DCB LEGAL SPS Witness Stage

MrJenkinsEsq

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82130934#Comment_82130934

So you saw someone ticketing or preparing to ticket you and took your own photos then shared your photos on here by taking photos with a tablet of your phone displaying your photos? Meaning, there's a mix of both your photos and the claimant's photos all taken at roughly the same time?

I couldn't tell you how strong a case is but there are legal bases on which to defend.

I'm at work at the moment but I should have some time later when I'm home to write something up.

James_Poisson

"I have received some emails asking me to negotiate….."

That usually shows they are wobbling, they would not negotiate if they thought they had it sewn up, they are greedy and go for the maximum not a compromise.

MrJenkinsEsq

IN THE COUNTY COURT AT [COURT]

Claim No. [CLAIM NUMBER]

BETWEEN:

SECURE PARKING SOLUTIONS LIMITED
Claimant

and

[NAME]
Defendant

DEFENDANT'S SKELETON ARGUMENT

Preliminary

1. This skeleton addresses the issues identified in section A below. It is not a substitute for the Defence and does not narrow it. Every denial and every point taken in the Defence as filed remains in issue and is relied upon, whether or not it is developed here, and the Claimant remains put to proof of each element of its claim on which it bears the burden. Nothing in this skeleton is to be read as an admission of any fact or allegation not expressly admitted in the Defence.

2. The Claimant pursues the Defendant "as the driver of the vehicle for breach of the terms on the signs (the contract)" (Particulars, para 3), with keeper liability under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in the alternative (para 4), and claims £170 "being the total of the PC and damages" with interest from the date of the claim. The Defence denies any contract (para 4) and, in the alternative, any breach (para 3). This skeleton is the legal argument on those denials. It relies only on the pleaded facts, the witness statement, and the Claimant's own sign and Notice to Keeper.

3. The Claimant must prove offer, acceptance and terms. Explaining why its own document does not do so is argument on a pleaded denial, not a new case.

4. If the court disagrees, the Defendant asks for permission under CPR 17.1(2)(b) to add to Defence para 4: "and in any event the sign offered nothing to a driver outside the classes it permits to park". No further evidence is needed, the Claimant has had the sign throughout, and CPR 27.8(1) allows any fair method of proceeding.

Summary

5. In ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 the sign offered every motorist two hours free and said non-compliance "will result in a Parking Charge of £85"; the motorist had "a contractual licence to park ... on the terms of the notice ..., which he accepted by entering the site" (para 94). This sign says "PARKING IS PERMITTED FOR" pre-authorised and permit vehicles, "No parking allowed without their authorisation" and "No parking on ... access road". To anyone else it offers nothing: no licence, no period, no terms.

(a) A contract needs an offer that the other party can accept, and this sign made none to a driver outside those classes, which is what the Claimant says this driver was. The sentence saying such a driver "agree[s]" to pay £100 does not supply one: it attaches a sum to the very act the sign forbids, and a promise to pay for doing what one is told not to do, in return for nothing, is not a contract.

(b) The Defendant's primary case is therefore that no contract was formed at all. If the vehicle should not have been there, that was a trespass against the landowner. The Claimant is not the landowner and pleads no right to sue in trespass, and the damages for ten minutes at a junction would in any event be nominal.

6. On 30 August 2025 the vehicle stood for 9 minutes 38 seconds (the Claimant's observation, 18:50:30 to 19:00:08) at the side of the access road to Spiral Mews, Coleshill Street, Fazeley, at its junction with the public road, short of the car park. The Claimant's own photograph on its Notice to Keeper, timed 18:50:38, shows the corner: a small sign high on the building reading "Parking Regulations Apply", and no terms sign. A sign above the garage doors reads "RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY". Neither states a term or a charge. The terms sign is on the wall some ten feet or more beyond where the vehicle stopped, which the vehicle never passed, and the Claimant's own photographs show a white van parked in front of it.

A. Issues

7. The issues are:

(1) Did the sign make any offer to a driver outside the classes it permits to park, which is the Claimant's own case against this driver?

(2) Does the sentence "BY PARKING OR REMAINING ON THIS LAND OTHERWISE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS LISTED BELOW, YOU, THE DRIVER ARE ENTERING INTO A PARKING CONTRACT, AND AGREE TO PAY" create a contract to pay £100?

