DCBLegal (Claim Form) - Met Parking Services Ltd (Stansted) - HELP Please, transferred so far away

LDast

I have just chatted to someone at the CNBC about this problem and I have also raised a complaint. However, as I am not a defendant and don't have any claim numbers, it is down to the individuals concerned to send their complaint to

Here is the transcript of my 'chat' and the issue raised:

Chat Log

Below is a complete log of the chat session.

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Bot

Please select from the services below. Civil National Business Centre (CNBC) or Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) 

CNBC

Bot

Thank you. You are being connected to the Civil National Business Centre webchat team.

You are now chatting with Shaun.

Agent

Good afternoon  can you confirm your name and address please for security

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Agent

ok thanks , how can we help today?

I provide advice to defendants in claims issued by private parking companies through DCB Legal. In the last 10 days, I have had 3 separate cases where the defendants claim has been allocated to St Helens county court when they specifically requested their local county court which is hundreds of miles away.

Under CPR 26.2A(2) and Practice Direction 26, paragraph 7.1, a defended claim against an individual must be transferred to the defendant’s local hearing centre. This misallocation represents a breach of the Civil Procedure Rules and should never have occurred, particularly when the correct hearing centre was explicitly stated on the Directions Questionnaire. This is not an isolated incident. It is part of an emerging pattern where defended claims involving DCB Legal Ltd are improperly allocated to St Helens County Court — a court local to DCB Legal — rather than the defendant’s local hearing centre. There are only two possible explanations for this serious failure: Either CNBC administrative staff are unaware of the basic requirements of CPR 26.2A(2); or There is improper bias, favouritism, or even undue influence being exercised by or on behalf of DCB Legal Ltd to achieve allocations favourable to them. Either scenario is wholly unacceptable and risks undermining public confidence in the fairness and integrity of the court system.

Each time I have suggested to the defendant that they call the CNBC, they have been fobbed off and told to submit an N244 application which is unfair as the cost is prohibitive when compared to the claim amount and it is an administrative failure by the CNBC, not the defendant.

The CNBC is perfectly able to fix the issue under their administrative powers.

However, as this is obviously not an isolated incident, it points to a problem within the CNCB administration.

Agent

can you give me case numbers?

I cannot just now but I can get them later

I do know that two of the cases were supposed to go to Kingston on Thames but have been allocated to St Helens

I would like a contact email address for the CNCB manager in order to escalate this matter rather than go through the abysmally slow process of filling in the online HMCTS complaint form.

What raises suspicion, is that all these cases have been issued through the bulk litigator DCB Legal whose offices are local to St Helens.

Agent

send email to applications.cnbc@justice.gov.uk and mark email complaint  with its case number

raislander

Well I have actually not heard back at all from my complaint to the CNCB, or the other complaint I raised to the GOV.UK website, but I have heard back from St Helens court, please see below:

Although the matter has been transferred to the St Helens County Court, the hearings of these matters are heard by way of a telephone hearing and so no attendance at the Court is required

Yet I cannot understand why if this would end up being a telephone hearing the case is transferred closer tot he claimants court, where obviously they can attend in person? Is this normal? Isn't it giving advantage to the claimant in all these cases? 

Is there something else that can be done here?

kryten3000

Hearing will be a telephone conference call with all parties remote from one another, so no advantage.

raislander

Well not sure how much an advantage would it be, but I'd rather prefer that it would have been my local court, cause in the end the court of St Helens is local to the claimant's legal team, so it's likely they are known there. With such a big country it's concerning that the case has been moved for a telephone hearing to a court that is close to the claimants, hopefully this is not sign of anything else. 

That said I've received further communication from the court and now I've got a hearing date. See below




So now I need to prepare the WS as I understand? Any tips for this?

Also not sure even from reading this that my case would be heard on the 4th of July, as it seems the hearing is for multiple of these cases at once, so it might well be that the other guys that have reported here about their cases been sent to St Helens are on the same boat as me and their cases will be also a telephone hearing? 

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!!!

Coupon-mad

mg218006 said:

raislander said:

UncleThomasCobley said:

You only need to request a 30 day hold if you absolutely require more time. It does not give you any advantage by delaying these spurious claims though.

So, (a)... only if absolutely really necessary. No real advantage for anything.
(b)... only if applicable.
©... You do not need to mention anything about being the driver, whether true or not. You only need to make sure that you are corresponding as the Registered Keeper (RK) and as such, you cannot be held liable for the PCN as this occurred on non-relevant land covered by airport bylaws.

Only the driver can be held liable and there is no legal obligation for you, as the RK, to identify the driver and no assumptions can be made. Therefore, MET parking should cancel the PCN.

To be honest my intention is where possible to put this to an end they've been sending letters for months now. 

