Claim form for car parking charges

1505grandad

Just as a reminder can you post verbatim the Defence that you filed  -  I believe it was not the forum template.

In the claimant's WS they show signs  -  one states "Welcome to GS Car Park" while another states "Welcome to Mansfield Street P & D Car Park"  -  are they the same car park?

baz417

1505grandad said:

Just as a reminder can you post verbatim the Defence that you filed  -  I believe it was not the forum template.

In the claimant's WS they show signs  -  one states "Welcome to GS Car Park" while another states "Welcome to Mansfield Street P & D Car Park"  -  are they the same car park?

This is what I wrote perhaps the weakest Defence one could imagine:

I have bought the ticket on the day in question so the company have no rightful claim against me. The copy of the ticket can be provided as a evidence.

Yes they are same car park. 

Coupon-mad

Remove the words 'track application' from para 5.

Your numbering switches from para 6 onwards to an unnecessary zero in front of the number. Remove those zeros. 

Close the extra line gap between your 20 and 21 so the word 'faith' comes up a line and isn't isolated at the top of the next page.

Remove 23 and 24 because their WS hasn't mentioned either of those cases!

Add in to para 27, before the second sentence that starts 'Court of Appeal' an extra bit as follows:

There are two main issues that render this parking charge to be purely penal (i.e. no legitimate interest saves it) and thus, it is unenforceable:

(i). Concealed pitfall or trap:

(a). Placing the burden on the driver to input a full VRM on a notoriously faulty keypad (at a site where the system has already recorded the correct VRM via ANPR, thus the system is capable of presenting the driver with the full VRM as soon as he or she starts to type) is unfairly weighted against consumers.

(b). This unfairness specifically breaches the CRA 2015 and it is why the DLUHC has completely banned parking charges from being pursued for 'keypad errors' and also requires human checks to avoid unfair PCNs.  The Government takes the view that the machine should be linked to the ANPR so that it is impossible to buy a ticket without the full registration. There is no commercial justification, fairness or justice in knowingly issuing PCNs for VRM errors which arise from either typos or system glitches.  I realise now that it will be one or the other, in my case.  Not that this Claimant has told the court these facts or assisted by appending the day's machine logs to show what actually happened.

(c). Having read the evidence from the Claimant, I have had to guess that keypad failure (NB: not my error) is what the Claimant has hidden from me and the court.  Due to a glitch in their system, I can now see for the first time that the ticket/receipt has only printed the letter 'N' but the Claimant's witness is oddly silent about that.  They knew they had an unmatched payment in the machine logs that day, but those logs are conspicuous by their absence, no doubt because they would further prove my payment which was there to be seen and matched all along.

(d). This Claimant's witness - who will not turn up to the hearing to be questioned - seems content to mislead the court by implying that I had not paid and displayed, despite knowing from my email and their machine logs, that this is not true.  I trust that the Judge will consider that the Claimant's hearsay witness statement bears far less weight than mine, where I have gone the extra mile to get to the heart of the dispute and assist the court to make a just decision.

(e). This Claimant has seen my P&D ticket attached to my email in February 2023 (see Exhibit 03) and whilst the claim had, of course, already been filed by then, why is there no mention of my email attaching my ticket, in the Claimant's evidence now?  As a professional parking operator, even if they initially missed it in 2022, they should have spotted in 2023 what I've just seen - that this was caused by their own keypad failure and 'N' is presumably some sort of error code.

(f). Given this state of affairs, there was no just or 'reasonable cause' for this Claimant to have applied for my keeper data from the DVLA. They had the payment logs to check against a year ago, and their machine failure (I would never have just randomly typed the letter 'N'!) is their own responsibility and does not excuse them.

(g). They have failed to show any evidence of the required 'human checks' before obtaining my DVLA data in 2022 (data which can never be lawfully harvested based on automated systems alone).  I've taken time to research this common issue, to fill in the gaps in their Witness Statement and I have discovered that these pre-PCN-issue checks include running a standard Zatpark software 'fuzzy whitelist' search, to identify a payment attributed to a partial VRM, as part of the ANPR checker system designed to void PCNs and nip them in the bud, in cases where it would be unfair to issue one: https://zatpark.com/articles/advanced-anpr-checker/

(ii). Hidden Terms:

The £100 penalty clause is positively buried in small print, as seen on the signs in evidence.  The purported added (false) 'costs' are even more hidden and are also unspecified as a sum.  Their (unlawful, due to the CRA Schedule 2 grey list of unfair terms) suggestion is that they can hide a vague sentence within a wordy sign, in the smallest possible print, then add whatever their trade body lets them, until the DLUHC bans it in 2024. And the driver has no idea about any risk nor even how much they might layer on top.  None of this was agreed by me, let alone known or even seen as I stood at the machine, which their evidence shows doesn't warn me about a possible £100 charge. Court of Appeal ... (Continue with the rest of para 27 here)

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Para 29 and para 36, change the start to "I maintain".

