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Civil Enforcement have issued a Claim Form! HELP!

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  • Coupon-mad
    Coupon-mad Posts: 130,611
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    My vehicle broke down, I couldn't get back to my car in time of the allowed 2.5 hours parking. Thats what happened. They ignored all my aims of contact and kept sending me letters. So what, I owe them £325.17 now?

    So what am I to do, hands up and pay them and just move on?

    No-one said that, and we've shown you that CEL always discontinue when they see one of our usual CEL defences, before any hearing. No risk, no CCJ, no costs, nothing. Scam over before the Summer!

    What's not to like, or unclear, about the guidance from this forum that gets this quashed? Simply copy another recent CEL one, there's on linked in the NEWBIES thread, can't get much easier, it also shows newbies in pictures how to do the simple first step of the AOS.

    Easy as anything.
    PRIVATE 'PCN'? DON'T PAY BUT DON'T IGNORE IT (except N.Ireland).
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  • Thanks for the replies guys. I will look at the newbies thread and go forward with my defence and will keep you updated. Just need to decide which defence is my best case - but I'll see the options on the thread mentioned. Thank you.
  • Hi guys,

    I've done some research and brought this together, with a hefty bit of cut and paste, I presume this is ok? I have until Wednesday to submit my defence, being 33 days from the issue date of my claim form. The parking in question uses ANPR so found the post on ANPR's quite suited. I never received a NTK, just a letter before action, with the Beavis case attached, never received anything before 14 days from the 'crime'. Please inform me of anything! Thanks x

    I am xxx, the defendant in this matter and the registered keeper of vehicle xxx.

    I deny I am liable for the entirety of the claim on the following grounds:

    1. The Claim Form issued on the 16 March 2018 by Civil Enforcement Ltd was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person. The claim does not have a valid signature and is not a statement of truth. It states that it has been issued by !!!8220;Civil Enforcement Limited!!!8221; as the Claimant!!!8217;s Legal Representative. Practice Direction 22 requires that a statement of case on behalf of a company must be signed by a person holding a senior position and state the position. If the party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth but in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

    2. This Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol (as outlined in the new Pre Action Protocol for Debt Claims, 1 October 2017) and as an example as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and require a different defence. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter, and a copy of the alleged contract has never been provided to the Defendant.

    a. There was no compliant !!!8220;Letter before County Court Claim!!!8221; under the Practice Direction.

    b. This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing a large number !!!8220;draft particulars!!!8221;. The badly mail-merged documents contain very little information.

    c. The Schedule of Information is sparse of detailed information.

    d. The Claim Form Particulars were extremely sparse and divulged no cause of action nor sufficient detail. The Defendant has no idea what the claim is about, why the charge arose, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information. Furthermore, the Claim Form Particulars did not contain any evidence of contravention or photographs. These documents, and the !!!8220;Letter before County Court Claim!!!8221; should have been produced, pursuant to paragraph 6 of the Practice Direction Pre Action Conduct. This constitutes a deliberate attempt to thwart any efforts to defend the claim or to !!!8221;take stock!!!8221; pursuant to paragraph 12 of the Practice Direction. Again, this totally contradicts the guidance outlined in the new Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims (2017), the aims of which are:

    i. Early engagement and communication between the parties, including early exchange of sufficient information about the matter to help clarify whether there are any issues in dispute

    ii. Enable the parties to resolve the matter without the need to start court proceedings, including agreeing a reasonable repayment plan or considering using an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedure

    iii. Encourage the parties to act in a reasonable and proportionate manner in all dealings with one another (for example, avoiding running up costs which do not bear a reasonable relationship to the sums in issue) and

    iv. Support the efficient management of proceedings that cannot be avoided.

    e. The Defence therefore asks the Court to strike out the claim as disclosing no cause of action and having no reasonable prospect of success as currently drafted

    3. The Claimant failed to meet the Notice to Keeper obligations of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (!!!8220;POFA 2012!!!8221;). Such a notice was not served within 14 days of the parking event and when the notice was served, did not fully comply with statutory wording. The Claimant is therefore unable to hold the defendant liable under the strict !!!8220;keeper liability!!!8221; provisions:

    The Claimant did not comply with POFA 2012 and give the registered keeper opportunity, at any point, to identify the driver. A Notice to Keeper can be served by ordinary post and the Protection of Freedoms Act requires that the Notice, to be valid, must be delivered no later than 14 days after the vehicle was parked. No ticket was left on the windscreen and no notice to keeper was sent within the 14 days required to comply with POFA 2012 only a speculative invoice entitled !!!8220;Parking Charge Notice!!!8221; which was sent outside of the 14 day period, which did not comply with POFA 2012. This would exclude the registered keeper being liable for any charges.

