Advice needed - Car Park machine that didn't produce ticket - Court hearing stage

bomaya

Thanks all. AOS filed through the MCOL site. 

Coupon-mad

When you make a few more posts showing us your draft defence added paragraphs (not the whole Template pleeease!), your forum status will change to Forumite.

Then you will be able to edit posts and please can you change your thread title then, asap?  You cannot edit just yet.

bomaya

Hi all,

Here is my paragraph of defence. Please advise of any changes I need to make to content, length or anything else. I have just over a week to get this in.

The Defendant used the Car Park in question as an honest patron and used a parking machine to pay for a set period of time. The machine asked for the registration number and an amount of money (relating to set hours). The Defendant inputted these details and then when requested presented his debit card to the card reader which beeped – usually a sign of payment. The Defendant recalls that it was very dark in the car park – this was November around 6pm and the area was poorly lit – so it was impossible to tell that there had been a problem with the payment. There were barriers and cameras at the entrance/exit to the car park so the Defendant assumed this car park did not issue tickets. This was a genuine mistake on the Defendant’s behalf and nothing more.

LDast

Why admit to making a mistake? The burden of proof is on the claimant. Don’t do their job for them.

Imagine you never received any correspondence about this before you received the claim. Based on the Particulars of Claim (PoC), answer the allegation, if you can.

Show us the PoC.

Coupon-mad

Definitely do NOT assume fault like this:

 "This was a genuine mistake on the Defendant’s behalf and nothing more."

bomaya

LDast said:

Why admit to making a mistake? The burden of proof is on the claimant. Don’t do their job for them.

Imagine you never received any correspondence about this before you received the claim. Based on the Particulars of Claim (PoC), answer the allegation, if you can.

Show us the PoC.

Here's the PoC attached.  Thanks to another forumite via DM who suggested reading google reviews for this car park. First two that popped up had exactly the same situation as me. He suggested using the screenshots of these reviews as evidence if things go that far. 

LDast

You can’t use a Google review as a defence. 

bomaya

Okay, reworded slightly to:

The Defendant used the Car Park in question as an honest patron and used a parking machine to pay for a set period of time. The machine asked for the registration number and an amount of money (relating to set hours). The Defendant inputted these details and then when requested presented his debit card to the card reader which beeped – usually a sign of payment. The Defendant recalls that it was very dark in the car park – this was November around 6pm and the area was poorly lit.  There were barriers and cameras at the entrance/exit to the car park so the Defendant assumed this car park did not issue tickets. As far as the Defendant was concerned a valid payment for parking had been purchased.

Coupon-mad

Yep. You could add:

If the machine failed that was unknown and is an issue under control of the Claimant, not the driver who made reasonable endeavours to comply.  There was no breach by conduct. 

bomaya

Thank you. I will email this tonight and in the post tomorrow.