(3) Were the terms displayed where the vehicle stopped?

(4) Was the vehicle on land the Claimant manages?

(5) Are the £70 and interest recoverable?

(6) Is £100 proportionate to any legitimate interest?

B. Approach

8. A public notice is read as "an ordinary person would understand" it (Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256, Bowen LJ), and nothing is read into it that the author did not write ("no such clause can be read into it", A L Smith LJ); its background is what the public knows, not what the author knows (Chartbrook Ltd v Persimmon Homes Ltd [2009] UKHL 38 at [40]; Arnold v Britton [2015] UKSC 36 at [21]). Those cases concerned an advertisement and commercial documents; the rule is general, and a sign is a written offer to the public if it is anything.

9. The sign is a consumer notice (Consumer Rights Act 2015 s61(4), (6), (8)). It must be "expressed in plain and intelligible language and ... legible" (s68(2)); where it "could have different meanings, the meaning that is most favourable to the consumer is to prevail" (s69(1)).

10. Notice required depends on the term: "How much is required ... depends upon the nature of the restrictive condition" (Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking Ltd [1971] 2 QB 163, Megaw LJ); a condition "so wide and so destructive of rights" binds only if "drawn to his attention in the most explicit way" (Lord Denning MR); Interfoto Picture Library Ltd v Stiletto Visual Programmes Ltd [1989] QB 433.

11. The order of analysis is therefore: what did the sign offer and demand (sections C and D); and was it displayed so as to bind (section E).

C. Issue 1: no offer to a driver outside the permitted classes

12. The sign reads: "PARKING IS PERMITTED FOR: PRE-AUTHORISED VEHICLES; VEHICLES DISPLAYING A VALID PERMIT." Its first listed term is "No parking allowed without their authorisation." Its last is "No parking on ... access road".

13. To a driver outside those classes the sign says one thing: do not park. That is the driver the Claimant says it is suing: its Notice to Keeper gives the reason for the charge as "Unauthorised Vehicle".

14. A contract needs an offer. In Beavis the offer was a licence on conditions and the consideration was "the grant of permission to park for up to two hours ... on conditions. Each party thus gave the other valuable consideration" (Lord Mance, para 190). In Vehicle Control Services Ltd v HMRC [2013] EWCA Civ 186 the offer was the permit terms (para 25) and the case was "not concerned with 'pure' trespassers" (para 24). The BPA Code says: "If they park without your permission this will usually be an act of trespass" (AOS Code v9, cl 19.1); the Single Code classes land where only residents or permit holders are invited as a "Restricted area" (cl 2.10).

15. On the Claimant's own case it gave this driver nothing and forbade the parking. There was no licence to accept by conduct. On the Claimant's own sign the vehicle was a trespasser as against the landowner, not a party to a contract with the Claimant.

16. Trespass is the claim of the party entitled to possession. The Claimant pleads neither possession nor any contractual right to sue in trespass and has produced no landowner agreement. In Beavis ParkingEye "could not recover damages, unless it was in possession" (para 97) and "was not in possession of the car park, or capable of bringing proceedings in trespass" (para 190). A licensee may sue in trespass only to vindicate rights it actually holds under its contract with the landowner (VCS paras 32 to 44), and an operator that sets and keeps its own charges is an independent contractor, not the landowner's agent (paras 27 to 30). The Claimant's Code requires it to hold the landowner's written confirmation of the boundary and of the permissions it enforces (Single Code cl 14.1(a), (b), (d), (e)).

17. Even in trespass, damages are "limited to the market value of the occupation during the period of trespass" (ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] EWCA Civ 402, Sir Timothy Lloyd at [50]): under ten minutes at the mouth of an access road, no obstruction alleged, value nil. Lord Mance: it is "not clear ... on what basis, other than contractual, the driver of a vehicle can incur any obligation to pay a sum in the nature of damages as a result of a trespass ..., however much notice was given" (Beavis para 192).

D. Issue 2: the sentence creates no contract to pay

18. The Claimant relies on the sentence in capitals: by parking "OTHERWISE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TERMS LISTED BELOW", the driver "AGREE[S] TO PAY" £100. A word is missing; the Claimant means "otherwise than in accordance with". Read that way, the sentence says: if you park in breach of the terms, you agree to pay £100.

