County Court Business Centre, AOS (CHECK) - now writing my defence - PLEASE HELP!

Jelly_bean30

@Coupon-mad This is really helpful, thank you. I have messaged her but I'm unsure if we are at the same Trust, I am located in SE London. I can't see their claim form. I can try and get some midwives together but I'm not sure how many will help, I know that the parking attendant are ruthless and will give out tickets at every available opportunity to anyone INCLUDING staff. 

I'm using the Defence you have written in the above suggested thread and adjusting it. Will post it to you for checking if that's okay? Happy for you to contact me as a case study if it will help the cause.

Coupon-mad

Yes please show us (not by pm but here kn the thread).  It will need edits to remove mention of hirer (you are the keeper) and the interest calculation section should be changed to match what has already been said about the extortionate 6 months' interest mess up!

My God - if they are that bad at working out interest, imagine the other CST Law ones in this batch that people have NOT defended and have paid far too much!

I think this needs a complaint to the SRA about that interest.

Sounds like a different area NHS Trust. That poster was in Hants.  But you should compare notes and help each other.

Maybe club together and both get this story in the Daily Mail?  That's one way to publicise it and others will come forward and the BPA will be horrified by this targeting of NHS staff for PCNs including over the pandemic.  Publicity like your cases is the last thing the BPA and Euro Car Parks want.

I have the contact details of a journalist or two if you want. Do the defence first though.

Are you near enough to Romford to choose that court? It's a good one for parking defendants but I suppose you aren't that close to it?

Jelly_bean30

Here's the updated one..

DEFENCE

 

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 agents) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name. Liability is denied that the Defendant contravened the Claimant’s poorly displayed terms and conditions located in the car park.

The facts known to the Defendant:

1. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief. It is admitted that the Defendant was the owner of the vehicle.

2.  The defendant was a Maternity Health Care assistant and Maternity Support Worker at this Trust between June 2014 and March 2019. They were deemed unentitled to a staff parking permit for living within 4 miles of the Trust and to the defendant’s knowledge always paid for parking for the length of time their car was parked.

3.  The Defendant was a key worker (full-time Student Midwife) working shifts at this NHS hospital. This was in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID pandemic, when the NHS Trust offered free parking to staff and patients and to the Defendant's knowledge, any parking-related obligations, including any risk of parking charges, were lifted. The Defendant understood from NHS emails that she was at all times permitted to park at her place of work, free of charge during her shifts during lockdown in 2020 and 2021. The Claimant is put to strict proof, if they will say otherwise.

 

4. The Defendant since April 2014 was in receipt of a staff parking permit that allowed them to park at the Trust any time of day or night. The Defendant understood from NHS emails that due to Postal Strikes in 2022 the current permits would be extended until 31st January 2023. It is in the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief their new parking permit did not arrive until after this date. The Claimant knew (from the VRM permit exemption record) this was a staff member who had a permit.

5. The alarmist bold text threatograms from various notorious agencies with appalling online review scores - demanding fluctuating amounts of extortionate money with no specification, detail or substance to back up the amounts being aggressively pursued - bore all the hallmarks of a scam.

6. This scattergun generic claim is even worse; the Defendant cannot tell what allegation(s) she is expected to respond to, whether all the charges are stated within this claim (or will more claims follow) nor is the fundamental basis for the claim clear. The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case is being pursued.

8. The POC are in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”.  The POC are entirely inadequate in that they fail to particularise:

- the number of parking charge notices ('PCNs')?
- the dates of each of those PCNs?
- the monetary amount of each PCN?
- what was each alleged breach?
- what terms applied to staff in 2020 and 2021?
- how the purported 'collection charges' arose?
- how much these were, who were they paid to and why have multiple charges been applied (seemingly) 'per PCN' rather than per claim?
- the cause of action?
- whether the Defendant is being pursued under the POFA?
- the 'relevant obligation' (POFA)?
- the breakdown of the exaggerated quantum?
- the alleged loss, if any?
- how and when 'adequate notice' of the risk of a parking charge was specifically communicated to NHS staff and patients, once the parking restrictions were reinstated?
- the legitimate interest in pursuing a NHS Keyworker that the Claimant knew (from the VRM permit exemption records from April 2022) was a staff member who had a permit.

