Gladstone solicitors ltd parking charge

tallac

LDast said:

Have you received a copy of the Claimants WS yet? If not, it would be worth waiting until as late as possible to get theirs and then add the following as a preliminary matter:

As a preliminary matter, I would like to bring to the Court's attention that the Claimant's Witness Statement, signed by [Paralegal or Solicitor's Name] of [Solicitor Firm name] Solicitors, does not comply with CPR 32.4 and Practice Direction 32, which require that a witness statement be made by an individual with direct knowledge of the facts. Furthermore, Practice Direction 32, paragraph 18.2, stipulates that the statement must be in the witness's own words and include details of how the witness has direct knowledge of the matters stated. As [Paralegal or Solicitor's Name] does not have direct involvement in the events in question, the Witness Statement fails to meet these requirements. In light of this non-compliance, the Defendant respectfully requests that the Court strike out the claim pursuant to CPR 3.4(2)(c) due to the Claimant's failure to comply with the relevant rules and practice directions.

If not, once you have seen their WS, add it to a SWS.

What does SWS stand for? Something Witness Statement?

Yes, I've received the claimants WS. It was filed by a member of the claimaints solicitor. So I will add that paragraph in.

I assume I can just emailthe witness statement to the claimant and the court? There's a lot of email addresses used previously but for this one I guess I use enquiries.northampton.countycourt@justice.gov.uk as this was on the Notice of Allocation to the Small Claims Track (Hearing) letter?

With regards to what the Hearing Order says (assuming this is the same letter called Notice of Allocation to the Small Claims Track (Hearing) )

It says this:

Coupon-mad

"Each party must send...your own witness statement"

A statement from a third party paralegal is not that.  So they are in breach of the court Directions.

tallac

SWS?

And can the witness statement be emailed to the courts and the claimant?

Thanks again

Coupon-mad

Yes it can. The first S is 'supplementary' but that's only needed if you later need to add an afterthought or extra evidence after a first WS.

tallac

Coupon-mad said:

Yes it can. The first S is 'supplementary' but that's only needed if you later need to add an afterthought or extra evidence after a first WS.

So in this case where I have not submitted the WS yet, where would I mention this in my doc?

KeithP

tallac said:

Coupon-mad said:

Yes it can. The first S is 'supplementary' but that's only needed if you later need to add an afterthought or extra evidence after a first WS.

So in this case where I have not submitted the WS yet, where would I mention this in my doc?

@LDast did say "...and then add the following as a preliminary matter".
Towards the front of your Witness Statement seems appropriate, doesn't it?

tallac

Thanks for all the feedback. Final versions in case anyone has any last minute changes:

Main witness statement and main defence document

Secondary witness statement (unchanged from last post)

Cost assessment sheet - has quite a few costs that are listed that are a bit optimistic but I'm guessing it can't do any harm including them. At worst, they'll be excluded and the ones applicable will be considered?

1505grandad

Just wondering where this ha come from?:-

Para 43      In the matter of costs, the Defendant asks:

(a) The previously reserved costs of £315, 

Coupon-mad

It looks like you have exhibited the 'judgments' link as one single exhibit 1 (good) but forgot to remove your extra paragraphs underneath those where you talk about Chan.

You don't need those paragraphs saying: 'in a similar poorly pleaded case' as they only refer to a couple of the cases in the judgments link.  Just say Exhibit 1 is the appeal case of CEL v Chan followed by many other cases where District Judges have taken the same view.

tallac

1505grandad said:

Just wondering where this ha come from?:-

Para 43      In the matter of costs, the Defendant asks:

(a) The previously reserved costs of £315, 

This came from the witness statement example from blueberry and citizen k that was linked in the newbie thread. Those were good examples but it was hard to work out what is stuff I should copy as part of a template and what should be amended. I actually did a diff of blueberry and citizen k examples and where they were identical I assumed was part of standard template text. I wish there were a set of template witness statements that made it a little easier to see what is standard text and what should be amended.

In this case, I guess I would remove this whole paragraph as I have a separate A4 sheet for the cost assessment? Or is it just the total that I need to amend to matcxh the cost assessment sheet?