    Henry Greenslade, lead adjudicator of POPLA in 2015 and an eminent barrister and parking law expert, stated that !!!8220;However keeper information is obtained, there is no reasonable presumption in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort.!!!8221; Schedule 4 also states that the only sum a keeper can be pursued for (if Schedule 4 is fully complied with, which it was not, and if there was a 'relevant obligation' and !!!8216;relevant contract' fairly and adequately communicated, which there was not) is the sum on the Notice to Keeper. They cannot pluck another sum from thin air and bolt that on as well when neither the signs, nor the NTK, nor the permit information mentioned a possible £250.17 for outstanding debt and damages. The additional costs, which the defendant contests have not been incurred, are none of its concern.

    4. The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated, and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 !!!8220;legal representatives!!!8221; costs were incurred. The Defendant believes that Civil Enforcement Ltd has artificially inflated this claim. They are claiming legal costs when not only is this not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that they have not incurred legal costs. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent on preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration cost. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever. The claimant has not explained how the claim has increased from the original parking notice to £250.17. If the Claimant alleges that they claim the cost of its in-house administration, these cannot be recovered - they are staff performing the task that they have been employed for and essential to the Claimant's business plan.

    5. This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an un-denied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. As far as I can ascertain, based upon the very vague particulars of claim and complete lack of evidence and photographs, and without having been furnished with the alleged signage !!!8220;contract!!!8221;, none of this applies in this material case.

    6. In the absence of any proof of adequate signage contractually bound the Defendant then there can have been no contract and the Claimant has no case

    a. The Claimant is put to strict proof at the time of the alleged event they had both advertisement consent and the permission from the site owner to display the signs

    b. In the absence of strict proof I submit that the Claimant was committing an offence by displaying their signs and therefore no contract could have been entered into between the driver and the Claimant

    c. Inadequate signs incapable of binding the driver; this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:

    i. Sporadic and illegible (charge not prominent nor large lettering) of site/entrance signage - breach of the POFA 2012 Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice and no contract formed to pay any clearly stated sum
    ii. It is believed the signage was not lit and any terms were not transparent or legible; this is an unfair contract, not agreed by the driver and contrary to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in requiring a huge inflated sum as !!!8220;compensation!!!8221; from by an authorised party using the premises as intended
    iii. No promise was made by the driver that could constitute consideration because there was no offer known nor accepted. No consideration flowed from the Claimant
    iv. The signs are believed to have no mention of any debt collection additional charge, which cannot form part of any alleged contract.

    d. BPA CoP breaches !!!8211; this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
    i. The signs were not compliant in terms of the font size, lighting or positioning
    ii. The sum pursued exceeds £100
    iii. There is/was no compliant landowner contract

    7. No standing; this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
    It is believed Civil Enforcement Ltd do not hold a legitimate contract at this car park. As an agent, the Claimant has no legal right to bring such a claim in their name that should be in the name of the landowner.

    8. The Beavis case confirmed the fact that, if it is a matter of trespass (not breach of any contract), a parking firm has no standing as a non-landowner to pursue even nominal damages.

    9. The charge is an unenforceable penalty based upon a lack of commercial justification. The Beavis case confirmed that the penalty rule is certainly engaged in any case of a private parking charge and was only disengaged due to the unique circumstances of that case, which do not resemble this claim.

    10. The Defendant has reasonable belief that the Claimant sent a letter claiming to be a final letter before court action, but then instead sent this to more debt collectors. As such the Claimants have artificially inflated the claim value by claiming to involve further debt collectors, the Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof that all claimed costs were invoiced and paid

    11. Due to the length of time, the Defendant has little to no recollection of the day in question. It would not be reasonable expect a registered keeper to be able to recall the potential driver(s) of the car 15 months later. The burden rests with the Claimant to identify the driver, who is the only party potentially liable in cases where a parking firm is unable to rely upon the POFA.

