Bay Sentry via DCB Legal, issue date 9th September, POC has pleaded the alleged contravention

Le_Kirk

Both your paragraphs 3.1 & 3.2 appear to be the same or at least very similar.

BeachWalker

Le_Kirk said:

Both your paragraphs 3.1 & 3.2 appear to be the same or at least very similar.

Thanks for input, not sure how to word it and it's been soo long back in 2021 
So you recommend keep it to just 1 paragraph? Is that too little details of a defence?

 I found the thread on new template from coupon mad edited August. So will use that and put into Mcol online 

Coupon-mad

It's this bit that is repetition:

"The defendant had no reason to believe they had overstayed a free parking period as a visitor’s permit was displayed and permission was granted by the flat owner who has an allocated car park space with no time restrictions presented to the defendant."

Remove that repetition and amalgamate your remaining words into a single para 3, which goes into the Template Defence. 

You should also add this INSTEAD of paragraphs 9 & 10 of the Template Defence:


9.  The recent High Court judgment in Mazur and Stuart v Charles Russell Speechlys LLP [2025] EWHC 2341 (KB) underlines the importance of ensuring litigation is carried out by qualified and authorised professionals. It cuts into the heart of bulk litigation and rips it out. In this case, the POC signatory does not appear to be on the SRA list for DCB Legal and the staff drawing up legal documents and attending Court Mediation to negotiate settlements are believed to be paralegals. Even if acting under supervision, this new authority holds that unauthorised staff cannot conduct litigation.

10. That is before even considering the doctrine of champerty in private parking cases, where some of these 'debt recovery' law firms are known to advertise that they 'front' court fees to fuel bulk litigation for commercial profit only when a sum is recovered. If this is the model used here - and the Claimant is put to strict proof to the contrary - paying £ hundreds of thousands in court fees per annum and maintaining boilerplate parking claims with no sign of client (or authorised solicitor) involvement in the cases litigated looks to be contrary to public policy, as well as in breach of DVLA KADOE rules where the parking operator must be the data controller throughout. The arrangement would be unenforceable as a result. In Tactus Holdings Limited (in admin) v Philip Mark Jordan & Ors [2025] EWHC 133 (Comm), the High Court recently handed down an important reminder that, notwithstanding the changing nature of public policy, the rules against champerty and maintenance remain. See also Farrar & Anor v Miller [2022] EWCA Civ 295

11.  With or without a physical Deed of Assignment, claimants cannot assign a bare cause of action and solicitor firms must not engage in arrangements that give them a purely commercial interest in their clients' litigation. This law firm is believed to act on a bulk data exchange 'no-win-no-fee' basis. In view of that and the landmark Speechlys case (where submissions from both the SRA and Law Society were sought and the High Court held that 'supervision' by a solicitor is not sufficient) this parking firm Claimant - NOT the law firm - is put to strict proof that they are involved in all their cases, that their agents' conduct is lawful and that the staff are authorised to conduct litigation. Whilst contingency fee arrangements are not illegal per se, in order to uphold the integrity of the solicitor-client relationship and the role of solicitors as officers of the court, this sort of bulk litigation can and should be disallowed, particularly when the court service is overwhelmed and this industry has been identified by the last two Governments as in 'market failure' (super-profiteering is suggested by the MHCLG in the Summer 2025 Consultation).

12. The court is invited to strike out the claim and grant the Defendant's costs on the indemnity basis due to wholly unreasonable conduct. Although costs do not usually apply in the small claims track (r.38.6(3)), the White Book notes they may be awarded for unreasonable conduct (r.27.14(2)(dg)) including in cases of late discontinuance, if that now occurs.

Coupon-mad

Tell us if all that fits on MCOL (like I say, REPLACING the last 2 paras of the Template Defence). This is new today and you are the first to try to make this all fit!

NB: the hyperlinks won't work as links in MCOL but that's fine. I'll leave them as links in the above post so people can read the cases concerned.

BeachWalker

Coupon-mad said:

Tell us if all that fits on MCOL (like I say, REPLACING the last 2 paras of the Template Defence). This is new today and you are the first to try to make this all fit!

NB: the hyperlinks won't work as links in MCOL but that's fine. I'll leave them as links in the above post so people can read the cases concerned.

Many Thanks for this! 
We have edited our Para 3 and struggling to squeeze all of this into MCOL with the replaced paragraphs.
We had edited our Para 3 to 190 words but this was too big.
We removed as many Empty spaces and blank lines to make room
This left us able to squeeze 75 words in for Para 3 and that just fits.
Not submitted yet thought would update you first 

Coupon-mad

Show us the whole defence.