9. The claim has been issued via Money Claims Online and, as a result, is subject to a character limit for the Particulars of Claim section of the Claim Form. The fact that generic wording appears to have been applied has obstructed any semblance of clarity.  The guidance for completing Money Claims Online confirms this and clearly states: “If you do not have enough space to explain your claim online and you need to serve extra, more detailed particulars on the defendant, tick the box that appears after the statement 'you may also send detailed particulars direct to the defendant.’”  No further particulars have been filed and to the Defendant's knowledge, no application asking the court service for more time to serve and/or relief from sanctions has been filed either. 

10. In view of it having been entirely within the Claimant's Solicitors' gift to properly plead the claim at the outset and the claim being for a sum, well within the small claims limit, such that the Defendant considers it disproportionate and at odds with the overriding objective (in the context of a failure by the Claimant to properly comply with rules and practice directions) for a Judge to throw the erring Claimant a lifeline by ordering further particulars (to which a further defence might be filed, followed by further referral to a Judge for directions and allocation) the court is respectfully invited to strike this claim out. 

11. Should the claim get past Directions Questionnaire scrutiny by a Judge, and continue after allocation to the small claims track, the Defendant avers that the Claimant will concede that no financial loss has arisen.  In order to impose an inflated parking charge, as well as proving a term was breached, there must be:

(i). a compelling 'legitimate interest' extending beyond mere compensation for loss, and

(Ii). 'adequate notice' of the 'penalty' clause (charge) which, in the case of a car park, requires prominent signs and lines and specifically at a Hospital at a time of ever-changing rules during the pandemic, additional proof that the obligations and risks of charges were clearly stated to be reinstated (if they were), and when/how this was communicated.

12. The Defendant denies (i) or (ii) have been met. The charge imposed, in all the circumstances is a penalty, not saved by ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67 ('the Beavis case'), which is fully distinguished.


Exaggerated Claim and 'market failure' currently being addressed by UK Government

13. The alleged 'core debt' from any parking charge cannot exceed £100 (the industry cap).  It is denied that any 'Debt Fees' or damages were actually paid or incurred by this Claimant, who is put to strict proof of:

(i). the information in paragraph 8 (above) which is not pleaded in the POC, and

(ii). a breakdown of how they arrived at the enhanced sum in the POC, including how interest was calculated, which looks to be improperly applied on the entire inflated sum, as if that was all overdue from January 2021 (which cannot be right because the BPA Code of Practice clause 24.4 requires at least two more letters to be served over a period of two months after a postal Notice to Hirer/keeper, before a case may be escalated to what may be described as 'debt recovery'). The Defendant avers that enhancing their claim to interest on either impermissible sums or on an incorrect basis, is reason enough to disallow a wholly unreasonably inflated claim.

 

Coupon-mad

The defendant was a Maternity Health Care assistant and Maternity Support Worker at this Trust between June 2014 and March 2019. 

How do these dates make sense, if the most recent PCN was in 2023 and your defence also talks about COVID pandemic years?

Paragraph 4 makes no sense for your case does it?  Replace it with this:

4.  The Defendant is being punished for being caught up on shift and sometimes having to top up parking fee payments a little later than this third party operator might have wanted. There is no legitimate interest to save this claim from being dismissed as a penalty and there was no time limit on the signs.  Staff did not know that they could be penalised and reasonably believed they could pay for the day or night's parking time on the app at any time during their shift. Anything else would be unworkable for staff at a Hospital where keyworkers cannot just leave labouring patients in the lurch to nip out and top up their own parking. The Defendant always paid for the full time parked as soon as they had the opportunity. It was not always possible for the Defendant to pay straight away as they were involved in obstetric emergency situations where their full attention was required, and often shifts overran so ad-hoc parking fee top-ups were made before leaving the site. The Defendant has photographic evidence of paying for their full parking time as they always paid via the ‘PayByPhone’ application.



