Defence for CCBS

AveryTew1808

Hi All

First post here, so bear with me.

I've been served with a Claim Form from CCBS, i've completed the AOS so i've got a bit of time at present.

I was issued with a parking charge by UK Car Park Management for Parked in a Loading Area, No Loading Activity.

I'm a taxi driver and I was in the location to pick up a customer who had pre booked from the adjacent , only accessible by this road. There was snow laying on the ground as is  clearly visible in their photos, so visibility was poor anyway. The customer took longer than expected to come out, after the booking time but I was with the vehicle the whole time, waiting for a period of 8 minutes between the two photos they attached to the parking charge notice. 

I disputed, was rejected and now it has run to CCBS stage against UKCPM (and Gladstones) and time to submit a defence.

Below, is what I have formulated as a defence based upon what information I have garnered from this site. I'm sure it's not 100% and would therefore appreciate a better experienced member to advise me accordingly in fighting this erroneous charge. Thank you kindly.

Claim No.: 

Between

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LIMITED

(Claimant) 

- and -  

                   

 (Defendant)

_________________

DEFENCE

1. The parking charges referred to in this claim did not arise from any agreement of terms. The charge and the claim was an unexpected shock. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver was a breach of any prominent term 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. Liability is denied, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the Particulars.

The facts as known to the Defendant:

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

3. The defendant whilst working as a Hackney Carriage Driver, on , was dispatched to collect a customer, Dr.... of ..... for a .... booking to the ......Hospital. This building is located at the end of ......, off ........, ......and is the only entry/exit point to access ..........

The weather on this morning was particularly poor due to significant snowfall and visibility was very poor, which made it very difficult for any signage to be observed by the defendant whilst navigating treacherous road conditions to pick up the Doctor to take to work. The booking, as shown on the screenshot from the Cab Treasure computer taxi dispatch system used by the defendant, shows clearly the fare was booked for ....... This was the time the defendant was expected to collect the customer, however it is very normal and regular to arrive a few minutes early. For unknown reasons, the customer, Dr ........did not enter the defendants vehicle until ....., this is also fairly normal for customers to be several minutes late and completely beyond the control of the defendant. 

The defendant did not exit the vehicle for any reasons or purpose, as his sole intention was to complete the pick up and subsequent journey as directed by ......Taxis. The defendant's taxi was not parked, merely waiting to pick up the customer.

4. 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 unfounded accusations of not understanding their defence. 

5. With regard to template statements, the Defendant observes after researching other parking claims, that the Particulars of Claim ('POC') set out a cut-and-paste incoherent statement of case.  Prior to this - and in breach of the pre-action protocol for 'Debt' Claims - no copy of the contract (sign) accompanied any Letter of Claim.  The POC is sparse on facts about the allegation which makes it difficult to respond in depth at this time; however the claim is unfair, objectionable, generic and inflated.  

6.  This Claimant continues to pursue a hugely disproportionate fixed sum (routinely added per PCN) despite knowing that this is now banned. It is denied that the quantum sought is recoverable (authorities: two well-known ParkingEye cases where modern penalty law rationale was applied).  Attention is drawn to paras 98, 100, 193, 198 of ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67.  Also ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd ChD [2011] EWHC 4023(QB) where the parking charge was £75, discounted to £37.50 for prompt payment.  Whilst £75 was reasonable, HHJ Hegarty (sitting at the High Court; later ratified by the CoA) held in paras 419-428 that unspecified 'admin costs' inflating it to £135 'would appear to be penal'.

7. This finding is underpinned by the Government, who have now stated that attempts to gild the lily by adding 'debt recovery costs' were 'extorting money'.  The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities ('DLUHC') published in February 2022, a statutory Code of Practice, found here: 

8. Adding costs/damages/fees (however described) onto a parking charge is now banned. In a section called 'Escalation of costs' the incoming statutory Code of Practice says: "The parking operator must not levy additional costs over and above the level of a parking charge or parking tariff as originally issued." 

9. The Code's Ministerial Foreword is unequivocal about abusive existing cases such as the present claim: "Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists." 

10. The DLUHC consulted for over two years and considered evidence from a wide range of stakeholders.  Almost a fifth of all respondents to the 2021 Technical Consultation called for false fees to be scrapped altogether; this despite the parking industry flooding both public consultations, some even masquerading as consumers. The DLUHC saw through this and in a published Response, they identified that some respondents were 'parking firms posing as motorists'.  Genuine consumer replies pointed out that successful debt recovery does not trigger court proceedings and the debt recovery/robo-claim law firms operate on a 'no win, no fee' basis, seeking to inflate the sum of the parking charge, which in itself is already sufficiently enhanced.  

