DEFENCE HELP: Excel Parking, Brand Street (Hitchin)

Coupon-mad

Sounds like an error. Wait to hear from St Helen's then tell them CNBC allocated the claim to the wrong court.

@ChirpyChicken may have come across this and have further advice.

ChirpyChicken

It appears to be allocated to the claimants court in error @Coupon-mad
Email St Helens court straight away quoting the relevant part of the CPR and advise its been allocated to the wrong court. Ask the court to place this email in with the file when it gets put in front of the district judge for allocation. Possible st Helens have not got the paper work yet.

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