Fluttering ticket parking fine

Coupon-mad

It's not a grey area.  You can't show the Judge a WPSATC offer letter (except at the end of the hearing when it comes to costs).

Play the game properly.

ParkingScum

Anything stopping me putting it in my WS pack along with all the other correspondence from VCS? The point I'm making is had I not asked the question I would have put a copy of that letter in. As I said I’m not a solicitor I don’t know what I can and can’t do.

ParkingScum

VCS are far from playing the game properly. They’ve made a false statement about me in their WS. 

Fruitcake

ParkingScum said:

Anything stopping me putting it in my WS pack along with all the other correspondence from VCS? The point I'm making is had I not asked the question I would have put a copy of that letter in. As I said I’m not a solicitor I don’t know what I can and can’t do.

Don't do it. Do not put something that is marked WPSTC in your WS. What will you do if VCS are monitoring this thread (we know this is the sort of thing they do), you show the letter to the judge, then the VCS rep says, hang on, that documents is marked WP, and you knew it, here is a dated screengrab from the MSE parking forum as proof?
You would be in deep do-do.

Fruitcake

ParkingScum said:

VCS are far from playing the game properly. They’ve made a false statement about me in their WS. 

Please show us their WS, but redact personal info. Please tell us which parts you have redacted, and what they have redacted, especially if there is a redacted landowner/landholder contract included.

ParkingScum

Will put it in tomorrow. Not sure theres much in this thread VCS can identify me with. Imagine that threat letter goes out to lots of people. They can’t even manage to blank out other peoples number plates in their evidence provided.

nopcns

A "without prejudice" letter implies that the contents of the letter cannot be used as evidence in court proceedings. However, if the letter contains a threat to disclose its contents to the court, which it does in this case, it impacts the "without prejudice" protection.

As the principle behind "without prejudice" communications is to encourage parties to engage in open and frank discussions to resolve a dispute without fear that their statements will be used against them in court, if a party explicitly threatens to waive the "without prejudice" protection and disclose the contents of the letter to the court, it affects the confidentiality of the communication.

The court may allow the communication to be admitted as evidence if it is relevant to determining the intentions or actions of the parties involved. The court may consider the letter admissible as evidence, particularly if the threat to disclose the letter is relevant to the dispute being adjudicated.

I will seek further advice from a district judge and report back.

ParkingScum

nopcns said:

A "without prejudice" letter implies that the contents of the letter cannot be used as evidence in court proceedings. However, if the letter contains a threat to disclose its contents to the court, which it does in this case, it impacts the "without prejudice" protection.

As the principle behind "without prejudice" communications is to encourage parties to engage in open and frank discussions to resolve a dispute without fear that their statements will be used against them in court, if a party explicitly threatens to waive the "without prejudice" protection and disclose the contents of the letter to the court, it affects the confidentiality of the communication.

The court may allow the communication to be admitted as evidence if it is relevant to determining the intentions or actions of the parties involved. The court may consider the letter admissible as evidence, particularly if the threat to disclose the letter is relevant to the dispute being adjudicated.

I will seek further advice from a district judge and report back.

Sounds great thank you. Will be on here later to post VCS’s witness statement. Although as its bespoke to my case I’m going to summarise their points as I’d rather not identify my case by posting the full thing.

ParkingScum

Forgot I know a barrister through a good friend of mine. I’ve messaged him just out of interest. He may not want to get involved mind as he may be worried I’ll hound him forever.

nopcns

My District Judge family member has said the following on the matter:

The phrase “without prejudice save us to costs” has a special meaning (over and above just the words “without prejudice”). It means that the letter cannot be shown to the judge unless and until a final decision has been made on the claim. Only *after* that can the letter be produced and shown to the judge - in support of any submissions that that party wishes to make to the Judge regarding the legal costs of the case over and above fixed costs.

However, in the context of parking cases which are always small claims, costs over and above the fixed costs are very, very rarely awarded. (and the £200 would be “over and above the fixed costs”). This is because the losing party has to be shown to have behaved unreasonably - and a finding of unreasonable behaviour is very rare indeed. Which means that such a letter will make absolutely no difference at the end of the day.

I then went on to clarify that I was thinking more along the lines that if the defendant successfully defended the claim, could the defendant then show the letter when claiming their costs, to show that the claimant had acted unreasonably by making intimidatory threats that the PPC should have known would not be allowed in the small claims track?

The judges response was:

"The answer is yes - it works both ways. But aggressive letters before action wouldn’t be considered unreasonable behaviour. A better example of unreasonable behaviour would be pursuing a claim which was always bound to fail."