I plan to send them the email/letter by the end of the 30-day period. 

Should a letter like this work as a proper reply?

Dear Sir or Madam

 I write with reference to a “Letter before Claim” or “LBC” reference (XXXXX) dated 8th of November 2023, but not received until the 17th of November 2023, informing me of a 30-day window in which to take action.

Reducing the available time this way already tells me the kind of unscrupulous people I'm dealing with and suggest that you should date your letters closer to their actual posting date, lest it be seen as trying to manipulate a system and additionally cause unwarranted stress, fear and anxiety over alleged debts.

I fully and robustly deny any debt alleged regarding the above references, however I am currently seeking debt advice and demand that the case must be put on hold for not less than 30 days under the PAP for debt claims 2017.

I also intend to challenge the legitimacy and fairness of the inflated “Parking Charge” of £170 which has been wholly proven in the courts to be an abuse of process and an unfair and unjust addition without any grounds nor reasoning to its purpose.

I note that you are relying on pursuance of the alleged debt to the “Registered Keeper” of the vehicle. I wish to remind you of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (section 9, subsection 4) which states:

“(4)The notice must be given by—

(a)handing it to the keeper, or leaving it at a current address for service for the keeper, within the relevant period; or

(b)sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.”

and Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (section 9, subsection 5) which states:

“The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended.”

I draw your attention to the original “Notice to Keeper” delivered (XXXXX) to myself on the xxxxx. In this letter are the particulars “Issue Date (printed)” as the xxxx and “Contravention Date” as the xxxxxx.

As per the above, the letter has been printed on the 18th day following the alleged contravention and as such, is not compliant with the “relevant period” and as such I received the letter on the 24th day from the date of the contravention.

The letter is believed to have been posted 2nd Class to my address so could not have arrived sooner than the 14 day cut-off.

The PCN has clearly failed to comply with the strict requirements of Schedule 4 of POFA and consequently Met Parking Services Ltd has forfeited any right to claim unpaid parking charges from the registered keeper of the vehicle XXXX.

I wish to refer you to recent court cases in which Excel Parking Services Limited and Vehicle Control Services Limited, a sister company to Excel, LOST based on this very above stated fact.

(i). In the case of Excel Parking Services Ltd v Anthony Smith at Manchester Court, on appeal re claim number C0DP9C4E in June 2017, His Honour Judge Smith overturned an error by a District Judge and pointed out that, where the registered keeper was not shown to have been driving (or was not driving) such a Defendant cannot be held liable outwith the POFA.  Nor is there any merit in a twisted interpretation of the law of agency (if that was a remedy then the POFA Schedule 4 legislation would not have been needed at all).  HHJ Smith admonished Excel for attempting to rely on a bare assumption that the Defendant was driving or that the driver was acting 'on behalf of' the keeper, which was without merit. Excel could have used the POFA but did not. Mr Smith's appeal was allowed, and Excel's claim was dismissed.

(ii). In April 2023, His Honour Judge Mark Gargan sitting at Teesside Combined Court (on appeal re-claim H0KF6C9C) held in Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Ian Edward that a registered keeper cannot be assumed to have been driving. Nor could any adverse inference be drawn if a keeper is unable or unwilling (or indeed too late, post litigation) to nominate the driver, because the POFA does not invoke any such obligation.  HHJ Gargan concluded at 35.2 and 35.3. "My decision preserves and respects the important general freedom from being required to give information, absent a legal duty upon you to do so; and it is consistent with the appropriate probability analysis whereby simply because somebody is a registered keeper, it does not mean on the balance of probability they were driving on this occasion..." Mr Edward's appeal succeeded, and the Claim was dismissed.

I am not obliged to identify the driver and I decline to do so.  The PCN is not effective to transfer liability to myself (the keeper) because it does not comply with the conditions for a notice to keeper in Schedule 4 of the POFA.

I require you to cancel the PCN and erase my data.

If you persist in processing and/or sharing my data and in the event of MET Parking Services Limited filing a court claim, take note that I will file a Part 20 counterclaim for not less than £500.  This will be claimed as damages for distress arising as a result of clear breaches of the Data Protection Act 2018 and/or the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

I will rely upon the case of Simon Clay v Civil Enforcement Ltd and similar cases that have succeeded.

Yours faithfully

Good afternoon, 

Finding your thread incredibly helpful as I too am in the same position, can I ask who you are addressing this email too as I am struggling to identify a clear response contact address for CST LAW? 

Make sure you include the above in your WS but you probably won't have a hearing, not even by phone because DCB Legal will now (soon) discontinue.