Change
 "This was in 2020 and 2021" in para 3, to

The vague dates in the woeful POC require the court and Defendant to be reduced to relying on guesswork (a preposterous position to have to guess in order to even begin to interpret a claim filed by a supposedly professional bulk litigator 'legal representative') but the Defendant guesses that some of the unspecified incidents might have occurred in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID pandemic, when .... (etc.) ...


And change:

- the legitimate interest in pursuing a NHS Keyworker that the Claimant knew (from the VRM permit exemption records from April 2022) was a staff member who had a permit.

to

- the 'legitimate interest' in pursuing a NHS Keyworker in 2023 with a vague, scattergun archive claim, especially after the Claimant has sat on their hands since 2017 yet always held, or had access to, payment records for this vehicle and indisputably knew that the Defendant had paid on every occasion. 

You are missing a paragraph number 7.  How about this?

7. The Claimants have treated the Defendant like no more than a VRM number on a suckers' list (ripe for trying to get a lucrative default CCJ, had the Defendant moved house or been too busy to defend this meritless and contumelious claim).  This claim has been thrown together in a casual, generic manner, with no checks made whatsoever; this is part of a batch of hugely exaggerated claims aimed at NHS staff at various sites this August (the Defendant has seen a near-match four figure claim thrown - by this same Claimant and same legal representative - at another midwife based in Hampshire this week). The Claimants knew or should have known all along that this was the car of a staff member who always paid. Thousands of successful payments made over many years for this vehicle, using the Claimant's advertised PaybyPhone app is reason enough for any professional parking operator (acting with due diligence) to conclude that this car belonged to an NHS staff member.  Instead, the Claimants have made no attempt to check with their client, the NHS Trust, whether the Defendant was a staff member and/or whether the NHS Trust wants its staff sued, given that the Claimant is only an agent operating 'on behalf of' the Trust.  This appears to be the wrong Claimant, with no standing and no commercial justification whatsoever in suing NHS staff. 

You have two paragraphs numbered 1. Amalgamate the second para 1 into para 2 is the easiest way to sort that out.

And you haven't changed the date and calculations of interest in 13(ii) which we told you to do.  Others have analysed the interest for you so you can use those words.

Coupon-mad

Hmmm...fancy trying tacking a modest £300 counterclaim on the end? It will cost you a £35 fee but this bulk litigator is inexperienced and can't even work out interest, so it wouldn't surprise me if they completely fail to defend a counterclaim.

With a fair wind and your fingers crossed, you could win the £300 by default - and your £35 fee back - within a month.

Jelly_bean30

Hoping I've updated this one correctly...

I've also contacted some midwives at my trust who have all had tickets at some point or another and are all willing to go to the newspaper with me! I'm going to send a mass email to ALL of maternity to see how much support we can get and speak to any/all papers who would like to get this story out there. Please do share the contact details of the journalists you mentioned before.

DEFENCE

 

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 agents) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name. Liability is denied that the Defendant contravened the Claimant’s poorly displayed terms and conditions located in the car park.

The facts known to the Defendant:

2. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief. It is admitted that the Defendant was the owner of the vehicle.

3.  The Defendant is being punished for being caught up on shift and sometimes having to top up parking fee payments a little later than this third-party operator might have wanted. There is no legitimate interest to save this claim from being dismissed as a penalty and there was no time limit on the signs.  Staff did not know that they could be penalised and reasonably believed they could pay for the day or night's parking time on the app at any time during their shift. Anything else would be unworkable for staff at a Hospital where keyworkers cannot just leave labouring patients in the lurch to nip out and top up their own parking. The Defendant always paid for the full time parked as soon as they had the opportunity. It was not always possible for the Defendant to pay straight away as they were involved in obstetric emergency situations where their full attention was required, and often shifts overran so ad-hoc parking fee top-ups were made before leaving the site. The Defendant has photographic evidence of paying for their full parking time as they always paid via the ‘PayByPhone’ application.