19. Even so read, it creates no contract with a driver in the position the Claimant alleges, for three reasons.

(a) A contract requires each side to give the other something. In Beavis the operator gave two hours of parking, and the motorist in return agreed to the conditions and to pay if he broke them (para 190). Here the terms say "No parking allowed without their authorisation": the Claimant offered such a driver nothing.

(b) Agreement by conduct works only where the conduct is the acceptance of an offer (Thornton). Parking without authorisation is the act the sign prohibits; it cannot at the same time be acceptance of an offer to park. The sentence tries to have it both ways: parking is not allowed, and by parking the driver has made a bargain.

(c) Applied to such a driver the sentence leaves a single term: pay £100 for doing what the sign forbids. That is a fine attached to a prohibition, not a bargain.

20. Two further points arise from the drafting.

(a) A consumer notice that has to be rewritten before it can be understood is not "expressed in plain and intelligible language" (Consumer Rights Act 2015 s68(2)).

(b) The Claimant, which chose the words, is held to them (Arnold v Britton [2015] UKSC 36 at [17]).

21. In substance, therefore, this is not the "contractual licence to park ... on the terms of the notice" of Beavis para 94. It is a fixed sum attached to a trespass and labelled a contract, and classification "depends on the substance of the term and not on its form or on the label which the parties have chosen to attach to it" (Beavis, joint judgment, para 15).

22. If the Claimant says the sign offers unauthorised parking at a price of £100 (a "conditional primary obligation", para 14; Moore-Bick LJ in the Court of Appeal at [23] to [24]), the sign says parking is "not allowed" without authorisation. A notice cannot forbid an act and sell it. If it does both, s69(1) chooses the prohibition; and a price escapes the fairness test only if "transparent and prominent" (s64(2)), which a sentence needing rewriting is not.

23. Acceptance by conduct needs an offer and prior notice of its terms: "bound by those terms as long as they are sufficiently brought to his notice before-hand, but not otherwise" (Thornton, Lord Denning MR). There was no offer to a driver in the position the Claimant alleges (section C) and no terms where the vehicle stopped (section E).

E. Issue 3: the terms were not displayed where the vehicle stopped

24. The Claimant's own 18:50:38 photograph shows the vehicle at the corner of the building with a small high sign reading "Parking Regulations Apply" and no terms sign. The sign above the garage doors at that corner reads "RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY". The terms sign is on the wall some ten feet or more beyond the point where the vehicle stopped; the vehicle never passed it, and the Claimant's own photographs show a white van parked in front of it.

25. "Parking Regulations Apply" is notice that rules exist, not of a £100 liability to an unnamed company. Lord Denning MR: "It is no use telling the customer that the ticket is issued subject to some 'conditions' or other, without more; for he may reasonably regard 'conditions' in general as merely regulatory, and not as taking away his rights, unless the exempting condition is drawn specifically to his attention" (Thornton). "RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY" is the landowner's prohibition; it states no charge and names no operator.

26. The burden is on the party relying on the notice. Notices bind when "posted where they are bound to be seen ... [and] of a type which the car driver would be bound to have read" (Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] EWCA Civ 106, Roch LJ); "the onus on the person seeking to [rely] on a notice must be very high" (Waller LJ, applying Thornton and Mendelssohn v Normand: a notice binds only if "brought home to the party so prominently that he must be taken to have known of it and agreed with it"). Vine concerned clamping, now unlawful; the reasoning is Thornton applied to a parking notice.

27. A £100 liability for stopping at a junction is not a usual condition. It needed notice "in the most explicit way" (Lord Denning) and proof that "an unusual condition of that particular nature was fairly brought to the notice of the other party" (Megaw LJ).

28. A terms sign beyond the vehicle, behind a van, is no notice; "Parking Regulations Apply" is no notice of the term.

29. The Claimant's Code requires an entrance sign stating that terms apply, the operator's name and the ATA logo (Single Code cl 3.1.1, 3.1.2(a), (c), (d)), which "must not imply an invitation to park where public parking is not permitted" (3.1.2(f)), and terms signs placed "such that drivers have the chance to read them at the time of parking or leaving their vehicle" and "legible on approach" (3.1.3(a), (b)); the BPA code governing this site's signage in 2025 required signs "conspicuous and legible" (v9 cl 19.2, 19.3).

