Defence Help Needed - DCB Legal/Vehicle Control Services

Le_Kirk

That Notice of allocation does not make sense (I suspect they are using old stock with standard wording).  In one part it states that if you decide not to attend you must inform the court and in another part that it is a trial of a paper determination and you cannot attend!

BTS_mom

Thank you @Le_Kirk . Reading it again it does seem like there is a contradiction and as you say it may be from old stock. I will assume this box is incorrect

Gr1pr

Sounds good to me,  as long as both parties receive it by the court order deadline 

BTS_mom

Dear all,

Please see below my first pass of the WS. 

Any comments welcome.

IN THE COUNTY COURT AT MANCHESTER

CLAIM NUMBER XXXXXXXX

 

I, (NAME), of (ADDRESS), will say as follows:

I make this statement in support of my Defence dated XXXXX. I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.

 

1.                  Introduction

1.1.            I am the Defendant in this claim and the and driver of the vehicle (REGISTRATION) on the date of the alleged incident.

1.2.            This statement sets out the events and circumstances relevant to the parking charge notice (PCN) issued by Vehicle Control Services Limited (the Claimant) concerning an alleged parking contravention at XXXXXX on XX/XX/2024

 

2.                  Circumstances of the Alleged Incident

2.1.            On the date of the alleged incident, I drove onto the XXXXX road car park after finding the hospital car park was full. The car park was equally busy and I was driving round looking for a parking space. I estimate that I was driving round 10 – 12 minutes looking for a parking space. The Claimant’s APNR camera records my vehicle entering the site at 10.56am

2.2.            Upon finding a parking space, I subsequently made payment on the payment machine by card. A copy of the payment ticket is not available however please refer to Exhibit 1 for the extract of my bank payment showing payment of £3.50 to Excel Parking Group on the 05 December 2024. This payment entitles me for two hours parking.

2.3.            After completing my hospital visit, I subsequently left the site. The Claimant’s APNR camera records my vehicle exiting the site at 12:47. Total duration of stay is 1 hour 51 minutes; less than the two hours paid for.

2.4.            As payment was made and due to the Claimant’s POC in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, I am assuming that the Claimant is relying on the latter of “Failure to Purchase the Parking Tarriff for the Registration Mark of the Vehicle on Site and/or Within the Time Allowed” i.e. the 5 minute rule.

 

3.                  Lack of Locus Standi

3.1.            I respectfully refer you to Exhibit 2 which shows a photo of the main signage in entering the site. The entity on the signage is shown as Excel Parking Services Limited whereas the Claim is being pursued by DCB Legal on behalf of Vehicle Control Services Limited and any contract would have been formed by the driver and Excel Parking Services Limited. As per CPR 16.4(1)(a), a claimant must state the capacity in which they bring the claim. The Claimant has failed to establish any contractual relationship with the Defendant.

3.2.            The legal entity is consistent with the recipient shown under Exhibit 1 mentioned in paragraph 2.2 above. Notwithstanding this, I am providing a Witness Statement as if Excel Parking Services is the Claimant however this cannot be taken as I have accepted the Claimant as party to any purported contract being in place. If any contract existed, it was between the driver and Excel, not VCS, and therefore VCS lacks standing to bring the claim.

3.3.            There is no consideration in the Claimant's contract for charging on entry to a car park where no land in order to park the car is available. Nothing of value is being offered and the contract does not have all the aspects required to be enforceable. The site is clearly labelled as a car park, and not a plot of land for hire. If the Claimant is relying on the contract to be affected ‘On Entry’ (which would mean the driver would be expected to circulate for 9mins 30, exit and re-enter to reset the clock if there were no spaces).

3.4.            However, there is no consideration when payment can only be made for parking after the car is parked and the payment is for permission to park a car for a set time period, not for hiring the entire area to drive around. A person cannot pay by leaning out of the window and find a space afterwards.

 

4.                  Recent Cases of the ‘5 minute’ Rule

4.1.            I accept that the time of me entering the car park, driving in finding a space and up to payment is more than 5 minutes however I believe the time of 10-12 minutes is not unreasonably long. Factoring in Excel’s 10 minute consideration period with my overall stay, the International Parking Community (IPC)’s grace period of 10 minutes which Excel/VCS is a member, the overall duration is still less than the 2 hours paid for. I believe Excel/VCS are unreasonable in pursuing in this regard.

4.2.            The Claimant remains intent on pursuing the case despite rulings against the unreasonableness of this, most recently in the case of Ms Hannah Robinson https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce83n7j7p6po whereby the district judge have ruled against Excel Parking Services in the case and it’s subsequent appeal.

 

5.                  Inadequate Signage

5.1.            Exhibit 2 shows the signage which was located on the passenger side and will be obscured by the car roof when viewed from the driver’s side therefore cannot be read in full.

5.2.            A driver will also be expected to drive into the site, find a parking space, park up (which was impossible in the Claimant’s case), read the full terms and conditions (which was not shown on the main signage) and subsequently make a decision if whether to park or not.

