Being taken to court by NCP & BW Legal

simmotech

I came to MSE and this forum very late so I may be too late to fully follow the recommendations.
I'll document here what I can and any help about how to proceed with a defence will be very gratefully received!

I received the County Court claim form a couple of days before I left my old house. I haven't moved to a new house yet and although I kept all documentation from NCP and BWLegal over the last year (offence date was 2nd August 2021), it is all inaccessible as it is packed in storage. I am in temporary accommodation living out of a suitcase and have my PC setup but I have no printing facilities. I have mail redirected from my old address but means any correspondence is a few days later.

The claim form date is 20 July 2022 making the date of service 25th July 2022.
The claim is for £174.08 being the £100 original PCN, £60 recovery costs ("...as set out in the Terms and Conditions and in the ATA AoS Code of Practise") and £14.08 interest.
There are court fees of £35 and £50 for Legal representative's costs so £259.08 in total.

I submitted an AoS on 26th July via Money Claim Online but that is as far as I have got. I believe that means I have until 23rd August to submit a defence.

I am reading the newbies thread and believe I need to use the template defence as far as possible with items 2 & 3 added by me (the idea being that the extra charges make it a penalty and therefore should be kicked out).
But some of the items seem unclear or written for a certain scenario and I'm not sure whether they should be included as-is or not.
As an example from point 1: "...and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name".
But this was an NCP car park so I assume they own it and so manager licences don't come into it, do they?

My reasons for not paying for parking in this case are not to with signs/placement/terms etc. (so do I remove terms in the template about that?)
It was simply that both machines in the car park were not working: I don't mean with Out of Order signs on them or a message on the screen saying "not working" but simply not powered on. After visiting both, noting that the car park was virtual empty with only 4/5 cars (this was when towns were ghost towns due to COVID), I very naively thought that NCP had done a nice thing and suspended parking to help visitors to the hospital across the road get their COVID jabs.
I stayed 40 mins (would have been a £1.80 fee) and left.
NCP dispute this and say they had people pay before during and after my visit though they wouldn't look at any CCTV (of me walking to both machines) nor confirm that the payments were from the 2 machines I had referred to.
It is them effectively calling me a liar that irks. I don't lie and certainly not to get out of paying a couple of quid.
I didn't appeal further than their own process and I responded to intimidation by bwLegal (calling and texting me trying to get personal details and to sign into their login site to pay) by saying I would only pay if a judge tells me I must and not just because they (NCP/bwlegal) say so.

I also have another tale when I visited there a couple of months later. This time I took a video on my phone which showed the first machine was, again, unpowered. The second machine was on and I completed all the details and made payment but got no ticket leaving me in limbo as to whether payment had actually gone through. Knowing more now about their alternative payment methods, I checked on their website when I got home and it showed no invoices. Still not trusting them, I then called them and was on hold for 45 minutes and left a message for a callback which I got 3 days later (I had checked each day and no invoice showed for my car). I then paid for the parking and also £1.80 extra for the previous time so I was straight with them financially. I got a receipt number which came in handy because a week later I got another PCN! They had to back down from that one because of the receipt number. This proves they and their machines and their ANPR technology is crap but can I include this anywhere on this defence?

Sorry this is so long!

KeithP

simmotech said:

The claim form date is 20 July 2022 making the date of service 25th July 2022.

I submitted an AoS on 26th July via Money Claim Online but that is as far as I have got. I believe that means I have until 23rd August to submit a defence.

 No that's not right.

With a Claim Issue Date of 20th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 22nd August 2022 to file your Defence.

That's less than 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'.

Le_Kirk

It is recommended that you use the entirety of the template defence adjusting only paragraphs 2 & 3 and taking nothing out.  If you need to add additional paragraphs make sure you number them and adjust the numbering of the other paragraphs accordingly.

Coupon-mad

I am reading the newbies thread and believe I need to use the template defence as far as possible with items 2 & 3 added by me (the idea being that the extra charges make it a penalty and therefore should be kicked out).

Absolutely NOT what to add!

The Template already clobbers the extra charge to death and the claim won't be struck out.

Do not change the template at all. Paragraph 1 is OK For all cases.

Your facts section is about who was driving, why you were there, what sort of car park it was and what happened/what went wrong.

AND IMPORTANT!

Same advice as here about the address:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79409295#Comment_79409295

It is VITAL that you hear back from both the CCBC and the solicitors that they have both rectified your service address to your new address, so you must chase that up a week after emailing your defence.  You can't risk it!

simmotech

Thanks for the date-check.

