G24 & DCBL - Parked Outside Marked Bay - Aug 2019 - Defense

TheCornishRambler

Good morning all. 

I'm looking for advice on which approach to take to defend a parking ticket from 2019, which I have now received a Claim letter for.

The story so far is:
Wife parked the car, of which I am the registered keeper, over the white lines of a Dunelm Mill car park run by G24. This resulted in me (not the driver, but registered keeper) receiving a PCN (as best I can remember) asking to pay up or name the driver. 

I didn't give the name of the driver and i didn't pay up, but we did attempt to submit an appeal which we (incorrectly) sent by tracked royal mail, which was refused delivery (or similar). 

Assuming that G24 or whomever it was we sent the reply to (it was a long time ago), wasn't interested in actual justice, I decided to not give the driver details (don't think I could for GDPR reasons, what would be the legal basis without me knowing the T&C's of the car park). I've looked at the PCN and believe it is POFA 2012 compliant ( I checked on here, I think the wording and dates are right).

The followed the usual letters from bailiffs threatening CCJ's etc. but all went quite and we assumed they'd got bored and had given up. We then moved house without informing DCBL or G24, as we assumed they'd gone away. But they found the new address from a search of the registered keeper. I have since checked that they (G24 and DCBL) only have my new address. 
 
The Issue date of the claim form is 21/05/2024. I completed ack of service on 23rd (which is too soon, but I had time so i did it).

The Particulars of Claim are:
1. The Defendata (D) is indebted to the Claiment (C) for a Parking Charge(s) (PC) issued to vehicle XX##XXX at Huddersfield Retail Park Huddersfield HD1 5DG.
2. The date of the contravention is 01/08/2019 and the D was issued with PC(s) by the Claimant (can they do that without knowing who the driver is?)
3. The Defendant is pursued as th the driver of the vehicle for breach of terms on the signs (the contract). Reason:Parked Outside A Marked Bay
4. in the alternative the Defendant is pursued  the kepper pursuant to POFA 2012, Schedule 4.
AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS
1. £170 being the total of the PC(s) and damages.
2. Interest at a rate of 8% per annum pursuant to s.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 from the date hereof at a daily rate of £.01 until judgment or sooner payment.
3. Costs and court fees.

I'm now using the template defence to submit some sort of defence. But I'm stuck with deciding which defence approach to take.

a) something along the lines of it being so long ago the defendent can't remember any detail.
b) the contents of our origial appeal (lone mum, 6month old baby, no parent/child parking, car park spaces too short to park family estate in and safely retrieve pram from boot, parking signs not accesible or clear, man in bushes causing safety concern to mun  now thought to be parking enforcement with camera.


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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.

3. Referring to the POC: paragraph 1 is denied. The Defendant is not indebted to the Claimant. Paragraph 2 is denied. The Defendant does not accept that a contravention occurred on 01/08/2019, as alleged. Whilst the Defendant is the registered keeper, paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied. The Defendant is not liable and has seen no evidence of a breach of prominent terms. The quantum is hugely exaggerated (no PCN can be £170 on private land) and there were no damages incurred whatsoever.

The next paragraph is what I need to decide on.

3.1 Due to the length of time, the Defendant has no recollection of the day in question...........[find good example defences of this]

OR

3.1 The defendant disputes the charge on the basis that it wasn’t possible or safe for the driver to be informed of or comply with any parking terms & conditions which may have been inplace at the time….for the following reasons [which I'll write out full and not bullet point]:

·        Driver had 5 month old child and parked in such a way as to get safe access to boot to remove a pram and transfer child into pram on her own.

·        Car is family estate and doesn’t actually fit within the spaces, without boot being in carpark road. Which would not have been safe to get a pram out in.

- There was no parent and child parking at this site to facilite this. So parking this way was the safest alternative.

·        Attempt to park was rushed due to presence on man in bushes in empty car park, close to closing time. This is now thought to be the parking enforcement officer waiting to take photos of bad parking. But could have just as easily offered advice in light of situation.

·        Sign posting for parking conditions not easily found or read, if it was present at all. ( ANPR now installed which presumable has different signs.)

·        Driver didn’t feel safe enough to get out to read sign, whilst leaving child in car, whilst a man was lurking in the bushes and instead parked as safely as possible and rushed into store. 

·        PCN received by registered keeper (not the driver) but no information provided as to what the parking conditions at the site were, other than ‘Parked Outside A Marked Bay’. Keeper unable to release details of driver without legal reason (GDPR), which was not provided (Not sure if there is wording to phrase this properly)

·        Appeal was submitted at the time, but refused delivery (we used royal mail tracked, which I now no is a mistake).

