CASE CLOSED - Request for peer review - Bristol Airport VCS appeal

Harry96339

Coupon-mad said:

This doesn't make any sense:

The driver accidentally drove onto Bristol airport land at night, stopped and saw a sign saying no stopping, and tried to drive off but two passengers were running to the car and jumped in before they could drive off.

I'm trying to say if they knew they would be charged for stopping, they would not have driven onto the site

Harry96339

I think I have messed up. In the defence I copied a bit that says "Whilst the Defendant is the registered keeper, paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied.". 

That could be interpreted as "I deny that pursuing the registered keeper is a valid thing to do" or "I deny I was the driver".

The registered keeper was the driver. I'm not sure how to proceed with the witness statement now.

Coupon-mad

Harry96339 said:

I think I have messed up. In the defence I copied a bit that says "Whilst the Defendant is the registered keeper, paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied.". 

That could be interpreted as "I deny that pursuing the registered keeper is a valid thing to do" or "I deny I was the driver".

The registered keeper was the driver. I'm not sure how to proceed with the witness statement now.

You haven't messed up.

Show us your draft WS and stop overthinking the defence!

HOWEVER please please don't do what posters keep doing: do NOT repeat the Template Defence second half blurb in the WS.

It should be short and mainly detailed with facts and evidence.

Harry96339

Draft witness statement

1.     I am the Defendant in this claim. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. My account has been prepared upon my own knowledge.

2.     In my statement I shall refer to exhibits within the evidence supplied with this statement, referring to page, reference numbers and excerpts where appropriate. My defence is repeated, and I will say as follows:

Sequence of events:

3.     I confirm that the vehicle was intended to be used to collect two people near Bristol Airport (BA) on 05/06/2025.

4.     I appealed the case directly to VCS and subsequently made multiple complaints to VCS, BA, my MP, and The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan all in an attempt to narrow the issue but all to no avail.

5.     When I appealed the PCN to VCS, VCS subsequently responded with an email letter dated 04/07/2024 stating that:

“We note your comment concerning the use of byelaws at the Airport; as already stated the signs at the entrance to the airport clearly identify the roads as private property and byelaws are not currently in use.”
This statement is not true. Bristol Airport byelaws are in use, thus the keeper cannot be liable according to the PoFA 2012.

(i)       Exhibit 2 – VCS falsely stating byelaws are not in use at Bristol Airport

6.     The Right Honourable John Penrose MP wrote to Bristol Airport Limited detailing that Excel had stated on behalf of VCS that byelaws were obsolete and Mister Penrose received the following response on 21/09/2023 from BA Ltd.
“Firstly, our Byelaws are definitely in place and are not obsolete. We have of course contacted our third-party parking enforcement provider who have identified an issue with the wording used in the response to the constituent, which does not align with their usual communication standards. The operative used incorrect phrasing with regards to Byelaws in this particular response. Excel Parking Services have assured us that this wording anomaly is not consistent  with the response typically used in other communications.”

(i)       Exhibit 3 – RH John Penrose MP Letter

7.     The response received from BA Ltd clearly states that byelaws “are definitely in place and are not obsolete” and that Excel Parking Services had assured Bristol Airport that “this wording anomaly is not consistent with the response typically used in other communications” however, clearly this is not the case because Excel recited the same statement to myself. Since the alleged event occurred almost 2 years after Mister Penrose contacted BA Ltd, and many other motorists have been told the same untrue statement, it is my opinion that the untrue statement made to me is a deliberate attempt to deceive.

8.     Even if the alleged debt were genuinely due, which is denied, VCS have no right to add costs of debt recovery or legal claims. PoFA 2012 Schedule 4 paragraph 4 (5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the NTK, in this case £100.

(i)       Exhibit 4 - Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 paragraph 4 (5)

9.  In the Charge Notice, the "period of parking" is stated to be "the period immediately preceding the Time of Event" but this appears to be completely false as the vehicle is not parked. The Charge Notices therefore do not meet the requirements of the PoFA 2012 Schedule 4 paragraph 9 (2) (a) since, without parking, there can be no period of parking. This also constitutes a breach of the International Parking Community (IPC) Code Of Practice (CoP) v8 Schedule 3 and therefore also paragraph 16.1.

(i)       Exhibit 5 - IPC Code of Practice v8 Schedule 3

Coupon-mad

The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. My account has been prepared upon my own knowledge.

The above is repetition.

But I'm mainly concerned that this draft WS is taking the wrong approach. The judge doesn't want to hear about byelaws.

The judge wants to know:

- that you were driving

- what happened

- were the signs & lines clear/fair?

Harry96339

So I'm ok to say the registered keeper was in fact the driver at this point?

Coupon-mad

Of course. Like I said.

Be an honest witness and give the judge facts, not irrelevant stuff about byelaws.

