Please check my draft defence! Parallel Parking LTD

Money_Savvy

Hi all,

I have read and re read all of the posts and have got together a draft defence to send off. Would you mind please having a look through it for me? See below:

The facts known to the Defendant:

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

3. The driver parked in an unmarked area off a public road for no longer than ten minutes to drop off their passengers to a fitness class. The driver denies seeing any parking restriction signs or notices when pulling up to the area or stopping the vehicle. The area in question seemed to the driver to be of mixed use with clearly marked parking bays on the opposite side of the road but the area where the driver parked had no parking bays or indeed any boundary marks. Upon receiving a parking charge notice the driver went back to the area to examine the notices; there were yellow and black signs with miniscule text attached to what seemed to the defendant a derelict building.

4. Moreover, the building in question with these signs attached does not have any clear boundary. As stated, the area where the driver stopped the vehicle seemed of mixed use, with a public road leading to the area where the driver stopped the vehicle. Had the driver been made aware that this area was marked for permit holders only at that time or indeed seen the signage stating so, the driver would not have stopped the vehicle there and found somewhere else to park.

5. The signage on the building in question is of a “forbidding” nature. It is limited to cars displaying a valid permit only and therefore the terms cannot apply to cars without a permit because the signage does not offer an invitation to park on certain terms. The terms are forbidding. This means that there was never a contractual relationship. To claim that a contract to park was created when it is expressly forbidden is perverse. I refer you to the following case law: PCM-UK v Bull et all B4GF26K6 [2016], UKPC v Masterson B4GF26K6[2016], Horizon Parking v Mr J C5GF17X2 [2016] – In all three of these cases the signage was found to be forbidding and thus only a trespass had occurred and would be a matter for the landowner.

The driver has been unable to locate the owner of this land on which Parallel Parking LTD operates to discuss the trespassing episode and therefore has not been able to discuss a resolution.

The rest of the defence is largely a copy and paste affair, with some small changes

Thanks!

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

Have you filed an Acknowledgment of Service?
If so, upon what date did you do so?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Where exactly did this alleged parking event take place?

Paragraph 5 of your proposed Defence needs drastic pruning - most of it being better placed in a Witness Statement.
Remove all of it beyond the sentence "The terms are forbidding.".

Coupon-mad

Are you using the newest (this week) edited version in the Template Defence which talks about thd real cost of debt recovery being £8.42 and how there has been a 'market failure' that the DLUHC is addressing?

Typo: miniscule (I love this word, catches everyone out = minuscule).

And change this:

The driver parked in an unmarked area off a public road for no longer than ten minutes to drop off their passengers to a fitness class. The driver denies

to this (below) and change 'driver' to 'Defendant in the rest of the paragraph after it:

The Defendant stopped briefly in an unmarked area off a public road to drop off their passengers to a fitness class.  Setting down passengers is not a 'parking' event. The Defendant denies

Money_Savvy

KeithP said:

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

Have you filed an Acknowledgment of Service?
If so, upon what date did you do so?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Where exactly did this alleged parking event take place?

Paragraph 5 of your proposed Defence needs drastic pruning - most of it being better placed in a Witness Statement.
Remove all of it beyond the sentence "The terms are forbidding.".

Hi and thanks for the response,

I have indeed filed an AOS, dated 25th July.
Issue date was 18th July for Claim form
The parking event was, according to the PCN - Talbot Street, rear 128-130 high street, Stourbridge, DY8 1DP.

Thanks for the advice RE: paragraph 5!

Money_Savvy

Coupon-mad said:

Are you using the newest (this week) edited version in the Template Defence which talks about thd real cost of debt recovery being £8.42 and how there has been a 'market failure' that the DLUHC is addressing?

Typo: miniscule (I love this word, catches everyone out = minuscule).

And change this:

The driver parked in an unmarked area off a public road for no longer than ten minutes to drop off their passengers to a fitness class. The driver denies

to this (below) and change 'driver' to 'Defendant in the rest of the paragraph after it:

The Defendant stopped briefly in an unmarked area off a public road to drop off their passengers to a fitness class.  Setting down passengers is not a 'parking' event. The Defendant denies

Hi there,

Yes I am using the most up to date version. Thank you so much!

Thanks for the spelling advice.

I would change this sentence, but I left the car to drop off my children so pictures taken were of an unoccupied car - would this affect me changing this to the suggested sentence?

N.B. There were 5 minutes and 9 seconds that the person who took photos of my car watched it as recorded on the original PCN

KeithP

Money_Savvy said:

KeithP said:

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

Have you filed an Acknowledgment of Service?
If so, upon what date did you do so?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Where exactly did this alleged parking event take place?

Paragraph 5 of your proposed Defence needs drastic pruning - most of it being better placed in a Witness Statement.
Remove all of it beyond the sentence "The terms are forbidding.".

I have indeed filed an AOS, dated 25th July.
Issue date was 18th July for Claim form

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 over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see 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'.

Coupon-mad

Money_Savvy said:

Coupon-mad said:

Are you using the newest (this week) edited version in the Template Defence which talks about thd real cost of debt recovery being £8.42 and how there has been a 'market failure' that the DLUHC is addressing?

Hi there,

Yes I am using the most up to date version. Thank you so much!

Thanks for the spelling advice.

I would change this sentence, but I left the car to drop off my children so pictures taken were of an unoccupied car - would this affect me changing this to the suggested sentence?

N.B. There were 5 minutes and 9 seconds that the person who took photos of my car watched it as recorded on the original PCN

Ok try this and create more paragraphs of course, to make it readable, and every paragraph must have a number:

3. The Defendant stopped briefly in an unmarked area off a public road to drop off their passengers (children) to a fitness class.  The timings from the 'ticketer' are not accepted (such data being editable on a phone and parking firms using unregulated 'self ticketers' have been caught exaggerating timings).  The  Claimant is put to strict proof of their timings and any breach of terms.  The car was left for what the Defendant estimates was 3 or 4 minutes for the purposes of assisted alighting, which the predatory lurking ticketer must have watched.

4.  This brief stop for the sole purpose of setting down passengers and escorting them to adjacent premises is not a 'parking' event.  No grace period was allowed before PCN photos were taken behind the Defendant's back.

5.  The Defendant denies

Castle

Can we assume that no NTD was issued?

Money_Savvy

Castle said:

Can we assume that no NTD was issued?

A Notice To Keeper was issued, is that one and the same?

Coupon-mad

Not really but they can issue by post.

YankeeBrit

An NtD is a windscreen ticket. Once they have the V5C details, they send an NtK by post.