·        As the Appeal wasn’t even allowed to be delivered I assumed the company was a sham company and I didn’t feel comfortable providing the drivers details without sufficient reason (e.g. what the term and conditions of parking were).

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Thoughts?

Reading other threads I think my best bet is to hope to negotiate reduced costs at mediation. However, I don't think my wife's parking was unreasonable considering the circumstances and do resent having to pay anything for safe parking in a dodgy situation, but I'm not sure any of that stacks up legally. Perhaps the defence relating to the length of time is better?

I also don't have the greatest amount of time to dedicate to this. I'm refusing to pay on principle, but if this were a financial decision the cheapest thing for me to do would have been to pay up initially and spend the time earning more money instead of pursuing this.

But I don't want to let the buggers get away with it. It's too easy for them to land a £60 charge on your doorstep and expect you to pay it. 

Gr1pr

If G24 failed to comply with Pofa2012 , then you have no liability as keeper,  regardless of what the driver did or did not do.

But 

Do not lie,  so if you were the registered keeper but not the driver,  your 2 says so 

So no embellishments,  no stories,  either you have liability as keeper,  if Pofa was followed,  or you dont,  assuming that your statement of not being the driver is true  ?

Stick to rebutting the POC,  not reinventing the wheel,  so check if the NTK PCN letter complied with POFA,  or failed to comply 

TheCornishRambler

I believe that the NTK PCN letter was POFA compliant. I checked this a month or so ago by comparing the NTK wording I received with the POFA examples on here. I'm unable to recheck at the moment as the paperwork is at home and I'm not back there until Saturday.

Coupon-mad

Show us the POC when you can. Standard Template Defence will be used (read literally any G24 DCB claim thread).

KeithP

Coupon-mad said:

Show us the POC when you can.

They're in the opening post.   

TheCornishRambler

I'm back home now so can see the original PCN. 

I've rechecked it's POFA compliance(ness). The only thing I can find is some poor wording in comparison to Paragraph 9 of the POFA 2012 schedule.

"(ii) we do not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver, we have the right to recovery the unpaid Parking Charge from you, the registered keeper"

Does this poor wording amount to POFA non-compliance? I think it should read '.....right to recover....'.

TheCornishRambler

For paragraph 2 and 3.

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.

3. Referring to the POC: paragraph 1 is denied. The Defendant is not indebted to the Claimant. Paragraph 2 is denied. The Defendant does not accept that a contravention occurred on 01/08/2019, as alleged. Whilst the Defendant is the registered keeper, paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied. The Defendant is not liable and has seen no evidence of a breach of prominent terms. The quantum is hugely exaggerated (no PCN can be £170 on private land) and there were no damages incurred whatsoever.

3.1 The defendant disputes the charge on the basis that the driver was not informed or able to comply with any parking terms & conditions.

3.2 The driver parked the vehicle in the safest way possible given the design of the car park and circumstances.

3.2 Thd defendant appealed the Parking Charge Notice at the time with both the store and claiment but the appeal was not acknowledged. 

Gr1pr

An excellent start 

Post redacted pictures of both sides of the NTK PCN letter , leaving the dates etc showing,  no personal information,  no vrm details,  no reference number,  no QR codes if present etc

I dont believe that G24 issued POFA compliant notices 6 years ago,  in which case you might need a paragraph 3.1 about no keeper liability etc, renumbering the rest  ( which are incorrectly numbered anyway,  plus have spelling mistakes too  )

Coupon-mad

I think these facts are better than your 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 EXCEPT do not ever say that "parking was rushed"!

Driver had 5 month old child and parked in such a way as to get safe access to boot to remove a pram and transfer child into pram on her own.
·        Car is family estate and doesn’t actually fit within the spaces, without boot being in carpark road. Which would not have been safe to get a pram out in.
- There was no parent and child parking at this site to facilite this. So parking this way was the safest alternative.
·        Attempt to park was rushed due to presence on man in bushes in empty car park, close to closing time. This is now thought to be the parking enforcement officer waiting to take photos of bad parking. But could have just as easily offered advice in light of situation.
·        Sign posting for parking conditions not easily found or read, if it was present at all.

Car1980

I'd add that you expect the claimant to submit an additional witness statement from their employee.

TheCornishRambler

Thanks all for the comments so far. I'll attempt to make the improvements suggested.  

Below is the original NTK PCN.

You can see that my wife actually went down to measure the length of the parking space and found that it is 4.65m, whereas our car is 4.95m. But I'm not sure if that helps or hinders my defence.