CCC Civil Enforcement Ltd Defence - CEL discontinued - ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

TheSecretSocialist

I have received a Claim Form from the CCBC, for a claim submitted by Civil Enforcement Ltd.

They issue date was 18 Jul 23, and I submitted my Acknowledgement of service online on 25/07/23.

I am just drafting my defence now. It follows the templated defence kindly provided on this forum, but just wanted to check if, based on my statement of facts, there was anything else I need to include?

The particulars of the claim are.

£182.00 for violating T&C's for an overstay of 16 minutes (3 hours free parking)

£27.29 interest

£35.00 court fee

£50 legal rep fee

My defence is below

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1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all. It is denied that any conduct by the driver was in breach of any term. Further, it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name. Liability is denied, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the boilerplate text in the Particulars of Claim ('the POC').

The facts known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle.

3. On the morning of x xxx xxxx, the defendant attended the Xxxxxx Xxxxx to visit Hobbycraft and purchase supplies for work. The defendant also bought a coffee from a coffee shop during their visit. After approximately 45 minutes, the defendant left the car park to return to their workplace. However, realising they had mistakenly purchased the wrong items, the defendant returned to Hobbycraft to rectify the error, estimating this second visit occurred around midday.

4. Due to the significant time that has passed since the event, the defendant cannot provide precise timings.

5. The defendant believes that the parking overstay claim is a result of "double dipping," where only the first and last movements of their vehicle were captured by the ANPR camera, omitting intermediate movements.

6....

The rest follows the templated defence 

Is there anything I should change, add etc?

Thanks in advance.

Coupon-mad

Nice use of the newly edited Template Defence.

In your bit about double dips I would quote the DLUHC Code which mentions it (that phrase is used because I told the DLUHC about it!). Double dips are part of the market failure the DLUHC are addressing.

And in the template sections about the cost of pre-action being £8.42 I would edit it (adding a  nice extra paragraph in a relevant place in that part) to state that this Claimant has breached the 2020 BPA Code of Practice by adding an extortionate and unjustified £82 and if the extra £12 is meant to be for a 'soft trace' there is no evidence that they did one, and no justification to add £82 because the DLUHC's analysis reveals at paragraph xx that the maximum cost of a bulk soft trace is £1.50.

KeithP

TheSecretSocialist said:

I have received a Claim Form from the CCBC, for a claim submitted by Civil Enforcement Ltd.

They issue date was 18 Jul 23, and I submitted my Acknowledgement of service online on 25/07/23.

With a Claim Issue Date of 18th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 21st August 2023 to file your Defence.

That's nearly three weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see that you are not leaving it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline 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'.

TheSecretSocialist

Thank you both. I failed to mention that I didn't receive any correspondence from CE ltd for about a year or so after the alleged infraction. I moved house very shortly afterwards so all correspondence went to my previous address initially. As a result I was not offered the opportunity to appeal. Is it worth mentioning that in the defence?

Coupon-mad

You will see that the Template Defence already says to address that exact scenario in your paragraph 3.

TheSecretSocialist

If you could take a look at my new draft that would be appreciated. The bits in bold are the new additions.

The stuff in italics is from the template, and is there to indicate where I have placed the new paragraphs. Please ignore the paragraph numbering, it's auto numbered when I extracted the relevant parts.

Please let me know if there is anything I should add or remove (I may have gon overboard quoting the DLUHC policy and IA).

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1.         It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle.

2.         On the morning of 1 September 2021, the defendant attended the Newbury Retail Park to visit Hobbycraft and purchase supplies for work. The Defendant also bought a coffee from a coffee shop during their visit. After approximately 45 minutes, the Defendant left the car park to return to their workplace. However, realising they had mistakenly purchased the wrong items, the Defendant returned to Hobbycraft to rectify the error, estimating this second visit occurred around midday.

3.         Due to the significant time that has passed since the event, the Defendant cannot provide precise timings.

4.         The Defendant believes that the parking overstay claim is a result of "double dipping," where only the first and last movements of their vehicle were captured by the ANPR camera, omitting intermediate movements.

5.         The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) addresses this issue in its Private Parking Code of Practice, section 7.3.