You need to add observations about their WS:

Para 18: she says the driver could either 'follow the rules and park for free' or breach and pay £100.  Point this out!  It's not a free car park. She's clearly using a Gladstones template.

Para 26 she says the sign says 'Enforcement action may occur additional costs'.  But the Claimant merely shows in evidence. a pre-action 'unpaid PCN' template reminder letter at £100 and no evidence of 'occurring' (incurring) additional costs at all. There are half the pre-court letters in evidence here, than were seen in the Beavis case where no attempt was made to enhance the claim. 

She talks about a LBC which she says warned of 'potential' additional costs if the case goes to court. Yes, it's normal to warn about actual court costs in a LBC, but the capped £50 legal fees on the claim form already cover that minor template LBC letter cost that is always sent in contemplation of litigation.

Coupon-mad

You could append one more Exhibit:

Claim no. C8DP11F9 – Excel v Mrs S – 09/09/2016, Oldham Court if you can find the transcript (the link to it is no longer working here):
http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2016/09/excel-parking-get-gladstonedby-bw-legal.html?m=1

It's the one about the machine failure that caused a ticket to print an error code 'QQ'.  Maybe @bargepole can find it in his case transcripts?

Then there was another one with the error code printed as a single letter P:
http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2016/10/bw-legal-how-to-winlose-claim.html?m=1

Just like yours...

baz417

Coupon-mad said:

Remove the words 'track application' from para 5.

Your numbering switches from para 6 onwards to an unnecessary zero in front of the number. Remove those zeros. 

Close the extra line gap between your 20 and 21 so the word 'faith' comes up a line and isn't isolated at the top of the next page.

Remove 23 and 24 because their WS hasn't mentioned either of those cases!

Add in to para 27, before the second sentence that starts 'Court of Appeal' an extra bit as follows:

There are two main issues that render this parking charge to be purely penal (i.e. no legitimate interest saves it) and thus, it is unenforceable:

(i). Concealed pitfall or trap:

(a). Placing the burden on the driver to input a full VRM on a notoriously faulty keypad (at a site where the system has already recorded the correct VRM via ANPR, thus the system is capable of presenting the driver with the full VRM as soon as he or she starts to type) is unfairly weighted against consumers.

(b). This unfairness specifically breaches the CRA 2015 and it is why the DLUHC has completely banned parking charges from being pursued for 'keypad errors' and also requires human checks to avoid unfair PCNs.  The Government takes the view that the machine should be linked to the ANPR so that it is impossible to buy a ticket without the full registration. There is no commercial justification, fairness or justice in knowingly issuing PCNs for VRM errors which arise from either typos or system glitches.  I realise now that it will be one or the other, in my case.  Not that this Claimant has told the court these facts or assisted by appending the day's machine logs to show what actually happened.

(c). Having read the evidence from the Claimant, I have had to guess that keypad failure (NB: not my error) is what the Claimant has hidden from me and the court.  Due to a glitch in their system, I can now see for the first time that the ticket/receipt has only printed the letter 'N' but the Claimant's witness is oddly silent about that.  They knew they had an unmatched payment in the machine logs that day, but those logs are conspicuous by their absence, no doubt because they would further prove my payment which was there to be seen and matched all along.

(d). This Claimant's witness - who will not turn up to the hearing to be questioned - seems content to mislead the court by implying that I had not paid and displayed, despite knowing from my email and their machine logs, that this is not true.  I trust that the Judge will consider that the Claimant's hearsay witness statement bears far less weight than mine, where I have gone the extra mile to get to the heart of the dispute and assist the court to make a just decision.

(e). This Claimant has seen my P&D ticket attached to my email in February 2023 (see Exhibit 03) and whilst the claim had, of course, already been filed by then, why is there no mention of my email attaching my ticket, in the Claimant's evidence now?  As a professional parking operator, even if they initially missed it in 2022, they should have spotted in 2023 what I've just seen - that this was caused by their own keypad failure and 'N' is presumably some sort of error code.

(f). Given this state of affairs, there was no just or 'reasonable cause' for this Claimant to have applied for my keeper data from the DVLA. They had the payment logs to check against a year ago, and their machine failure (I would never have just randomly typed the letter 'N'!) is their own responsibility and does not excuse them.