Harry96339

Draft witness statement (ignore the numbering)

... (header stuff) ...

1. I am the Defendant in this claim. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. My account has been prepared upon my own knowledge.
   
   

2. In my statement I shall refer to exhibits within the evidence supplied with this statement, referring to page, reference numbers and excerpts where appropriate. My defence is repeated, and I will say as follows:

Sequence of events

1. I confirm that the vehicle was intended to be used to collect two people near Bristol Airport (BA) on 05/06/2025.
   
   

2. One of the passengers phoned me after their plane landed and described the location they wanted to be picked up. They described the dead-end exit of the A38 roundabout just outside Bristol Airport land with the metal spiral sculpture on it.
   
   

3. As I drove up to the A38 roundabout I saw the Highways England roundabout sign stating the first exit is “Bristol Airport” so I made the quick decision to take this exit. Unbeknownst to me at the time this was the wrong exit, and I had now crossed into the hunting ground of the predatory VCS Ltd where they merrily initiate over 1 year of stress and harassment against every person that doesn’t adhere to their arbitrary, conceptually narrow-minded rules.
   
   

4. This would be the first time I ever drove onto Bristol Airport. It was midnight and dark, many lights emanating all around glaring off my windscreen, so my immediate concerns were assessing what lanes there were, ensuring my car was in the correct one, safely passing over the pedestrian crossing and looking out for a roundabout with a dead-end exit as described by my passenger.
   
   

5. I drove up to the first roundabout on North Side Road and saw a dead-end to my left and assumed this was the place described by the passenger in the phone call.
   
   

6. I pulled in, stopped, looked around and saw a sign saying no stopping. At this point I was going to pull away but saw people running towards my car. Realising they were the people I was meant to pick up, I postponed driving away to let them in as it would have been dangerous to pull away in this situation.
   
   

7. After receiving the PCN, I appealed the case directly to VCS and subsequently made multiple complaints to VCS, BA, my MP, and The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan all in an attempt to narrow the issue but all to no avail.
   
   

8. When I appealed the PCN to VCS, VCS subsequently responded with an email letter dated 04/07/2024 (Exhibit 2) stating that:
   
   “We note your comment concerning the use of byelaws at the Airport; as already stated the signs at the entrance to the airport clearly identify the roads as private property and byelaws are not currently in use.”
   
   This statement is not true. Bristol Airport byelaws are in use (Exhibit 3). This makes the airport non-relevant land in the PoFA 2012 Schedule 4 therefore the registered keeper cannot be liable for charges.
   
   

Observations

1. If I had known I would be charged for stopping, I would never have entered the Bristol Airport land because I am poor.
   
   

2. In the Charge Notice, the "period of parking" is stated to be "the period immediately preceding the Time of Event". This is false as the vehicle is not parked. The Charge Notices therefore do not meet the requirements of the PoFA 2012 Schedule 4 paragraph 9 (2) (a) since, without parking, there can be no period of parking. This also constitutes a breach of the International Parking Community (IPC) Code Of Practice (CoP) v8 Schedule 3 (Exhibit 5) and therefore also paragraph 16.1.
   
   

3. As the claimant shows in their Exhibit 2, nearly all of the signs are small and side-on to the road which is completely useless to any motorist, especially in the dark.

Conclusion

The claimant has failed to provide clear evidence that a contract was formed with the landowner. The failure to make the signs visible in the dark and the unlawful nature of the additional charges further invalidate the claimant’s claim. The claimant’s attempt to impose liability for these inflated charges is unsupported by both statutory law and leading case precedents. I ask the court to dismiss the claim.

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

... (signature stuff) ...

Harry96339

Although WS deadline is 24th July, I need to submit by the 22nd because I'm away for a few days.

Harry96339

Result

VCS did not drop the claim and went through with the court hearing. Compared to RRTechie, my friend's position was super weak and we knew we would lose so they decided not to waste their time attending the hearing. They were ordered to pay £284.23.

Thank you everyone for your help especially CouponMad and FruitCake.

Here is the full timeline and documents I sent and received. The whole process took over 1 YEAR 3 MONTHS, I would never go through it again, and would advise anyone who gets a claim from VCS to pay the reduced charge and move on with your life, unless like me you were mostly curious about the small claims process and see it as a low stakes way of experiencing it. Despite that angle on it, it was still stressful:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1L0uSjeaD9KUUoAAOir__3X40Pv-HxxuI?usp=sharing

Despite the newbies thread, VCS via DCBL DON'T always drop claims. This is the third VCS claim now that I've seen go to a court hearing.

Although I was not the defendent, this specific experience with parking enforcement companies made me realise just how predatory they are, and was a contributing factor to me giving up completely on cars. It was a good decision given the particular way I live and it feels good not to pay a penny more to the automotive and parking industries.