4.  The Defendant was a key worker (full-time Student Midwife) working shifts at this NHS hospital. The vague dates in the woeful POC require the court and Defendant to be reduced to relying on guesswork (a preposterous position to have to guess in order to even begin to interpret a claim filed by a supposedly professional bulk litigator 'legal representative') but the Defendant guesses that some of the unspecified incidents might have occurred in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID pandemic, when the claimant offered free parking to staff and patients and to the Defendant's knowledge, any parking-related obligations, including any risk of parking charges, were lifted. The Defendant understood from NHS emails that she was at all times permitted to park at her place of work, free of charge during her shifts during lockdown in 2020 and/or 2021. The Claimant is put to strict proof, if they will say otherwise.

 

5. The Defendant since April 2014 was in receipt of a staff parking permit that allowed them to park at the Trust any time of day or night. The Defendant understood from NHS emails that due to Postal Strikes in 2022 the current permits would be extended until 31st January 2023. It is in the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief their new parking permit did not arrive until after this date. The Claimant knew (from the VRM permit exemption record) this was a staff member who had a permit.

6. The alarmist bold text threatograms from various notorious agencies with appalling online review scores - demanding fluctuating amounts of extortionate money with no specification, detail or substance to back up the amounts being aggressively pursued - bore all the hallmarks of a scam.

7. This scattergun generic claim is even worse; the Defendant cannot tell what allegation(s) she is expected to respond to, whether all the charges are stated within this claim (or will more claims follow) nor is the fundamental basis for the claim clear. The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case is being pursued.

8. The Claimants have treated the Defendant like no more than a VRM number on a suckers' list (ripe for trying to get a lucrative default CCJ, had the Defendant moved house or been too busy to defend this meritless and contumelious claim).  This claim has been thrown together in a casual, generic manner, with no checks made whatsoever; this is part of a batch of hugely exaggerated claims aimed at NHS staff at various sites this August (the Defendant has seen a near-match four figure claim thrown - by this same Claimant and same legal representative - at another midwife based in Hampshire this week). The Claimants knew or should have known all along that this was the car of a staff member who always paid. Thousands of successful payments made over many years for this vehicle, using the Claimant's advertised PaybyPhone app is reason enough for any professional parking operator (acting with due diligence) to conclude that this car belonged to an NHS staff member.  Instead, the Claimants have made no attempt to check with their client, the NHS Trust, whether the Defendant was a staff member and/or whether the NHS Trust wants its staff sued, given that the Claimant is only an agent operating 'on behalf of' the Trust.  This appears to be the wrong Claimant, with no standing and no commercial justification whatsoever in suing NHS staff. 

 

9. The POC are in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”.  The POC are entirely inadequate in that they fail to particularise:

- the number of parking charge notices ('PCNs')?
- the dates of each of those PCNs?
- the monetary amount of each PCN?
- what was each alleged breach?
- what terms applied to staff in 2020 and 2021?
- how the purported 'collection charges' arose?
- how much these were, who were they paid to and why have multiple charges been    applied (seemingly) 'per PCN' rather than per claim?
- the cause of action?
- whether the Defendant is being pursued under the POFA?
- the 'relevant obligation' (POFA)?
- the breakdown of the exaggerated quantum?
- the alleged loss, if any?
- how and when 'adequate notice' of the risk of a parking charge was specifically communicated to NHS staff and patients, once the parking restrictions were reinstated?
- the 'legitimate interest' in pursuing a NHS Keyworker in 2023 with a vague, scattergun archive claim, especially after the Claimant has sat on their hands since 2017 yet always held, or had access to, payment records for this vehicle and indisputably knew that the Defendant had paid on every occasion. 

10. The claim has been issued via Money Claims Online and, as a result, is subject to a character limit for the Particulars of Claim section of the Claim Form. The fact that generic wording appears to have been applied has obstructed any semblance of clarity.  The guidance for completing Money Claims Online confirms this and clearly states: “If you do not have enough space to explain your claim online and you need to serve extra, more detailed particulars on the defendant, tick the box that appears after the statement 'you may also send detailed particulars direct to the defendant.’”  No further particulars have been filed and to the Defendant's knowledge, no application asking the court service for more time to serve and/or relief from sanctions has been filed either. 

