Leeds/Bradford Airport Parking Charge

Gr1pr

You definitely must login using her government gateway account and she must complete the AOS online with your help and the advice in the newbies sticky thread in announcements 

She must NOT  complete her defence online,  it will be emailed in due course,  deadline will be 4pm on 24th march

LDast

Your defence deadline was yesterday, Monday 10th March. Unless you submitted an AoS, you need to get your defence in ASAP. Had you submitted and AoS by 4pm yesterday, you would then have had until 4pm on Monday 24th March.

However, if the claimant has not yet filed for a default judgment, the MCOL system will still accept a late AoS which will then still give you until the 24th March to file your defence. The key point is that the MCOL system does not automatically reject a late AoS, and if it is accepted, it triggers the extension to the defence deadline in the same way as if it had been timely.

However, the risk is that the claimant could notice the delay and attempt to request default judgment before you file your defence, even if the court has accepted the late AoS.

Coupon-mad

Once an AOS has been done (even late) the D always has the full 33 days to defend.

There cannot be a CCJ once the AOS is in. Not until the defence deadline then expires.

This defence needs to include the usual stuff seen in VCS Airport defences, so search the forum and copy RECENT 2024/25 ones only.

Alumb05

Hi @Coupon-mad

Please can you confirm if the below letter will be sufficient to send via email or if you can suggest any changes?

Also, should i send this email to ClaimResponses.CNBC@justice.gov.uk and not do anything on the Money Claim Website where it states to 'Continue Defence'?

======================

Your ref: 12345678
 
I dispute the 'parking charge', as the keeper of the vehicle. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about their predatory conduct to the client landowner.  

I have researched the PoFA 2012, which I realise does not apply at Leeds/Bradford Airport.  VCS must cancel and erase my data, as I am not the liable party and I decline any request to name the driver. 
 
If they persist in processing my data and in the event of 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 DPA 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. 
 
Regards

====================

Le_Kirk

Is that a defence? Looks rather like an appeal. If is a defence you are trying to write, use the template defence and add the points mentioned by @Coupon-mad

Alumb05

Le_Kirk said:

Is that a defence? Looks rather like an appeal. If is a defence you are trying to write, use the template defence and add the points mentioned by @Coupon-mad

Yeah, it was supposed to be the defence. I tried looking for the template but I guess i found the wrong one. Do you have a link to the defence templates please?

Coupon-mad

Alumb05 said:

Le_Kirk said:

Is that a defence? Looks rather like an appeal. If is a defence you are trying to write, use the template defence and add the points mentioned by @Coupon-mad

Yeah, it was supposed to be the defence. I tried looking for the template but I guess i found the wrong one. Do you have a link to the defence templates please?

Nope but @KeithP might.

Just properly read the SECOND post (not the first post) of the Newbies thread & don't just stop reading the minute you find a reply that isn't relevant to people with a claim form. 

Le_Kirk

Alumb05 said:

Le_Kirk said:

Is that a defence? Looks rather like an appeal. If is a defence you are trying to write, use the template defence and add the points mentioned by @Coupon-mad

Yeah, it was supposed to be the defence. I tried looking for the template but I guess i found the wrong one. Do you have a link to the defence templates please?

The defence template is one of the announcements pinned to the first page of the forum.

Alumb05

Coupon-mad said:

Alumb05 said:

Le_Kirk said:

Is that a defence? Looks rather like an appeal. If is a defence you are trying to write, use the template defence and add the points mentioned by @Coupon-mad

Yeah, it was supposed to be the defence. I tried looking for the template but I guess i found the wrong one. Do you have a link to the defence templates please?

Nope but @KeithP might.

Just properly read the SECOND post (not the first post) of the Newbies thread & don't just stop reading the minute you find a reply that isn't relevant to people with a claim form. 

Sorry everyone, i think i have found it now.  Appreciate your patience.  Here is the Defence, i have just posted the first part on here and highlighted in bold the bits i have added as the rest it just generic i believe.  Please let me know if this seems OK to email across....

Vehicle Control Services Limited 

(Claimant) 

- and - 

************* 

 (Defendant) 

_________________ 
 

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, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the boilerplate text in the Particulars of Claim ('the POC'). 

 

The facts known to the Defendant: 

2. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  Conversely, the Claimant sets out a cut-and-paste incoherent and sparse statement of case. The POC appear to be 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 Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s) and what heads of cost are being pursued, making it difficult to respond. However, the vehicle is recognised and it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper but is not the driver. 