30. The Code binds the Claimant, not the driver, and creates no liability; it is the standard the Claimant professes, and Beavis treated Code compliance as part of the context (paras 96, 100).

31. The Notice to Keeper asserts terms "clearly placed at the entrance to and throughout the car park"; the Claimant's own photograph of the corner shows none. It is put to proof with dated photographs from the approach.

F. Issue 4: the boundary

32. Whether the stopping point is within the land the Claimant manages is for the Claimant to prove; its Code requires "a boundary map of the land to be managed" before any charge (cl 14.1(b)).

33. Outside the boundary, the claim fails. Inside it, the sign's own "No parking on ... access road" confirms no permission was offered there, and sections C to E apply.

G. Issue 5: the £70 and interest

34. The £70 is pleaded as "damages" and none are proved. The sign says only "Further debt recovery charges may be incurred": no sum, no agreement.

35. Beavis upheld £85 because it already covered the costs of the scheme, including enforcement, and a profit (paras 98, 198). A £60 uplift on a £75 charge "would appear to be penal" (ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2011] EWHC 4023 (QB), paras 419 to 428). A term requiring a consumer who fails to fulfil an obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum, or leaving the trader to fix the sum after the consumer is bound, is indicatively unfair (CRA Sch 2 paras 6, 14; s62), and an unfair term is removed whole, not reduced (Glaser v Atay [2024] EWCA Civ 1111 at [114], a barristers' fees case applying Part 2 of the 2015 Act).

36. The £70 is not recoverable, and the interest claimed on it falls with it.

H. Issue 6: Proportionality

37. The Defendant's case is prior to any question whether the sum claimed is a penalty or unfair: no licence was offered, no terms were accepted, none were displayed. Those questions arise only if the court finds a contract, and the Defendant does not concede them. In Beavis the charge survived because the operator established a legitimate interest in a retail car park next to Chelmsford railway station: keeping spaces free for shoppers by "deterring commuters or other long-stay motorists from occupying parking spaces for long periods" (para 98; see also paras 109 and 119), and a sum that was "neither extravagant nor unconscionable" against that interest (para 100); the test is whether the sum is "out of all proportion to any legitimate interest of the innocent party" (joint judgment, para 32).

38. If a contract is found here, the Claimant will have to identify the interest served by charging £100 for ten minutes at the mouth of a residents' access road without blocking access or consuming a parking space and show the sum proportionate to it, on evidence it has not served. The alternative keeper plea under Schedule 4 adds nothing: keeper liability under the Schedule is for the sum the driver owed, and the driver owed nothing.

I. Conclusion

39. The sign permitted parking for residents and permit holders and forbade it to everyone else. It offered nothing to a driver outside those classes, which is the Claimant's own description of this driver, and gave nothing for the promise it alleges. Its operative sentence must be rewritten to be read and, rewritten, describes a contract formed only by the forbidden act. The terms sign stood beyond the vehicle, behind a van; the signs in view said regulations applied and parking was for residents. Any remedy is the landowner's in trespass, for the value of under ten minutes at a junction, and the Claimant has neither pleaded it nor shown a right to bring it. The claim should be dismissed.

40. If, contrary to the above, the court finds that a contract was made, section 71 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires it to consider whether the terms relied on are fair "even if none of the parties to the proceedings has raised that issue or indicated that it intends to raise it", provided it has before it sufficient legal and factual material to do so (s71(2), (3)). The sign, the Notice to Keeper and the Particulars are before the court. The Defendant invites the court to perform that duty in respect of the sentence in capitals and the £70 and any other term identified or implied, applying sections 62, 64 and 68 and Schedule 2 paragraphs 6 and 14 as set out above.

[NAME], Defendant
[DATE]

MrJenkinsEsq

I'm 50/50 on paragraph 4. Maybe it invites scrutiny and would be best omitted. The sticking point is the defence says "(the contract)" which could be seen as an admission that there was one. I also agree you shouldn't have parked here, but it's the lesser evil against a third party turning trespass into a magic money tree. All the referenced authorities are below:

1. ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis; Cavendish Square Holding BV v Makdessi [2015] UKSC 67: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2013-0280.html (Supreme Court, with the press summary); https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2015/67 ; https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/67.html

2. ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] EWCA Civ 402: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2015/402 ; https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2015/402.html

