July and filed my AOS 11/07/2022 via Money Claim site

Hello and welcome.

With a Claim Issue Date of 1st July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 3rd August 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over a week away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave 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'.

Thanks Keith, I’ve also wrote an email to the owners of the parking site (I know it’s late to do that but thought I’d give it a try).

Is the defence I put up so far ok?

Coupon-mad

I like your defence, very good (plus the whole template defence to the end, of course, in case a new poster thinks the above is 'it'!).

Fruitcake

I suggest you add the comments made by the judge in the case below, taken from the Parking Prankster's blog. It's a few years old, but still valid because parking companies have had years to sort out the problems with their tickets but have failed to do so, either due to incompetence, or deliberately in order to generate more income.
Their actions, or lack thereof have resulted in unnecessary court claims, resulting in a waste of the courts' time, and is unreasonable behaviour in my opinion.

Case number C8GF30W7, Link Parking v Mr H.  14/11/2016 Port Talbot 

Parking Prankster: Search results for sticky (parking-prankster.blogspot.com)

obiwon

Thanks guys. I have some good news...

I received a reply from the owners of the car park, and they mentioned they no longer contract the parking site to UKPC as of 2019, and have agreed to help me in contacting UKPC in cancelling the charge.

I will nevertheless send my defence just in case.