Britannia PCN claim letter - PLEASE HELP

Abbie447

@Coupon-mad I have read through numerous threads and feeling a little overwhelmed and confused! I’m hoping someone can help me further? 

- today (11/12/24) I received a claim form from HM courts and tribunals for an alleged offence of parking on a Britannia car park and not validating my stay back on 20/01/2020! Nearly 5 years ago! Now I have changed cars and moved house since however, this claim letter is the first I am receiving so it’s taken me by surprise! Not only was it nearly 5 years ago the alleged parking offence was on a pub car park of which stated was free parking when using the facilities. (I had clearly missed having to validate my parking inside when ordering food) anyhow, I have been reading my through and had taken a template from a previous thread in 2019 however, I have gone to input it online through www.moneyclaim.gov.uk as advised on the letter but I’m restricted to 122 lines. 

Can someone please advise further on the following template I’ve used and what is needed/what can be removed? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

1. The Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. The Claim relates to an alleged debt arising from the driver's ‘failure to make a valid payment’, when parking on a Greene King restaurant car park on 20/01/2020. Any breach is denied, and it is further denied that there was any agreement to pay the Claimant £170 'parking charge'.

2. The allegation appears to be that the ‘no valid payment was made’ based on images by their ANPR camera at the entrance and exit to the site. This would be merely an image of the vehicle in transit and is no evidence of a contravention or failure to make payment. Furthermore no evidence has been provided to the defendant on this matter. This contravention cannot have occurred, given the facts and evidence.

3. The Defendant has already stated that they were parked in the allocated car park which The Acorn, Bicester ANPR signage states there is no charge for parking, and it is the Claimant's own failure, caused by their deliberately obscure terms and confusing pay and display machinery that catches out far too many victims at this location, that has given rise to a 'PCN' that was not properly issued from the outset.

4. The Defendant had never been issued a PCN for the supposed offence until the posed date of receiving a court letter on 11/12/2024, 4 years and 11 months post the alleged offence.

5. It is admitted that at all material times the Defendant was the registered keeper of vehicle registration mark ******, which is the subject of these proceedings. The vehicle was insured with 3 named drivers permitted to use it.

5.1 It is admitted that on 20/01/2020 the Defendant's vehicle was parked at The Acorn restaurant, Bicester (ANPR) Car Park

5.2 The Parking Charge Notice has been appealed to the Claimant directly upon receiving the claim form. 

5.3 The Defendant's vehicle has parked within a marked bay and with evidence has shown they had dined at the restaurant in question. 

6. Conclusive evidential photographs with timestamp

6.1 The car park in which the Defendant’s vehicle was parked stated a period of dining in which no charge can be levied or required by the landowner or Claimant.

6.2 The Defendant’s vehicle, was in no way contravening private property orders. 

6.3 At no point was the Defendant’s vehicle in the car park during any chargeable period for which the Claimant can seek financial loss or compensation. There had been no breach, and no contract at all.

6.4 The claimant had failed to provide parking evidence to the defendant prior to escalation. 

6.5 The claimant had sent the first notice 4 years and 11 months post the alleged offence. 

7.  ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 ('Beavis') also related to a retail car park, but it is fully distinguished. In the instant case before the court, there was a 'concealed pitfall or trap' in the misleading signs. The doctrine of contra proferentem must be applied in favour of the consumer, where terms are in any way ambiguous in their drafting or display.

7.1. There can be no 'commercial justification' nor legitimate interest in charging drivers who are patrons of the restaurants or retailers, for using the free parking time offered. Further, there was no overstay nor any mischief to deter, nor was there any misuse of a valuable parking space by the Defendant who parked in good faith.

7.2. In addition, there can be no cause of action in a parking charge case without a 'relevant obligation' and/or 'relevant contract' (the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 refers).

8. This Claimant uses ANPR camera systems to process data but fails to comply with the Information Commissioner's 'Data Protection Code of Practice for Surveillance Cameras and Personal Information' (the ICO Code). This is both a specific Data Protection and BPA Code of Practice breach. The Supreme Court Judges in Beavis held that a Code of Practice is effectively 'regulation' for this blatantly rogue industry, full compliance with which is both mandatory and binding upon any parking operator.

8.1. The ICO Code applies to all ANPR systems, and states that the private sector is required to follow it, in order to meet its legal obligations as a data processor. Members of the BPA are required to comply fully with the Data Protection Act (DPA) and all ICO rules and guidelines, as a pre-requisite of being able to use the DVLA KADOE system and in order to enforce parking charges on private land.

8.2. The Claimant's failures to comply include, but are not limited to the following, and the Claimant is put to strict proof otherwise on all counts:

i) Lack of an initial privacy impact assessment, and

ii) Lack of an evaluation of proportionality and necessity, considering concepts that would impact upon fairness under the first data protection principle, and

iii) Failure to regularly evaluate whether it was necessary and proportionate to continue using ANPR, together with a Pay and Display style system as a secondary data processing system at this site, as opposed to a less privacy-intrusive method of parking enforcement, not applying for DVLA data to issue any PCNs to keepers of cars seen on site for less than the 30 minutes/ 2 hours advertised as free.

iv) Failure to consider the number of complaints from the landowner and other businesses, which would have alerted this Claimant to the fact that their ‘Pay and Display / ANPR' and confusing signage was not being seen and/or understood by all genuine patrons and was therefore a wholly inappropriate method of data capture, which was unreliable at best and negligent (or even deliberately misleading) at worst, being the main cause of unfair parking charges against The Acorn patrons, and

v) Failure to prominently inform a driver in large lettering on clear signage, of the purpose of the ANPR system and the Pay & Display system and how the data captured on both would be used, and

vi) Lack of the 'Privacy Notice' required to deliver mandatory information about an individual's right of subject access, under the DPA. At no point has the Defendant been advised how to apply for, and what a data subject's rights are, to obtain all images and data held via a Subject Access Request from the Claimant.