“d)          images generated by ANPR or CCTV have been subject to a manual quality control check, including the accuracy of the time-stamp and the risk of keying errors.

1.    The manual quality control check for remote ANPR and CCTV systems is particularly important for detecting issues such as “double dipping”, where image camera systems might have failed to accurately record each instance when a vehicle enters and leaves controlled land, and for checking images that might have been taken other than by a trained parking attendant (see Clause 15). The manual check might also reveal where “tailgating” – vehicles passing a camera close together – is a problem, suggesting relocation of the camera might be necessary.”

6.         Due to the defendant moving home in October 21, the first correspondence they received from the Claimant was a Letter Before Action dated 16 February 2023, 17 months after the alleged incident took place. As a result of this delay in correspondence the Claimant has refused to enter into good faith discussion and has denied the defendant any form of alternative dispute resolution. This is despite the Defendant reminding the Claimant of their responsibilities as described in the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct.

 

….

 

7.         Paragraphs 4.31 and 5.19 suggest that the parking industry has informed the DLUHC that the true minor cost of what the parking industry calls debt recovery or 'enforcement' (= pre-action) stage totals a mere £8.42 per recovery case (not per PCN).

8.         The Claimant has breached the 2020 BPA Code of Practice by adding an extortionate and unjustified £82. There no justification to add £82 because the DLUHC's analysis reveals at paragraph 7.9 that the maximum cost of a bulk soft trace is £1.50.

 

….

 

9.         It is denied that the purported damages or Debt Fee sought was incurred or is recoverable. Attention is drawn to paras 98, 100, 193, 198 of ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67 ('the Beavis case'). Also, ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd ChD [2011] EWHC 4023(QB) where the parking charge was £75, discounted to £37.50 for prompt payment. Whilst £75 was reasonable, HHJ Hegarty (decision later ratified by the CoA) held in paras 419-428 that unspecified 'admin costs' inflating a parking charge to £135 was not a true reflection of the cost of a template letter and 'would appear to be penal'.

10.      The Claimant's costs are manifestly penal in nature and designed to intimidate motorists into complying with unfairly issued parking tickets, under the threat of incurring exorbitant financial liabilities. It is the Defendant's position that such extravagant cost claims stand as a flagrant attempt to exploit fear and financial vulnerability, rather than reflecting a legitimate assessment of damages. This contention gains support from the findings of the DLUHC’s analysis in the draft IA (paragraph 1.9), where the parking industry has tacitly acknowledged the reason for imposing exorbitant costs is as a deterrent against non-payment. The defendant submits that this approach is fundamentally inconsistent with the principles of fairness and proportionality, rendering the claimant's inflated costs untenable in the context of this dispute.

11.      The ULUHC’s analysis in the draft IA (paragraph 4.31) also states that the industry artificially inflates costs to help compensate for those that are charged but do not pay. This supports the Defendants position that the cost claimed by the Claimant are not a true reflection of the costs they have incurred.

 

 

Coupon-mad

I'd remove this unnecessary ending to the quote:

"The manual check might also reveal where “tailgating” – vehicles passing a camera close together – is a problem, suggesting relocation of the camera might be necessary."

Also, where you point out that CEL added £82 you should state that far exceeds the industry-invented £70 cap even in the self-serving BPA CoP.

Typo of DLUHC at the end.

I can't see that you have used the Template Defence?  You only needed to add paragraph 3.

TheSecretSocialist

Thank you for the response.

Paragraphs 2 - 6 above are my paragraph 3 essentially (broken up because to long).

Paragraphs 8, 10 and 11 are additional paragraphs I have inserted into the template (where I think they are relevant) after reading the DLUHC policy and IA. Disregard the paragraph numbers as I have removed the additional template paragraphs only for the sake of brevity when posting. They will be included verbatim in my actual defence.

Are paras 8, 10 and 11 superfluous and should be deleted, should I move them up top after para 6, or should I leave them as is?

Coupon-mad

I think your points are great! 

1505grandad

Also para 11  -  "This supports the Defendants position that the cost claimed by the Claimant are not a true reflection of the costs they have incurred."  -  should this be "costs"?

TheSecretSocialist

Yep, should be. Thanks.