3. Vehicle Control Services Ltd v HMRC [2013] EWCA Civ 186: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2013/186 ; https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/186.html

4. Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking Ltd [1971] 2 QB 163: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1970/2.html

5. Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] EWCA Civ 106: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2000/106.html

6. Interfoto Picture Library Ltd v Stiletto Visual Programmes Ltd [1989] QB 433: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1987/6.html

7. Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/1892/1.html ; https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Carlill_v_Carbolic_Smoke_Ball_Company

8. Chartbrook Ltd v Persimmon Homes Ltd [2009] UKHL 38: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/2009/38.html ; https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldjudgmt/jd090701/chart-1.htm

9. Arnold v Britton [2015] UKSC 36: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2013-0193.html ; https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2015/36 ; https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2015/36.html

10. ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2011] EWHC 4023 (QB): https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2011/4023 ; https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/4023.html

11. Glaser v Atay [2024] EWCA Civ 1111: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2024/1111 ; https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2024/1111.html

12. Consumer Rights Act 2015, Part 2 (ss61 to 71): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/part/2 ; Schedule 2: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/schedule/2

13. Civil Procedure Rules Part 17: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part17 ; Part 27: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part27

14. Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice, version 1.1 (17 February 2025): https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/Sector%20Code%20Templates/sectorsingleCodeofPracticeVersion1.1130225.pdf ; BPA Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice, version 9 (February 2024): https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/NEW%20Redesigned%20Documents/Version91.2.2024.pdf

Milliered

Hello MrJenkinsEsq

Thank you so much for putting all that together in such a short space of time,i don't know how you do it!

Really appreciate all the help, Sorry I have only just replied, I am on 12 hour night shifts at the moment.

Just to clarify about the photos. The photos that the attendant took are on the NTK. I was never given a parking ticket at the time, just the NTK through the post.

I took lots of my own photos whilst there but as I only had a tablet to work on at home for this forum, I had to take photos of my phone with my tablet to upload them as I couldn't transfer the photos from phone to tablet.

The more recent photos that I took the other day were transferred onto my laptop. I hope that has made sense. Is there a problem with how I had to do it?

With ref to the Skeleton Defence that you have so kindly drafted for me,i won't pretend I totally understand all the jargon as such but definitely understood what the general jist is anyway and is how I understand it.

My question is though, and I know this is going to sound daft to you, is what do I do with it?

I have obviously already sent in my defence using the Template. Does this get sent along with my WS which is what I am really struggling with? And if so do I send it with all those links aswell?

As for paragraph 4, I can't see anything with the word contract in it or am I missing something?

I am off work today so can have a good go at it with some help please if at all possible. I am on days tomorrow for the weekend before back on nights next wee so literally only have today and the evenings over the weekend.

Sorry to ask for so much help

Many thanks in advance

Milliered

I assume the NTK and the PoC were correctly issued

MrJenkinsEsq

I've built a database of authorities, so I can drop keywords in and it tells me which ones are relevant :)

Having had time to think more, drop para 4 of the skeleton entirely and renumber (check any references within the text to para numbers too). Your defence, if I followed which one was filed, said "the sign (the contract)", which they might argue is you admitting there was one. But your defence also denied a contract, so I think it's fine to drop para 4.

I wrote the skeleton around their photos so it relies on their evidence. You can still include your own photos and refer to them from your WS.

On what to do with the skeleton: as far as I understand it, having never filed one, it's just another document that goes alongside your WS. The links are for you, so you can read and understand the cases. You can include the relevant paragraphs in your bundle, but I don't think you need everything in full.

Taking your own photos is fine and you can include them with your witness statement. I elected to only rely on their photos so there can be no argument about facts in the skeleton.

Someone more knowledgeable will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong.

Milliered

Thank you so much, that makes sense that you have based it around their evidence being suspect.

I assume then that the skeleton would not be taking up any of the maximum 50 pages for the WS?

Would it be ok to just include all of the whole links that you have highlighted ,rather than pick out bits as I just wouldn't be able to understand which paragraphs would be relevant to me and would just end up adding stuff that isn't relevant and leaving out what is. Or would that potentially get on the Judge"s nerves

Milliered

I am struggling to find WS examples that bear similarities to my case to be honest

Gr1pr

You probably won't find one with similarities

The JackR1 WS is one of the best examples on here