>>Absolutely NOT what to add!
Not sure what this means!
I was going the use the whole template and just change items 2 & 3.
When I said the bit in braces I was just summarising what I thought the template did. Am I wrong?

The thing about the address is I don't have a new address and won't have one (or at least a fixed one) for a few weeks.

I'll reread the newbies thread and start work on the defence tomorrow.
Is it too late to get a SAR from NCP?

patient_dream

simmotech said:

I'll reread the newbies thread and start work on the defence tomorrow.
Is it too late to get a SAR from NCP?

Never too late to send a SAR

You do realise that BWLegal are scamming you with a fake add-on of £60 with the pretence that the ATA CODE OF PRACTICE ... in this case the BPA allows it ???

THIS IS SIMPLY MORE RUBBISH FROM BWLEGAL.  This so called code of practice from an unregulated ATA that call themselves the BPA simply have no legal authority to scam the motorists.   The BPA approved this scam because they have a board member who is a debt collector called ZZPS

https://parkmaven.com/news/gary-osner-zzps-interview

Not long ago BWLegal added a "latest news" on their web site.OH BOY, did they knock this forum and the members calling us keyboard warriors
Why ?   because this forum zapped them and it will keep on zapping them

You have now received a real keyboard warrior letter from BWLegal who still think that the BPA code of practice has any clout ... it does not, it's a dream world and judges know that

What BWLegal are doing is a very feeble attempt to scam the courts

Coupon-mad

Ah OK! Your bit in brackets read as though that was what you planned to major on in your 'facts'.

The Template Defence fully covers that as you know, but DOESN'T try to get the claim struck out because of the added fakery (because that ship has sailed now, due to credulous Circuit Judges not getting the obvious abusive conduct).

Judges generally still disallow the extortion but won't strike a case out without a hearing any more.

simmotech

Going through the defence now and noticed a couple of small things but I thought I'd mention them if you wanted to tweak the original.
- In (1) - "The charge and the claim was an unexpected shock." - 'was' should be 'were' as it is plural (spotted by Word)
- In (4) - "The Claimant is urged not to patronise the Defendant with (ironically template) unfounded accusations" - 'template' should be 'templated' I think.

I also feel that a lot of the template is based around signage and terms etc. I appreciate this is absolutely applicable for the vast, vast majority of cases but not my particular case.
So would including (4) onwards as-is still help my case at least in getting rid of the £60 additional charge or would it play into the hands of bwlegal to let them claim 'cut-and-paste defence'? (Or worse - annoy the judge for having to read stuff that doesn't fit the case)

Le_Kirk

It is recommended to leave everything in the template defence, only editing paragraphs 2 & 3 to suit your particular circumstances and not removing anything.

Coupon-mad

Always always always attack the signage.  There is no case where the signs and wording of the contract does not feature. It's the first thing a Judge will look at, and there are always signs up.

simmotech

My defence. I tried to just include simple facts but it ended up as telling a long story

3. The defendant visited the NCP car park after leaving the Hemel Hempstead hospital and noticed that the Iceland food shop was open and the car park was virtually empty – only 4/5 cars present.

The defendant parked and attempted to pay at the nearest pay machine but it was not working (not physically powered on);

The defendant then walked across the car park to the other pay machine but found that that also was not working (not physically powered on);

The defendant then assumed that the pay machines had been switched off due to lack of town centre visitors and as a goodwill gesture to help visitors to Hemel Hospital getting COVID vaccinations. The defendant then shopped for 40 minutes and left the car park.

The defendant subsequently received a PCN but his appeal was rejected on the basis that "...several payments were made successfully via our payment machines before, during and after your parking period". Being unable to prove the machines were not working, the Claimant ignoring a request to check CCTV footage, the defendant said he would pay the original parking fee but not the PCN.

The defendant subsequently visited the car park, again for a hospital visit, but this time took video footage of his attempts to pay. It shows the first machine was again unpowered but the second machine was switched on. The defendant paid his current parking fee (plus an additional amount to cover the parking episode that is the subject of this case) but no ticket was issued.

Unsure as to whether the transaction had gone through, the defendant checked online as to whether there was an outstanding invoice for his car registration - there wasn't. Still not sure, the defendant telephoned but gave up after 45 minutes on hold leaving his number for a call-back which came three days later. The payment (including the additional amount) was made over the telephone and a receipt number obtained. The ANPR invoicing system still showed no invoice over these three days. 

A week later, the defendant received a PCN for non payment. This was subsequently withdrawn when the defendant was able to prove he had paid using the receipt number.

I wanted to add "which shows that NCP systems are unreliable and crap" but probably best not.

Any suggestions?
Would a judge give any leeway to a rambling defence to a lay person?