11. This Claimant has not incurred any additional costs (not even for reminder letters) because the (already high) parking charge more than covers what the Supreme Court in Beavis called an automated letter-chain business model that generates a healthy profit.

12. The driver did not agree to pay a parking charge, let alone unknown costs, which were not quantified in prominent text on signage. It comes too late when purported debt recovery fees are only quantified after the event. 

13. Whilst the new Code and Act is not retrospective, it was enacted due to the failure of the self-serving BPA & IPC Codes of Practice.  The Minister is indisputably talking about existing (not future) cases when declaring that 'recovery' fees were 'designed to extort money'.  A clear steer for the Courts.

14. This overrides mistakes made in the appeal cases that the parking industry try to rely upon (Britannia v Semark-Jullien, One Parking Solution v Wilshaw, Vehicle Control Services v Ward and Vehicle Control Services v Percy).  Far from being persuasive, regrettably these one-sided appeals were findings by Circuit Judges who appeared to be inexperienced in the nuances of private parking law and were led in one direction by Counsel for parking firms, and the litigant-in-person consumers lacked the wherewithal to appeal further.  In case this Claimant tries to rely upon those cases, the Defendant avers that significant errors were made.  Evidence was either overlooked (including inconspicuous signage in Wilshaw, where the Judge was also oblivious to the BPA Code of Practice, including rules for surveillance cameras and the DVLA KADOE requirement for landowner authority) or the Judge inexplicably sought out and quoted from the wrong Code altogether (Percy).  In Ward, a few seconds' emergency stop out of the control of the driver was unfairly aligned with the admitted contract in Beavis. Those learned Judges were not in possession of the same level of facts and evidence as the DLUHC, whose Code now clarifies all such matters.

Conclusion

15. The claim is entirely without merit and the Claimant is urged to discontinue now, to avoid incurring costs and wasting the court's time and that of the Defendant. 

16. With the DLUHC's ban on the false 'costs' there is ample evidence to support the view - long held by many District Judges - that these are knowingly exaggerated claims.  For HMCTS to only disallow those costs in the tiny percentage of cases that reach hearings whilst other claims to continue to flood the courts unabated, is to fail hundreds of thousands of consumers who suffer CCJs or pay inflated amounts, in fear of the intimidating pre-action demands. The Defendant believes that it is in the public interest that claims like this should be struck out because knowingly enhanced parking claims like this one cause consumer harm on a grand scale.

16. In the matter of costs, the Defendant asks:

(a) at the very least, for standard witness costs for attendance at Court, pursuant to CPR 27.14, and

(b) for a finding of unreasonable conduct by this Claimant, seeking costs pursuant to CPR 46.5. 

17.  Attention is drawn specifically to the (often-seen from this industry) possibility of an unreasonably late Notice of Discontinuance. Whilst CPR r.38.6 states that the Claimant is liable for the Defendant's costs after discontinuance (r.38.6(1)) this does not normally apply to claims allocated to the small claims track (r.38.6(3)). However, the White Book states (annotation 38.6.1): "Note that the normal rule as to costs does not apply if a claimant in a case allocated to the small claims track serves a notice of discontinuance although it might be contended that costs should be awarded if a party has behaved unreasonably (r.27.14(2)(dg))."   

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this defence are true.  I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

Defendant’s signature:

Date:

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

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.

Coupon-mad

It looks like you have removed a significant chunk from the template defence, which is normally 27-30 paragraphs long once a Defendant adds a few paragraphs (all of which need a number).

The Template isn't meant to be pruned. It is suitable for all cases 'as is'.

AveryTew1808

KeithP said:

Hello and welcome.

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.

A claim was issued against me on 09/08/2022

Your acknowledgment of service was submitted on 23/08/2022 

Your acknowledgment of service was received on 24/08/2022

AveryTew1808

Coupon-mad said:

It looks like you have removed a significant chunk from the template defence, which is normally 27-30 paragraphs long once a Defendant adds a few paragraphs (all of which need a number).

The Template isn't meant to be pruned. It is suitable for all cases 'as is'.