9. This Claimant has therefore failed to meet its legal obligations and has breached principle 1 (at least) of the DPA, as well as the BPA Code of Practice.

10. In a similar instance of DPA failure by excessive and inappropriate use of ANPR cameras - confirmed on this Claimant's Trade Body (BPA) website in a 2013 article urging its members to comply - Hertfordshire Constabulary was issued with an enforcement notice. The force were ordered to stop processing people's information via ANPR until they could comply. The Information Commissioner ruled that the collection of the information was specifically illegal; breaching principle one of the DPA.

 11. The excessive, inappropriate and unjustified use of ANPR alongside a hidden Pay & Display system is both unfair and lacking in transparency for an average consumer relying upon the large lettering offering free parking. As such, this claim must fail.

12. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment in the court in their own name. Even if they hold such authority, the Claimant is put to strict proof that this includes litigation against patrons who stay less than 30 minutes.

Unconscionable and unrecoverable inflation of the 'parking charge'

13. This claim inflates the total to an eye-watering £325.08, in a clear attempt at double recovery. The Defendant trusts that the presiding Judge will recognise this wholly unreasonable conduct as a gross abuse of process and may consider using the court's case management powers to strike the claim out of the court's own volition.

13.1. The acid test is whether the conduct permits of a reasonable explanation, but the Defendant avers it cannot.

13.2. Not only are such costs not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that the Claimant has not incurred legal costs. Given the fact that BW Legal boasted in Bagri v BW Legal Ltd of processing 'millions' of claims with an admin team (and only a handful of solicitors), the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste Britannia robo-claims at all. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent by legally qualified staff on preparing a claim in a legal capacity.

13.3. It was held in the Supreme Court in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage in profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. It is also a fact that debt collection agencies act on a no-win-no-fee basis for parking operators, so no such costs have been incurred in truth. Thus, there can be no 'damages' to pile on top of any parking charge claim, and the Claimant knows this, as do their solicitors. The Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this repeated abuse of consumers rights and remedies, arising from BW Legal clients artificially inflating their robo-claims, which are filed in tens of thousands, per year.

14. The defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts claimed due to the aforementioned reasons. The Court is invited to dismiss the Claim, and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14.

I confirm that the facts in this defence are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MCOL website.

Slow down.

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Can you please show us a picture of the Particulars of Claim - with all your personal detail hidden of course.

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.

Abbie447

As described above this is the letter I had received today 

KeithP

Abbie447 said:

As described above this is the letter I had received today 

OK, can you now please answer the questions in my earlier post?

Abbie447

KeithP said:

Hello and welcome.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MCOL website.

Slow down.

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Can you please show us a picture of the Particulars of Claim - with all your personal detail hidden of course.

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.

Thankyou so much for your fast response 
I will try and attach it now 

Abbie447

For some reason it disappears when I upload 

Abbie447

KeithP said:

Hello and welcome.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MCOL website.

Slow down.

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Can you please show us a picture of the Particulars of Claim - with all your personal detail hidden of course.

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 

Thankyou! - It should have uploaded onto the thread just now! 

I had sent a panic email via ‘resolver’ earlier this evening making a complaint however, that is all I have done so far! 

I have just spent the best part of 4 hours reading through threads on this notice but still left feeling a little confused. 

KeithP

With a Claim Issue Date of 5th December, you have until Tuesday 24th December to file an Acknowledgment of Service, but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an Acknowledgment of Service, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 7th January 2025 to file a Defence.

That's nearly four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service guidance.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that 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

You will be using our detailed (and updated regularly) Template Defence - see the top of the forum, and it is linked in the NEWBIES thread too - which leaves you ONE paragraph to add.

This month I've even started giving people with DCB Legal claims a generic script for that paragraph too! Leaving people literally ONE DATE to change, and your name & claim details added at the top.

Signature and date at the end. Job done.

It is twenty times easier than any appeals system. Done by email. No risk. No cost.

No hearing because they discontinue.

No solicitor nor law knowledge needed.

Dead easy!

We win or see discontinuations 99% of the time. No risk. We are glad you found us.

I hate providing links to threads because it stops people seeing how to hop around and finding & reading threads for themselves. But in the spirit of the Season, here's one showing what to put for para 3:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81139187/#Comment_81139187

That shows you some 'deny the POC' wording to include in your para 3. Just add a line about the circumstances & facts that you know or that it is too long ago to recall so the Claimant must prove their allegations.

And of course use the whole Template Defence but we don't want to be shown it ... please!

Then follow the first 12 steps in the Template Defence thread so that you don't need to ask us (please...) about the DQ questions or the laughable Mediation phone call.

We hope that we are only needed again by Defendants at WS & evidence stage next year. The 'first 12 steps' advice saves us all time.

See you again in several months' time.

Coupon-mad

Please delete that old defence from your first post to stop the risk of new posters copying it.  That old one is very out of date. Please remove most of that post.  It'll also make it easier for us to help you because we might skim-read your thread and think that's your defence when you need us later.

Le_Kirk

Your claim form has personal information on it, please report it and have it taken down.  Malicious person might make a fraudulent claim in your name!