    12 This Claimant uses ANPR camera systems to process data but fails to comply with the Information Commissioner's 'Data Protection Code of Practice for Surveillance Cameras and Personal Information'. This Code confirms that it applies to ANPR systems, and that the private sector is required to follow this code to meet its legal obligations as a data processor. Members of the British Parking Association AOS are required to comply fully with the DPA, as a pre-requisite of being able to use the DVLA KADOE system and in order to enforce parking charges on private land. The Claimant's failures to comply include, but are not limited to:

    i) Lack of an initial privacy impact assessment, and

    ii) Lack of an evaluation of proportionality and necessity, considering concepts that would impact upon fairness under the first data protection principle, and

    iii) Failure to regularly evaluate whether it was necessary and proportionate to continue using ANPR at all times/days across the site, as opposed to a less privacy-intrusive method of parking enforcement (such as 'light touch' enforcement only at busy times, or manning the car park with a warden in order to consider the needs of genuine shoppers and taking into account the prevailing conditions at the site on any given day), and

    iv) Failure to prominently inform a driver in large lettering on clear signage, of the purpose of the ANPR system and how the data would be used, and

    v) Lack of the 'Privacy Notice' required to deliver mandatory information about an individual's right of subject access, under the Data Protection Act (DPA). At no point has the Defendant been advised how to apply for a Subject Access Request, what that is, nor informed of the legal right to obtain all relevant data held, and

    13.1. This Claimant has therefore failed to meet its legal obligations under the DPA.

    13.2. In a similar instance of DPA failure when using ANPR cameras without full DPA compliance - confirmed on this Claimant's Trade Body website in a 2013 article urging its members to comply - Hertfordshire Constabulary was issued with an enforcement notice. The force were ordered to stop processing people's information via ANPR until they could comply. The Information Commissioner ruled that the collection of the information was unlawful; breaching principle one of the DPA.

    14. The Court's attention will be drawn to the case of Andre Agassi v S Robinson (HM Inspector of Taxes). Whilst not wholly aligned to the issues in this case, it is on all fours with the above point, because of the principle it extols that no one should profit from their unlawful conduct. Paragraph 20 of the Transcript of that case states: ''It is common ground that, whatever costs may be recoverable by a litigant in respect of professional services such as those provided by Tenon to the appellant, they cannot include the cost of any activities which are unlawful''. Paragraph 28 continues - ''...cannot on any view recover the cost of activities performed by Tenon which it was not lawful for them to perform.''

    14.1. Further, in RTA (Business Consultants) Limited v Bracewell [2015] EWHC 630 (QB) (12 March 2015), at paragraph 34 the Judge discusses the relevance of the public law principle going back well over 200 years, that no man should profit from his crime; it is submitted that this is particularly relevant in this action. The Judge cited Lord Mansfield CJ to explain that: ''The principle of public policy is this; ex dolo malo non oritur actio. No Court will lend its aid to a man who founds his cause of action upon an immoral or an illegal act. If [...] the cause of action appears to arise ex turpi causa, or the transgression of a positive law of this country, there the Court says he has no right to be assisted. It is upon that ground the Court goes; not for the sake of the defendant, but because they will not lend their aid to such a plaintiff.''

    14.2. Even if there was a purported contract between the unidentified driver and the Claimant, it was illegal at its formation because it was incapable of being created without an illegal act (the failure to comply with points#16 i - v above, as part of the legal obligations that must be communicated up front and/or undertaken by a consumer-facing service provider, some of which were required even before commencing any use of ANPR at all).

    14.3. Where a contract is illegal when formed, neither party will acquire rights under that contract, regardless of whether or not there was an intention to break the law; the contract will be void and treated as if it had never been entered into. As such, the asserted contract cannot be enforced.

    14.4. In this case it was not lawful for the Claimant to process any data using ANPR camera systems upon which it relied for the entire ticketing regime, due to its failure to meet its specific legal obligations as a data processor of ANPR information. The collection of the information was unlawful; breaching principle one of the DPA.

    14.5. To add weight, the Defendant also cites from ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 1338, which concerns an alleged illegal contract involving a similar BPA member parking firm. Whilst the facts of that case are not relevant, the Judge's comments at paragraph 29 of the Transcript of the Somerfield case are of importance: ''At common law, historically, a distinction has been drawn between cases where the guilty party intended from the time of entering the contract unlawfully and cases where the intention to perform unlawfully was only made subsequently''. As has already been stated, in this case the problem arose at (and before) the formation of the alleged contract and was not in relation to any subsequent act. Laws LJ, inSomerfield, concluded that ParkingEye did not have an intention, when creating that contract, to deliberately break the law so the contract was upheld. Differently in this case, it is asserted that the Claimant did deliberately or negligently break the DPA and as it was a BPA member with access to a wealth of DPA compliance information, articles and legal advice, and being a signatory to the KADOE contract with the DVLA, the Claimant cannot be excused from, nor justify, their conduct in failing to meet their legal obligations.