I will reinsert the missing paragraphs, thank you for the advice!

KeithP

AveryTew1808 said:

KeithP said:

Hello and welcome.

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.

A claim was issued against me on 09/08/2022

Your acknowledgment of service was submitted on 23/08/2022 

Your acknowledgment of service was received on 24/08/2022

With a Claim Issue Date of 9th August, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 12th September 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see 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'.

AveryTew1808

Unfortunately, I lost a bit of time due to illness, but I still have until Monday 12th to file my defence!

Please see my draft below before I intend to send to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk before the deadline.

Let me know if any alterations are required, thank you!

Claim No.:  ...........

Between

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LIMITED

(Claimant) 

- and -  

MR .........                       

 (Defendant)

_________________

DEFENCE

1. The parking charges referred to in this claim did not arise from any agreement of terms. The charge and the claim was an unexpected shock. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver was a breach of any prominent term 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. Liability is denied, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the Particulars.

The facts as known to the Defendant:

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

3. The defendant whilst working as a Hackney Carriage Driver, on ......., was dispatched to collect a customer, Dr.... of ..... for a .... booking to the ......Hospital. This building is located at the end of ......, off ........, ......and is the only entry/exit point to access ..........

The weather on this morning was particularly poor due to significant snowfall and visibility was very poor, which made it very difficult for any signage to be observed by the defendant whilst navigating treacherous road conditions to pick up the Doctor to take to work. The booking, as shown on the screenshot from the Cab Treasure computer taxi dispatch system used by the defendant, shows clearly the fare was booked for ....... This was the time the defendant was expected to collect the customer, however it is very normal and regular to arrive a few minutes early. For unknown reasons, the customer, Dr ........did not enter the defendants vehicle until ....., this is also fairly normal for customers to be several minutes late and completely beyond the control of the defendant. 

The defendant did not exit the vehicle for any reasons or purpose, as his sole intention was to complete the pick up and subsequent journey as directed by ......Taxis. The defendant's taxi was not parked, merely waiting to pick up the customer.

4. 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 unfounded accusations of not understanding their defence. 

5. With regard to template statements, the Defendant observes after researching other parking claims, that the Particulars of Claim ('POC') set out a cut-and-paste incoherent statement of case.  Prior to this - and in breach of the pre-action protocol for 'Debt' Claims - no copy of the contract (sign) accompanied any Letter of Claim.  The POC is sparse on facts about the allegation which makes it difficult to respond in depth at this time; however the claim is unfair, objectionable, generic and inflated.  

6.  This Claimant continues to pursue a hugely disproportionate fixed sum (routinely added per PCN) despite knowing that this is now banned. It is denied that the quantum sought is recoverable (authorities: two well-known ParkingEye cases where modern penalty law rationale was applied).  Attention is drawn to paras 98, 100, 193, 198 of ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67.  Also ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd ChD [2011] EWHC 4023(QB) where the parking charge was £75, discounted to £37.50 for prompt payment.  Whilst £75 was reasonable, HHJ Hegarty (sitting at the High Court; later ratified by the CoA) held in paras 419-428 that unspecified 'admin costs' inflating it to £135 'would appear to be penal'.

7. This finding is underpinned by the Government, who have now stated that attempts to gild the lily by adding 'debt recovery costs' were 'extorting money'.  The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities ('DLUHC') published in February 2022, a statutory Code of Practice, found here: .........

8. Adding costs/damages/fees (however described) onto a parking charge is now banned. In a section called 'Escalation of costs' the incoming statutory Code of Practice says: "The parking operator must not levy additional costs over and above the level of a parking charge or parking tariff as originally issued." 

9. The Code's Ministerial Foreword is unequivocal about abusive existing cases such as the present claim: "Private firms issue roughly 22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees designed to extort money from motorists." 

10. The DLUHC consulted for over two years and considered evidence from a wide range of stakeholders.  Almost a fifth of all respondents to the 2021 Technical Consultation called for false fees to be scrapped altogether; this despite the parking industry flooding both public consultations, some even masquerading as consumers. The DLUHC saw through this and in a published Response, they identified that some respondents were 'parking firms posing as motorists'.  Genuine consumer replies pointed out that successful debt recovery does not trigger court proceedings and the debt recovery/robo-claim law firms operate on a 'no win, no fee' basis, seeking to inflate the sum of the parking charge, which in itself is already sufficiently enhanced.  

