Rang DCB legal before I read the Newbies thread about £170 PCN - am I doomed?

greensmoke85

Hello. Hope everyone is ok. I’m now at the particulars of claim stage (DCB have sent it via email to me and court). Am I correct in thinking I await court guidance on my defence or is it advisable to prepare something now? Thanks as ever for everyone’s help on this 

kryten3000

Unless the Particulars were deemed to be inadequate by the court and DCB Legal were ordered to produce better ones, there's no such stage.

With updated particulars you should be able to re-submit a new defence that addresses the points listed but you get no guidance from the court.

Perhaps you could post up a redacted version of what you have received so we can see what is going on.

greensmoke85

Here is the Amended poc DCB have emailed to me/ the court. Before this there was a letter from the court to say they had instructed DCB to do this. 

To recap, I wasn’t the driver at the time. The car was parked a hotel where the driver was a paying guest and therefore parking was free. He didn’t register the car with the hotel because he wasn’t instructed to. I didn’t hear about this until it had got to DCB legal stage because the correspondence was sent to a previous address. 

Duke1999

That looks like a cut and pasted job from Scott Wilsons witness statement.

Le_Kirk

kryten3000 said:

Unless the Particulars were deemed to be inadequate by the court and DCB Legal were ordered to produce better ones, there's no such stage.

With updated particulars you should be able to re-submit a new defence that addresses the points listed but you get no guidance from the court.

Perhaps you could post up a redacted version of what you have received so we can see what is going on.

Agree with @kryten3000; you should be able to submit an "amended defence" not a new one, so take your original defence and amend it by striking out what you don't want in there and adding anything new that counters what the claimant put in their amended POC.  Normally you would have received a copy of the judge's order that required the claimant to submit the amended POC and it would have stated that you should/can submit your amended defence. 

greensmoke85

Hi thanks all. I did get that letter that had the judges order - apols for not explaining that, I thought it was standard procedure. 

Is it worth me amending my defence at this point? I don’t feel like they’re saying anything new but maybe I am missing something. My defence is the template defence from the forum with the relevant bits amended (keeper not driver etc) and a new clause stating it was legitimate parking as the driver was a paying guest at the hotel, and that the correspondence was not received as it was sent to the wrong address. 

Le_Kirk

I see in their "amended" particulars of claim at #5, they are still using "vehicle remained on private property in breach of the prominently displayed terms and conditions" which is why the judge threw them out in the first place, however they do go on to state that the contract that you entered into allowed two hours free parking.  You need to make more of (unless you did in your original defence) that you were a paying guest at the hotel and that overrode their "two hours free" condition and evidence will be supplied at witness statement stage.