    14.6. At paragraphs 65-74 of the Somerfield transcript, Laws LJ set out three factors which need to be considered in a defence of illegality. The Defendant submits that the key issues in this action are that:

    (i) the commission of an illegal wrong being present at the time of entering the contract means that the Claimant will not be able to enforce the contract.

    (ii) the illegality is central to the contract and is not merely a minor aspect, thus it should not be held to be too remote so as to render the contract enforceable.

    (iii) the nature of the illegality: in this case it was a breach of legal obligations regarding data, and not merely a civil tort as in Somerfield. The gravity of the illegality is therefore far greater.

    14.7. It should be noted that the issue of breach of the DPA also transgresses the tests of fairness and transparency of consumer contracts, as set out in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which was enacted after the final hearing in Beavis. This charge and use of ANPR by this claimant is both unfair and not transparent and can be fully distinguished from Beavis, where none of the issues in the Defendant's points 16 and 17 above were argued.


    The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has:

    (a) Failed to disclose any cause of action in the incorrectly filed Claim Form issued on 16 March 2018.

    (b) Sent a template, well-known to be generic cut and paste 'Particulars' of claim relying on irrelevant case law (Beavis) which ignores the fact that this Claimant cannot hold registered keepers liable in law, due to their own choice of non-POFA documentation.

    The vague Particulars of Claim disclose no clear cause of action. The court is invited to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit and no reasonable prospects of success.


    STATEMENT OF TRUTH

    I confirm that the contents of this Defence are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.
  • Coupon-mad
    Coupon-mad Posts: 130,611
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    Go for it! Looks good, and in the end you will win v CEL, unlikely to have any court hearing.

    I know it makes defences long but I reckon the ICO 'DPA breaches re ANPR' points are so topical right now they are worth including in defences where ANPR was used.

    So, now make sure it has the usual headings for the Court to see who is who and what the claim number is, and head it DEFENCE.

    Then print it, sign & date it, scan it back in and attach that signed PDF to an email you send to the CCBCAQ email (Google it), with the word DEFENCE & the Claim Number, in the subject line.

    Then be ready to ignore CEL's usual letter offering to 'settle' (see other CEL claim threads) but be ready for the next stages, DQ stage is explained in the NEWBIES thread by bargepole in a link.
    PRIVATE 'PCN'? DON'T PAY BUT DON'T IGNORE IT (except N.Ireland).
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  • Great stuff, thanks so much, I'll get on and do that now, weight off my shoulders. This has given me fire in my belly!
  • Stefanoka23
    Stefanoka23 Posts: 14 Forumite
    Hi everyone
    Just some advise on what to expect next... am I supposed to wait 30 days before hearing anything from them?
  • Quentin
    Quentin Posts: 40,405 Forumite
    The whole court process from issue of a claim right through to the hearing is all outlined in detail in #2 of the Newbies FAQ thread
  • Stefanoka23
    Stefanoka23 Posts: 14 Forumite
    Hi Guys

    I have now received a Notice of Proposed Allocation to the Small Claims Track

    It says it is now a defended claim and that it appears this case is suitable for allocation to the small claims track.

    I need to:
    decide if its to be referred to mediation ? (I guess not, thats the just agreeing to close?)

    Agree/disagree that small claims track is appropriate for this case?

    Location of my hearing venue (do I ask for this to be closest to me?)

    Am i asking for the courts permission to use written evidence of an expert?

    IF yes, state why?

    How many witnesses will give evidence on my behalf ? (I guess just me)

    These may seem like easy questions to answer from those experienced with this, but I need to make sure I do everything correctly as it is all alien to me :-/

    Thanks so much for your help guys. I guess I should send this recorded delivery/signed for?

    Cheers
  • KeithP
    KeithP Posts: 37,429
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    edited 5 June 2018 at 12:24PM
    These may seem like easy questions to answer...

    Yes they are, and guidance on how to answer them is readily available.

    Please re-read Quentin's post immediately before your latest post, post #18, for that guidance.

    Thanks so much for your help guys. I guess I should send this recorded delivery/signed for?
    Email it to the court, same address as you sent your Defence, and if you have a suitable email address for the claimant then email it to them too.

    Do not ever consider using recorded delivery/signed for when sending anything to a PPC or their solicitor.
  • Stefanoka23
    Stefanoka23 Posts: 14 Forumite
    KeithP wrote: »
    Do not ever consider using recorded delivery/signed for when sending anything to a PPC or their solicitor.


    Thanks Keith and well noted. Why shouldn't I use recorded/signed for?
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