11. This Claimant has not incurred any additional costs (not even for reminder letters) because the (already high) parking charge more than covers what the Supreme Court in Beavis called an automated letter-chain business model that generates a healthy profit.

12. The driver did not agree to pay a parking charge, let alone unknown costs, which were not quantified in prominent text on signage. It comes too late when purported debt recovery fees are only quantified after the event. 

13. Whilst the new Code and Act is not retrospective, it was enacted due to the failure of the self-serving BPA & IPC Codes of Practice.  The Minister is indisputably talking about existing (not future) cases when declaring that 'recovery' fees were 'designed to extort money'.  A clear steer for the Courts.

14. This overrides mistakes made in the appeal cases that the parking industry try to rely upon (Britannia v Semark-Jullien, One Parking Solution v Wilshaw, Vehicle Control Services v Ward and Vehicle Control Services v Percy).  Far from being persuasive, regrettably these one-sided appeals were findings by Circuit Judges who appeared to be inexperienced in the nuances of private parking law and were led in one direction by Counsel for parking firms, and the litigant-in-person consumers lacked the wherewithal to appeal further.  In case this Claimant tries to rely upon those cases, the Defendant avers that significant errors were made.  Evidence was either overlooked (including inconspicuous signage in Wilshaw, where the Judge was also oblivious to the BPA Code of Practice, including rules for surveillance cameras and the DVLA KADOE requirement for landowner authority) or the Judge inexplicably sought out and quoted from the wrong Code altogether (Percy).  In Ward, a few seconds' emergency stop out of the control of the driver was unfairly aligned with the admitted contract in Beavis. Those learned Judges were not in possession of the same level of facts and evidence as the DLUHC, whose Code now clarifies all such matters.

Conclusion

15. The claim is entirely without merit and the Claimant is urged to discontinue now, to avoid incurring costs and wasting the court's time and that of the Defendant. 

16. With the DLUHC's ban on the false 'costs' there is ample evidence to support the view - long held by many District Judges - that these are knowingly exaggerated claims.  For HMCTS to only disallow those costs in the tiny percentage of cases that reach hearings whilst other claims to continue to flood the courts unabated, is to fail hundreds of thousands of consumers who suffer CCJs or pay inflated amounts, in fear of the intimidating pre-action demands. The Defendant believes that it is in the public interest that claims like this should be struck out because knowingly enhanced parking claims like this one cause consumer harm on a grand scale.

16. In the matter of costs, the Defendant asks:

(a) at the very least, for standard witness costs for attendance at Court, pursuant to CPR 27.14, and

(b) for a finding of unreasonable conduct by this Claimant, seeking costs pursuant to CPR 46.5. 

17.  to 27.... 

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this defence are true.  I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

Defendant’s signature:

Date:

Coupon-mad

Every paragraph needs a number and we only need to check the parts you added (the template remains unaltered).

AveryTew1808

Coupon-mad said:

Every paragraph needs a number and we only need to check the parts you added (the template remains unaltered).

Does the whole section I write with my specific details of the case need to be one paragraph then or I do add numbers and then for the subsequent rest of the defence? 

AveryTew1808

This is the section I have added;

3. The defendant whilst working as a Hackney Carriage Driver, on ......., was dispatched to collect a customer, Dr.... of ..... for a .... booking to the ......Hospital. This building is located at the end of ......, off ........, ......and is the only entry/exit point to access ..........

The weather on this morning was particularly poor due to significant snowfall and visibility was very poor, which made it very difficult for any signage to be observed by the defendant whilst navigating treacherous road conditions to pick up the Doctor to take to work. The booking, as shown on the screenshot from the Cab Treasure computer taxi dispatch system used by the defendant, shows clearly the fare was booked for ....... This was the time the defendant was expected to collect the customer, however it is very normal and regular to arrive a few minutes early. For unknown reasons, the customer, Dr ........did not enter the defendants vehicle until ....., this is also fairly normal for customers to be several minutes late and completely beyond the control of the defendant. 

The defendant did not exit the vehicle for any reasons or purpose, as his sole intention was to complete the pick up and subsequent journey as directed by ......Taxis. The defendant's taxi was not parked, merely waiting to pick up the customer.

Not_A_Hope

You can split your para 3 into as many paragraphs as you like. Just renumber the rest of the paragraphs. Are there any road markings in the area you stopped that were covered with snow? If so might be worth adding.