DCB Legal Claim form issued - help drafting defence

Coupon-mad

Don't bury your important exhibits about the signs in para 24 and paras 27 onwards. These should come much higher up, under where you say you went back to take photos.

Para 34 is wrong, there's no ban, as we keep telling people (search the forum for some words from it).  Discussed dozens of times.

Check you haven't copied the paragraph about the kiosk. I'm not trawling through checking for it but people keep doing that!

Give it a slow read through for sense and relevance. AND look for whole paragraphs that are verbatim repeats of your defence (if you used the Template Defence).  Remove huge chunks if I'm right.  No defence repetition of blurb about the DLUHC.

  

PartyPops

Coupon-mad said:

Don't bury your important exhibits about the signs in para 24 and paras 27 onwards. These should come much higher up, under where you say you went back to take photos.

Para 34 is wrong, there's no ban, as we keep telling people (search the forum for some words from it).  Discussed dozens of times.

Check you haven't copied the paragraph about the kiosk. I'm not trawling through checking for it but people keep doing that!

Give it a slow read through for sense and relevance. AND look for whole paragraphs that are verbatim repeats of your defence (if you used the Template Defence).  Remove huge chunks if I'm right.  No defence repetition of blurb about the DLUHC.

  

Thanks, I've updated the document https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yjjs4uks317992b1h2aqi/WS-personal-censored2.docx?rlkey=gx5insk7lkj8jwa5qheopluxq&st=laj5i6cn&dl=0

Moved up my sign paragraphs to be the first thing I talk about.

Removed the wording "until the DLUHC bans it in 2024." from this paragraph

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. Court of Appeal authorities which are on all fours with a case involving a lack of ‘adequate notice’ of a charge, include:

What is the part about kiosks? Can you elaborate what the wording may contain? I did a quick ctrl + f and searched kiosk and nothing came up.

As the claimant paid the court fees, does this mean they are 99.9% going to turn up and not withdraw their case? I know I've read of instances where the claimant is no longer pursuing the case and was wondering if this typically happens before or after the court fee is paid or can it be a mix ? 

Thanks

Coupon-mad

Just control & f for 'kiosk'.

PartyPops

Coupon-mad said:

Just control & f for 'kiosk'.

yeah nothing there.

I noticed you didn't answer my question about your experience in court fees being paid and NoD happening, is that common or does this mean they are very likely to pursue in court and turn up now that the fees are paid?

Coupon-mad

Less likely to be discontinued now but never say never!

PartyPops

Sense checked my WS and I've now saved as PDF, signed it , dated it and sent it off to the court and copied in DCBLegal email addresses. 
Mid next week is the deadline to exchange WS.

To be honest, I've read cases here of DCB legal missing the deadline to exchange Witness Statement and even if they've paid, that may happen and it gets discontinued. Let's see!

KeithP

PartyPops said:

Sense checked my WS and I've now saved as PDF, signed it , dated it and sent it off to the court and copied in DCBLegal email addresses. 
Mid next week is the deadline to exchange WS.

By sending your Witness Statement early you have allowed DCBLegal a whole week to study your WS, pull it apart and challenge every point you've made, in their Witness Statement.

PartyPops

Well that's a lesson learnt for me!
I wish I was warned of that before.. This is all new to me and I am going on vacation so I wanted to get this out the way...

Coupon-mad

It will be.

Discontinuance on Friday is my prediction.

PartyPops

To be honest, I'm pretty ready for the court if it comes to it.

I've never been to court but wondering - do I read my whole Witness statement paragraph by paragraph when I attend? Do I just pick points out and hope the judge has already read it?

My plan was to print the whole thing and still hand it in when signing just incase it gets lost when I emailed it.
I was then going to print another copy for myself there and also another sheet with bullet points to pick out paragraph numbers and talk about them and refer the judge to the paragraphs mentioned. Is this how its done?