Then (straight after the email with the discontinuance) you should send a complaint to HMCTS explaining the issue with lots of DCB Legal cases being allocated wrongly to St Helens, despite the D living hundreds of miles away, Given that DCB Legal always discontinue, this repeated error by a clerk at the CNBC places lots of Defendants at a disadvantage because many will have given up and paid a scam 'parking fine' upon seeing a court hearing allocated to the Claimant's choice not the individual's local court. It's irrelevant that yours was a phone hearing; it's STILL the wrong court and an error that is frightening off defendants who are unaware that DCB Legal discontinue before hearings.

raislander

Thank you Coupon-mad for the inputs, as always glad get advice here. Surely I'm planning to include in my WS the 2 replies to their LOC one first with CSTLaw - who once they got the letter from me they ceased the chase - and then the 2nd one attempt through DCBLegal (this one). 

Not only they did not comply with the rules of POFA 2012 and the right timelines to notify etc,, but they also admitted in an email from DCBLegal this wording below as reply to my letter to them:

"The Notice to Keeper was issued to you on 01st March 2024. A copy is enclosed. You were afforded the opportunity to; appeal the parking charge, transfer liability to the driver (if it was not you) or make payment. Neither a successful appeal, nor an adequate nomination were received, yet payment remains outstanding. Vehicle was left in Southgate Park Car Park without payment for parking. Copies of Images of the Vehicle entering and leaving are enclosed. The Parking charge was issued correctly. Our Client has not complied with the Protection of Freedom's Act 2012 so your points outlined bear no relevance to this claim."

So effectively DCBLegal on behalf of MET Parking can chase me on the basis of POFA 2012 due to been the registered Keeper, yet their customer don't need to comply with the POFA 2012 and so comply with the right timelines to notify???? How on earth can this actually work????!!!!!!

I'm also planning to include in the WS most of the wording from SmartTraveller in this post from a previous case at Stansted:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6553107/help-with-drafting-my-defence-for-court-claim-from-met-parking-services-southgate-park-stansted/p3

Anything else I should consider? Thank you!

Coupon-mad

Yes.

State in your WS that you want the judge to consider the fact that the DCB Legal signatory on the claim form is in contempt of court because the POC says their client is pursuing the registered keeper under the POFA 2012, yet DCB Legal know that is untrue because at pre-action stage they replied in writing: "Our Client has not complied with the Protection of Freedom's Act 2012"

kryten3000

raislander said:

"Our Client has not complied with the Protection of Freedom's Act 2012 so your points outlined bear no relevance to this claim."

Well they absolutely do have relevance. No POFA, no keeper liability.  Simple as that.  Yet more lies from DCB Legal and yet more evidence for the government committee.  

Car1980

Not sure there is necessarily anything suspicious. Sounds like St. Helens is part of some sort of internal pilot to get these cases done over the phone. Locality to DCB might be pure coincidence. Communication should be a lot better though. Maybe a FOI would be a better way to uncover some information?

raislander

Well to add salt to the wound, I got this cookie cutter reply from the CNBC to my complaint, so it gives you an idea of what sort of "!!!!!!" they give about you stressing out because of a possible hearing hundreds of miles away from your local place and if it would not be for this forum and the support of the people here, completely defenceless:  

Thank you for your complaint dated XXXXXXXX

I'm sorry to hear you're unhappy with our service because your case has been transferred to St. Helen's County Court. I can see this has been frustrating for you especially because you're an individual litigant. (this is the understatement of the year!!!!)

Having investigated

I'm very sorry that your case was incorrectly transferred to the claimants local court instead of to your local County Court. This was down to human error when your case was progressed after your mediation appointment. I've fed back what happened to the team leader for them to address with the case handler concerned. I appreciate that this won't change your experience, but I hope it assures you that we are committed to improving our services.

When your file was received at St. Helen's County Court, it was reviewed by their District Judge who confirmed the case could remain at St. Helen's for a small claims hearing. I can also see from the digital case record that on XXXX the court wrote to you to explain that although the case has been transferred to them it will be heard by way of a telephone hearing. The hearing notice also confirms that no party may attend the court in person.

On this basis, although I appreciate your frustration at the location of the owning court, I've found it won't impact you or the other party as you're not required to attend in person. Any future requests to change the location of the owning court will need to be submitted to the District Judge at St. Helen's.

Your complaint submitted on XXXX (8 days before they acknoledge my complaint) 

I'm sorry that your email dated xxxxx wasn't actioned as a complaint. It was dealt with as correspondence and that's why we wrote to you on xxxxx (16  days later).

Once again, I'm sorry for the upset and inconvenience this may have caused you.

If you're unhappy with my response

HMCTS operates a three stage Complaints Handling Procedure and if you're unhappy with the way I've handled your complaint please write to the complaints manager by replying to this email, requesting a review of your complaint with details of why you're not happy. You must explain simply and clearly what parts of the response you've received you do not agree with and would like reviewed.

I'm speechless..........