11. In view of it having been entirely within the Claimant's Solicitors' gift to properly plead the claim at the outset and the claim being for a sum, well within the small claims limit, such that the Defendant considers it disproportionate and at odds with the overriding objective (in the context of a failure by the Claimant to properly comply with rules and practice directions) for a Judge to throw the erring Claimant a lifeline by ordering further particulars (to which a further defence might be filed, followed by further referral to a Judge for directions and allocation) the court is respectfully invited to strike this claim out. 

12. Should the claim get past Directions Questionnaire scrutiny by a Judge, and continue after allocation to the small claims track, the Defendant avers that the Claimant will concede that no financial loss has arisen.  In order to impose an inflated parking charge, as well as proving a term was breached, there must be:

(i). a compelling 'legitimate interest' extending beyond mere compensation for loss, and

(Ii). 'adequate notice' of the 'penalty' clause (charge) which, in the case of a car park, requires prominent signs and lines and specifically at a Hospital at a time of ever-changing rules during the pandemic, additional proof that the obligations and risks of charges were clearly stated to be reinstated (if they were), and when/how this was communicated.

13. The Defendant denies (i) or (ii) have been met. The charge imposed, in all the circumstances is a penalty, not saved by ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67 ('the Beavis case'), which is fully distinguished.


Exaggerated Claim and 'market failure' currently being addressed by UK Government

14. The alleged 'core debt' from any parking charge cannot exceed £100 (the industry cap).  It is denied that any 'Debt Fees' or damages were actually paid or incurred by this Claimant, who is put to strict proof of:

(i). the information in paragraph 8 (above) which is not pleaded in the POC, and

(ii). a breakdown of how they arrived at the enhanced sum in the POC, including how interest was calculated, which looks to be improperly applied on the entire inflated sum at a rate of 55.35% between 01/03/2023 to date. The Defendant avers that enhancing their claim to interest on either impermissible sums or on an incorrect basis, is reason enough to disallow a wholly unreasonably inflated claim.

Coupon-mad

I've also contacted some midwives at my trust who have all had tickets at some point or another and are all willing to go to the newspaper with me! I'm going to send a mass email to ALL of maternity to see how much support we can get and speak to any/all papers who would like to get this story out there. Please do share the contact details of the journalists you mentioned before.

I am so happy you are doing this fightback.  This is a time when they really don't want bad publicity.

I will send you a few email addresses of journos.

Remove this from 4 and put it on the end of para 2 instead:

"The Defendant was a key worker (full-time Student Midwife) working shifts at this NHS hospital."

What do you think about a £300 counterclaim punt tacked onto the bottom of the defence, given you have proof you always paid, and this sudden huge claim must have caused immense distress?

1505grandad

Just checking  -  are the the hospital management fully aware of this disgraceful treatment meted out to their valued staff while doing their jobs?  -  if so one would be forgiven for believing that the hospital/management actually gain some benefit from this disgusting action by their agents.

Jelly_bean30

CST Law sent me a list of the tickets I was given from 2017 - 2021 which is when I contacted PALS and my local MP, when I checked the paybyphone app x2 of them I couldn't find proof I had paid so that's x2 tickets where I may have not paid. One from 2017 and the other from 2018. So not sure I would have any grounds for counterclaim, but yes this has caused me a massive amount of stress.

Coupon-mad

But the claim lists one in Feb 2023 as well?

We wish you'd come here when you got the LBC because we'd have helped you to easily time out the 2017 one past the 6 years (it would have died away because 6 years was the limit) and you could have got this in the papers sooner.

No worries. 

Remind me to dig out journalist emails tomorrow!

Why have you still got paragraph 5 about having a permit? That was originally para 4 that I said to delete.  You are lucky we usually double-check these things.  Your defence must be true and right for your case and you are best placed to check it, not us.

It is really important that you read your defence - give it a sense check -  and don't copy or leave in stuff about having a permit.  Get a friend to read it?