5.3.            The Claimant may seek to rely on the Supreme Court case of ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67. However, I submit that the facts of this case differ significantly. In Beavis, the Court upheld the parking charge only because the contractual terms were clearly displayed on large, prominent signage, and because there was a legitimate interest in ensuring turnover of parking spaces in a free retail car park. By contrast, in the present case, the signage was inadequate, obscured, and confusing. Further, I had paid in full for the period of parking, and my vehicle did not overstay the paid time. Therefore, the legitimate interest justification central to Beavis does not apply, and the circumstances here fall outside of the ratio of that decision.

 

6.                  Breach of PD16.4 (2)

6.1.            The Claimant is claiming interest of £3.60 calculated at 8% p.a. at a daily rate of £0.03

6.2.            Applying simple or compound interest to the sum of £170 from the 12/12/24 (PCN date) to 02/04/25; does not equate to the £3.60 sum sought by the Claimant.

6.3.            Applying the rate of £0.03 to the period does not equate to the sum sought by the Claimant either.

6.4.            Therefore the Claimant is claiming a specific monetary amount of interest and therefore the Claimant is in breach of 16.4(2)(b)(1),(ii),(iii) and (iv), since the Claimant has failed to state the date from which and to which it is calculated and have failed to explicitly state the total amount of interest claimed to the date of calculation.

6.5.            The Claimant has therefore failed to properly particularise the interest claim as required by CPR 16.4(2)(b). This is a further procedural defect that renders the claim defective

 

7.                  Conclusion

7.1.            The Claimant, a separate company to the entity shown on signage, has no standing to pursue this matter. The claim is a standardised and inadequately particularised claim which lacks merit. For the reasons outlined in my Defence and further elaborated in this Witness Statement, I respectfully submit that the Claimant's claim has no merit and should be dismissed in its entirety.

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true and 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.

Coupon-mad

I think change the paragraph numbers to normal sequential numbers. I also spotted a typo, because

affected ‘On Entry’

should read

effected ‘On Entry’.

Also, you should have more to say about this:

"Applying simple or compound interest to the sum of £170 from the 12/12/24 (PCN date)"

... because £170 cannot have been overdue on the PCN date! The fake £70 'fee' (that DJ Iyer will never allow them to have, BTW) wasn't even added until at least a month later.

You could also add this at the end instead of your conclusion (again all paragraphs need a number, except the Statement of truth):

Given this is to be a hearing 'on the papers' and as such, there will be a written judgment in my case which the Claimants will read, I respectfully ask the learned judge to comment as to whether this Claimant and/or their legal representatives are sailing close to contempt of court or other sanctions to prevent further cases like this from taking up court time in future.

I have identified two potentially improper litigation issues where this Claimant and this legal representative persist with unfair conduct which repeatedly disrupts and wastes court time and prejudices hundreds of thousands of defendants like me: 

(i). Research has revealed that DCB Legal claim forms in 2025 are invariably e-signed by Sarah Ensall, who does not appear to be authorised to conduct litigation. The recent High Court ruling in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2023] EWHC 523 (Ch) held that, under the Legal Services Act 2007 it is unlawful for an unqualified staff member to conduct litigation, even if supervised by a solicitor. In my case, it is clear that there has been little or no involvement by a solicitor at any stage, so that (unlike in the Mazur case) actual prejudice has been suffered. This is apparent because in April 2025, my defence stated that "The Claim is made in the name of Vehicle Control Services Ltd. (Company No. 02498820), whereas the signage displayed at the location in question was, and is, in the name of Excel Parking Services Ltd. (Company No. 02878122), a separate legal entity". Yet I am now having to repeat this fact six months later in this witness statement, which has taken me hours to research and complete. I am indisputably prejudiced by the Claimant persisting with this claim and this is much bigger picture than a 'one-off' hopeless case. The Claimants have had ample time to review this fatal error and discontinue but I believe no professional solicitor with conduct of the case would have ignored such a fundamental point of contract law. I am far from the only affected consumer and I do not believe that a solicitor is personally overseeing each and every DCB Legal case, given that I understand they bulk-file well over 100,000 boilerplate parking claims per annum, c90% of which result in default CCJs;

(ii). This Claimant persists in pursuing countless outstanding '5 minute rule' cases, despite knowing that these cases were identified as inherently unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in a judgment that Excel tried but failed to appeal this year. At the initial hearing at Middlesbrough County Court, Miss Robinson was defended by barrister Seth Kitson, who successfully argued the PCNs were unenforceable because Excel had no legitimate interest in forcing its users to pay within five minutes. He also said the five-minute payment rule was "inherently preposterous" and an unfair contract term under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. District Judge Janine Richards agreed and dismissed Excel Parking's original claim for two PCNs, and also its application to amend the claim to pursue 11 PCNs. She found Excel's "conduct in relation to this litigation was both unreasonable and out of the norm", and therefore ordered the firm to pay the winning party's legal costs of £10,240. Miss Robinson had free legal representation, so the judge made a pro bono costs order, meaning Excel Parking had to pay the money to charity (the Access to Justice Foundation). Excel applied for permission to appeal against the costs, and a further court hearing was then held, but permission was refused by His Honour Judge David Robinson BEM.