3. The vehicle was at Leeds Braford Airport at the time although the Defendant was not driving the car. The vehicle collected a group of people as they had exited the airport and stopped for approximately 60 seconds as they were in that location with their luggage. The vehicle then proceeded to enter the car park and paid for parking before exiting the car park. so financially, the airport did not lose out on anything!  

Coupon-mad

Alumb05 said:

Claim form

Just adding the claim form for context.

I wouldn't put any of that, which admits stopping where the driver shouldn't for a full minute. Drivers CANNOT stop on double reds on roadways. Was the area double red lines?

That is the right defence but instead of that para 3, add this and then add these detailed paragraphs, as shown below. Then re-number the original para 4 onwards from the template, not removing any of it:

Vehicle Control Services Limited 

(Claimant) 

- and - 

************* 

 (Defendant) 

_________________ 
 

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, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the boilerplate text in the Particulars of Claim ('the POC'). 

The facts known to the Defendant: 

2. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  Conversely, the Claimant sets out a cut-and-paste incoherent and sparse statement of case. The POC appear to be 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 Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s) and what heads of cost are being pursued, making it difficult to respond. However, the vehicle is recognised and it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper but was not the driver. The Claimant knows from their images that the driver was male and cannot be this Defendant.

3. Being legally represented, the Claimant and their supposed 'super-user' bulk litigation monster (DCB Legal) both know, or should know, that the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Schedule 4) limited - not universal -  right to 'keeper liability' does not legally apply at Airports. The signatory has said this case against the keeper is "pursuant to POFA 2012, Schedule 4". The signatory, under a statement of truth, has deliberately or negligently misled the court in the POC about a law that only applies to 'relevant land' which they know full well, Airport roads are not.

4. Whilst the Defendant is the registered keeper, paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied. The Defendant register keeper cannot be held liable and is under no obligation to name the driver in a private 'parking' case, and no adverse inferences can be drawn. Airport land is not 'relevant land' as it is already covered by statutory bylaws and so is specifically excluded from 'keeper liability' under the POFA Schedule 4. As the registered keeper, the Defendant is not legally liable as this Act does not apply on this land. Even if it did, Schedule 4 caps the 'maximum sum that can be recovered from a keeper' at the PCN sum only, not an extortionate £170.

5. This Claimant cannot invoke 'keeper liability' and have simply aimed a speculative claim at a registered keeper which is wholly unreasonable conduct in a case where they know they cannot rely upon the provisions of the POFA. Outwith the POFA Schedule 4, parking firms cannot invoke 'keeper liability'. This legal point has already been tested on appeal (twice) in private parking cases involving this same notorious serial litigating Claimant and their sister ex-wheelclamper firm (Excel Parking). These appeal case transcripts will be adduced in evidence:

5(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.

5.(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 held at 35.1:

"The finding I make is consistent with the underlying purpose of Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act, namely, that it was necessary to bring in keeper liability pursuant to that legislation, because liability could not be established.  If this were not the case car parking companies could simply have obtained the details of the registered keeper, launched proceedings and waited to see whether or not there was a positive defence put forward, and in the absence of a positive defence they would have succeeded. If the court took such an approach, it would have been imposing a duty on the registered keeper, to identify the driver or at least set out a positive case in order to avoid responsibility himself. In my judgment that was not the position before ... [the POFA] ... was in force;  35.2.  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  35.3.  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..."

6.  Mr Edward's appeal succeeded and the Claim was dismissed.  In the extant case, this Claimant has launched 'roboclaim' cut & paste proceedings saying that the Defendant was 'keeper and/or driver' and disingenuously and wholly unreasonably citing the PoFA 2012. They have then waited to see if the registered keeper has the nous to research the POFA and to meaningfully defend, or if they could gain an enhanced quantum default CCJ (as happens in up to 90% of small claims). It's a lucrative gamble with the odds of unjust enrichment heavily weighted in parking operators' favour, but this is plainly an abuse of the court process.  This baseless claim demonstrates precisely the behaviour that HHJ Gargan identified in 35.1. This claim has no basis in law and neither the court nor the Defendant should be troubled with a hearing.

7. Turning to the rest of the woefully inadequate POC: paragraph 1 is denied. The Defendant is not indebted to the Claimant. Paragraph 2 is denied. No PCN was "issued" to the vehicle on the date alleged. The quantum is hugely exaggerated (no PCN can be £170 on private land and keepers - even where liability exists - cannot be pursued for that amount of money) and there were no damages incurred whatsoever. The Claimant is put to strict proof of all of their allegations.


(rest of template renumbered)