UKPC/DCBL County court business center claim - customer leaving site

Hayleigh1982

Hi All,

im trying to do this on behalf of my partner.

He has today (26th May 2023) received a county court business center claim form:-
Issue date: 24th May 2023
Claimant: UK Parking Control Ltd
Solicitor: DCB Legal

For a PCN from 13/04/2019. Yes, in his infinite wisdom, he did ignore all the letters sent to him.

The original PCN was for 'Customer leaving site'

He was parked in a leisure park and initially went to use a cash machine on the 'Hollywood Bowl' the cash machine wasn't working so he went inside the Hollywood bowl to see if they did cashback (which they didnt) or had one of the small ATMs inside (again they didn't) 
At the back of the leisure park is a train station with a bridge that goes over to the high street, so he did leave the car park.
On his return he had a ticket on the vehicle.

He made an appeal to the UKPC saying he was trying to use the cash machine on the 'Hollywood bowl' and their response letter states, 'Please note there is not a cash point located on site.' I have today looked up on google maps from May 2019 and clear as day there in fact IS a cash point on site. He did admit to leaving site when he sent through the appeal. (silly boy).

it says 'We have carefully considered your appeal based on the information provided and the evidence supporting the parking charge. In this instance having completed our assessment, we consider the parking charge to have been correctly issued, as signs clearly state that if you leave site you may incur a parking charge.'

Reading through the posts i feel this could be a VCS v. Ibbotson 'toothbrush' case?

We will be doing the AoS today (having never dealt with anything like this and only receiving the letter on return from work and scouring the internet for a hopeful solution, thank god for MSE)

Ive read a few posts about DCBL and their discontinuations and have everything crossed that with the right defense (again i will be working on this over the weekend) it may be a good result.

Whats the likelihood of not having to pay anything? ive read through so many posts my head is a jumble of information and i cant remember seeing anything about if anyone has been made to pay up?!

I may need help with the wording of the defense (which i will post) and im assuming the @johny86 template is the one to use?!

Thanks in advance for any assistance  

KeithP

Hayleigh1982 said:

He has today (26th May 2023) received a county court business center claim form:-
Issue date: 24th May 2023
Claimant: UK Parking Control Ltd
Solicitor: DCB Legal

We will be doing the AoS today...

Hello and welcome.

With a Claim Issue Date of 24th May, you have until Monday 12th June to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an Acknowledgment of Service, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 26th June 2023 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks 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 again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service guidance.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that 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'.

Everywhere I have written 'you' or 'your' I do of course mean the named Defendant. Everything must be done in the name of the named Defendant.

Oh and by the way... there is no letter 's' in the word Defence. 

Hayleigh1982

HAHAHA! i didnt even pick up on the 'S' in defence.
@KeithP thank you for your service.

Umkomaas

Defend this as required, meeting all deadlines, and your case will almost certainly end up being recorded in the following thread. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6377263/dcb-legal-record-of-private-parking-court-claim-discontinuations/p1

Boat_to_Bolivia

How could they possibly prove the driver left the site?

If you look at the Particulars of Claim, I guarantee they don't state that as the reason for the claim so do not mention that at all.

Do not submit a SAR and base your Defence on the one written by @GolfR12 and obviously adapt it to your circumstances.

Hayleigh1982

will it matter that at the appeal stage my partner admitted to leaving site??

Thats where im struggling with the defenCe

KeithP

Boat_to_Bolivia said:

How could they possibly prove the driver left the site?

Apparently, they don't need to.
The OP has told us...

Hayleigh1982 said:

He did admit to leaving site when he sent through the appeal. (silly boy).

But yes, don't mention leaving the site in the Defence.

Coupon-mad

Yep, even with someone who admitted leaving the site, DCBLegal are likely to discontinue. And there is nothing risked by defending.
  
DO NOT ADMIT LEAVING THE SITE IN THE DEFENCE THOUGH.

Do not refer to that.

Just do something based on the defence by @GolfR12 which in turn is based on the Template Defence thread, but has the extra paragraphs 5-11 seen in all DCBLegal case defences.

B789

Hopefully, you are suitably chastised for having just about given the bottom-dwelling duo of UKPC and DCB Legal their case on a golden platter by admitting to them that you actually did leave the site when they had no evidence to prove their claim.

This one will probably come down to the fact that DCB Legal are serial roboclaim litigators and are intellectually malnourished enough not to notice their golden win. Let's hope so. If it does go all the way, it will be up to their rep-for-hire on the day whether they are up to scratch and actually read the original appeal with the faux pas in it.

Here is an example of the template defence you should be using:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5r7vbqttho3q948/2023 defence.pdf?dl=0

Don't forget, you are defending what is n the PoC when you substitute your paras #2 and #3. No blabbing about leaving anywhere but be careful about putting them to strict proof of "leaving site" as they have your admission on file somewhere.

Hayleigh1982

Yes @B789 i have told my partner (who the PCN belongs to) of his wrong doings. We werent together at the time so i couldnt stop him from making the fatal mistake.

Please can one of you helpful people have a look at the below defence taken from @GolfR12 with changes relvant to this PCN.

2. It is admitted that on the material dates, the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle.

 

3. The Defendant does not recall receiving any ‘pre-claim’ correspondence from the Claimant.

 

4. The Defendant does not recall why the vehicle was at the claimed site of the PCN back in 2019. The Defendant recognises the site as a car park for a leisure facility, which includes restaurants and Entertainment complex which the Defendant attended occasionally.

Coupon-mad

Yes that is fine.