So clear was the breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that even the self-serving trade bodies both agreed to impose an immediate ban on '5 minute rule' cases, with the International Parking Community even promising on BBC TV that any older cases would not be pursued (these would be "picked up and cancelled when disputed"). It is clear that this is just not happening in practice, in cases like mine - I had already tried and failed with what I now know was an utterly futile and non-impartial 'appeal' - so people like me are left completely unprotected against this meritless churn of unchecked litigation.

I ask the learned Judge to consider how Excel Parking and/or DCB Legal can be stopped from spending the next five years continuing to litigate '5 minute rule' cases that occurred prior to February 2025, which this Claimant's witness (despite his LinkedIn profile boasting that he is a 'Legal Executive/Consultant with a Diploma in Law and Practice (CILEx) Law, 2010 - 2012) appears in his statement to think are still fair game. However, the date of the industry ban on new cases is surely irrelevant and this particular Claimant is on notice already that the Middlesbrough judgment was correct, due to the appeal decision by His Honour Judge David Robinson BEM which brought to an end a series of hearings where both parties were legally represented, so the relevant law was tested throughly. In any event, the Consumer Rights Act has been law for a decade (i.e. it is not new) and s71 imposes a duty on the courts to carry out a test of fairness. I hope it is in order that I kindly ask the learned judge to consider commenting in his written judgment, on whether it can it be right and in keeping with the Overriding Objective that litigants in person continue to suffer default CCJs from '5 minute rule' cases or are paying up out of fear, or - like me - face months of anxiety, sleep deprivation and daily life disruption in having fight these unfair claims on a case-by-case basis. This Claimant continues to ignore the judgments against them and expects busy judges up and down the country to shoulder the burden of determining these sort of cases consistently and fairly on the exact same point of consumer law, time and again, when the Claimant and DCB Legal know (or should be expected to know) that '5 minute rule' PCNs are unfair and unrecoverable.

Conclusion and costs

In summary, the Claimant has failed to prove their case. They have not demonstrated the legal standing to bring this claim; the signage is not in their name and the alleged contractual term is unfair and impossible to perform; their additional charges are an unfair penalty and their interest is improperly calculated and based on the whole exaggerated £170 from day one. For these reasons, I respectfully request that the claim be dismissed in its entirety and my costs be granted with a written judgment or order even if the Claimant discontinues now.

This claim is an utter waste of court resources and it is an indication of systemic abuse that parking cases now make up a third of all small claims. False fees fuel bulk litigation that has overburdened HMCTS. The most common outcome of defended DCB Legal roboclaim cases is very late discontinuance, making Claimants liable for costs (r.38.6(1)). Whilst this does not 'normally' apply to the small claims track (r.38.6(3)) the White Book has this annotation: 'Note that the normal rule as to costs does not apply if a claimant in a case allocated to the small claims track serves a notice of discontinuance although it might be contended that costs should be awarded if a party has behaved unreasonably (r.27.14(2)(dg))'. I say they have acted wholly unreasonably and out of the norm.

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.

Signed: _________________________

Date:

Coupon-mad

I've written the above assuming you already have their WS, written by JB. Am I right?

And you should submit a signed & dated costs sheet (no statement of truth, it's just a signed list of your hours spent on each stage of this litigation since April).

At £19 per hour.

...Except:

If you can prove you earn more than £19 per hour in your job (which you have been diverted from due to this crap) you can attach that proof and ask for more than £19ph,

and be aware too:

The litigant in person (LiP) rate was £19 per hour but this rate was increased to £24 per hour for time spent on cases from October 1, 2025. For work done before this date, the £19 per hour rate applied. Litigants in person can claim this fixed rate for time spent on their case if the other side has acted wholly unreasonably, which is a term you should use.

BTS_mom

Thank you @Coupon-mad for responding so quickly and late into the early morning as well!

A few queries if that's OK:

• I do not yet have their WS
• I am a 'stay at home mom' therefore will struggle to demonstrate cost/loss. Do I still apply the £19/hr rate?
• Does the schedule of cost (if it's accepted that I can claim) form another Exhibit?

The POC was indeed signed by Sarah Ensall.

After this I'll update the WS to include your comments above and re-post it.

Thank you again!

Coupon-mad

Costs are not an exhibit.

Yes you can ask for £19 per hour by breaking down each stage and listing minimal hours that a reasonable judge might just grant.

I think you'll get a WS from Jake, close to the deadline but if not you'll have to remove all mention of him.

BTS_mom

Good morning all.

I've just been served the Notice of Discontinuance by email yesterday. Half of me is relieved but the half angry that this did not go in front of the judge, especially with all your help on my case so far. I am dissapointed that the judge will not be able to read @Coupon-mad 's conclusion added to my WS.

Regardless, thank you everyone for your input and I would not have been successful in getting a NoD without your help. 

Car1980

Are you going to press for costs?

Unusual for a VCS Discontinuance. Maybe Manchester CC worried them?