(g). They have failed to show any evidence of the required 'human checks' before obtaining my DVLA data in 2022 (data which can never be lawfully harvested based on automated systems alone).  I've taken time to research this common issue, to fill in the gaps in their Witness Statement and I have discovered that these pre-PCN-issue checks include running a standard Zatpark software 'fuzzy whitelist' search, to identify a payment attributed to a partial VRM, as part of the ANPR checker system designed to void PCNs and nip them in the bud, in cases where it would be unfair to issue one: https://zatpark.com/articles/advanced-anpr-checker/

(ii). Hidden Terms:

The £100 penalty clause is positively buried in small print, as seen on the signs in evidence.  The purported added (false) 'costs' are even more hidden and are also unspecified as a sum.  Their (unlawful, due to the CRA Schedule 2 grey list of unfair terms) suggestion is that they can hide a vague sentence within a wordy sign, in the smallest possible print, then add whatever their trade body lets them, until the DLUHC bans it in 2024. And the driver has no idea about any risk nor even how much they might layer on top.  None of this was agreed by me, let alone known or even seen as I stood at the machine, which their evidence shows doesn't warn me about a possible £100 charge. Court of Appeal ... (Continue with the rest of para 27 here)

----------

Para 29 and para 36, change the start to "I maintain".

You need to add observations about their WS:

Para 18: she says the driver could either 'follow the rules and park for free' or breach and pay £100.  Point this out!  It's not a free car park. She's clearly using a Gladstones template.

Para 26 she says the sign says 'Enforcement action may occur additional costs'.  But the Claimant merely shows in evidence. a pre-action 'unpaid PCN' template reminder letter at £100 and no evidence of 'occurring' (incurring) additional costs at all. There are half the pre-court letters in evidence here, than were seen in the Beavis case where no attempt was made to enhance the claim. 

She talks about a LBC which she says warned of 'potential' additional costs if the case goes to court. Yes, it's normal to warn about actual court costs in a LBC, but the capped £50 legal fees on the claim form already cover that minor template LBC letter cost that is always sent in contemplation of litigation.

Thanks very much for your time and effort for this. I will amend WS accordingly I truly appreciate it. I could not have  constructed the way you have. Now  I am beginning to believe that we could defend this looters and will get a positive outcome in the end. Cheers

B789

1505grandad said:

Just as a reminder can you post verbatim the Defence that you filed  -  I believe it was not the forum template.

In the claimant's WS they show signs  -  one states "Welcome to GS Car Park" while another states "Welcome to Mansfield Street P & D Car Park"  -  are they the same car park?

@1505grandad, this is the defence the OP submitted... literally:

I have bought the ticket on the day in question so the company have no rightful claim against me. The copy of the ticket can be provided as a evidence.

Personally, I can't see them allowing the WS based on that defence but, who knows? If they do and they win the case, they should go and but a lottery ticket.

Coupon-mad

Yes, I took that short defence into account when I wrote the above, all of which relates to either:

 - the P&D ticket

 - the P&D system

 - unfairness under the CRA 2015, which can always be added, whether mentioned in the defence or not (s71 CRA 2015 says that courts have a duty to consider fairness even if a party doesn't raise it at all).

Does anyone have:

Claim no. C8DP11F9 – Excel v Mrs S – 09/09/2016, Oldham Court 

baz417

Coupon-mad said:

Yes, I took that short defence into account when I wrote the above, all of which relates to either:

 - the P&D ticket

 - the P&D system

 - unfairness under the CRA 2015, which can always be added, whether mentioned in the defence or not (s71 CRA 2015 says that courts have a duty to consider fairness even if a party doesn't raise it at all).

Does anyone have:

Claim no. C8DP11F9 – Excel v Mrs S – 09/09/2016, Oldham Court 

I have edited the WS with the info provided, tried finding the link for the 2 cases you mentioned but could not find the transcript. is it stil worth addding just the cases in WS?
also not sure the N word is typo error on ticket receipt or what as its the first letter of the VRM apparently , thought should mentioned as it clicked me (slow mind) while i was editing the WS.  

Coupon-mad

That's a great adaptation of the newest WS and I might use it as an exemplar WS for newbies!

All I saw to critique was that you should remove paragraph 06 entirely as it states the obvious and you didn't suddenly get a PCN now so it makes no sense in context of a claim.

And when you re-number the rest, drop the zero from the paragraph numbered 6.

I don't think you need to mention that your numberplate starts with N.  Clearly you DID NOT just type in 'N' (no driver would) and you can say that at the hearing; even if it's not an 'error code', it's clearly unfair if the system prints a ticket before a full VRM has been typed in.

Aha, I found the transcript you need to add:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/im5la2708fmhf3aakfiwb/C8DP11F9-EXCEL-v-SIMPSON-Approved-Judgment.pdf?rlkey=13d60uirdigjtr1ylii21oawc&dl=0

Claim no. C8DP11F9 – Excel v Mrs S – 09/09/2016, Oldham Court 

1505grandad

Para 23 has the wrong exhibit number  -  in fact para 24 also  -  suggest you check all numbers etc are correct just in case (obviously to include the above Excel v Mrs S)