Court Claim - has the Defendant blundered?

Case Dismissed by District Judge Ellery - we won.

You'll notice no exclamation marks at the end of this statement - we won, but. it sure doesn't feel like it. A very strange experience...

So, to give you all a full run down of the days events. We arrive nice and early, no sign of any representation from Gladstones, I get signed in as a McKenzie Friend. Running 30 mins late, get called in...

Taken into he courtroom. Judge sits behind desk at head of room, quite imposing and certainly designed to put us in our place.

Judge starts with a preamble, seems to totally distrust me as a McKenzie Friend and is pretty condescending, then moves on to reviewing the Witness Statements. Her first comment was "where did you get your information from?", relating to our WS. This was a direct dig at "the internet" and forums like these. She was very dismissive, and expanded her opinion on this - apparently you lot know nothing, and make stuff up, and I'm foolish to follow the guidance. I'm sorry we didn't get chance to respond, as we were totally taken aback by this.

We mentioned that the Claimant's documents weren't served on time, but the WS was - she gave short shrift to this and I began to get an ominous feeling. To be fair, I thought we were well prepared - but as soon as she started querying things I started to get lost in my own notes.

She went through Claimant WS - her tone and use of phrase seemed to me to be supporting their side of the story - their rights to pursue the claim, contract law, reasonable charges etc. All the time I noticed there were little digs aimed towards our Defence.

She said she had reviewed both sets of WS, but I got the distinct impression she hadn't. GS had only supplied her B&W WS, so she couldn't make out the detail - luckily we had a colour one, so Defendant was able to show her this, and spend time going through it with her at her desk. She kept coming back to the position of the signage, again seeming to make excuses for the Claimant. She did not comprehend the position of the bay in relation to the site. GS's WS seems to torpedo their own argument - images used (Google Street View) show a car in the exact position, no bay markings, and no signage. But we had to push 3 or 4 times to get this across to her. Even then she seemed reluctant. GS definitely cherry picked photos to highlight the contrast in the block paving (reckon someone is handy with Photoshop).

She did go to town on the fact that the Defendant had not responded to the initial claims, and that we had not gone down the appeal route. I believe she mixed up POPLA with IPC, so maybe not too savvy on this racket. Luckily, the illness card was played and the Defendant did a good job in pushing back on this. She definitely tried to be sneaky - even though she had stated that the illness bore no consequence in terms of the claim, she pursued the Defendant on detail relating to who he had in the car, and why they went into the building with him - in retrospect, I believe the images used in the WS show an empty car, and I do feel she was out to trap the Defendant in a lie. He did a good job in preventing this.

At this point, it appears to me that she is drawing things to a close - anything left to say etc. And we'd not even gone through the Defendant's WS! I had to push the Defendant to push her to review our WS, which she seemed reluctant to do. Maybe she had reviewed it prior...?

Anyway, we do get the opportunity to go through it with her. Again, pretty dismissive of any mitigation or extraneous information i.e. the fact that the car was parked responsible off the highway = not relevant, and so on.

Trump card for us, and anyone else in this situation, is the library of cars using this space - common usage seemed be the killer. That with the lack of bay markings, and no relevant signage (i.e. they know there's a problem, and they're not doing anything about it - why, for money of course).

So, we finally feel we've got the points across, to the best of our ability (C minus in my book). She starts to sum up. She reels off a list of points that all sound like we've lost - heart starts to sink, resigned to losing... Then she says "court therefore dismisses this case". What the...?

We had no inclination that was coming. She asks if we have incurred costs... She doesn't have the costs previously submitted, so I send a spare copy over to her - let the kicking recommence!!

Straightaway, "where did you get these from?" "show me where it says £19/hr for LIP rate, and I'll award it" - we couldn't. "Why did you take the whole day off?" Defendant gave a very good explanation of this - "No, we only allow a half day". "Whose hourly rate is this?" looking directly at me! "We don't accept stationery costs - show me where it says we have to". She made short work of getting the costs down from £306 to £48!!

Explained that the order of the court would be sent to both parties, and GS have 21 days to pay. Explained the Court was busy and there may be a delay in getting these sent out, so go easy on GS and give them time before pursuing them - she heard me mutter that we would be sending their own debt collectors to get the payment, and for the first time a quarter smile crept into the corner of her mouth...

At that point, we'd had enough and got out of there, feeling pretty punch drunk... Left the building 40 mins after going in.

So, reality is we won, we got costs and it feels good to put the proverbial middle finger up to GS. So why the downer?

This was my first experience of Law Courts in any form. The abiding feeling I come away with is that the Law, and Courts are designed for a certain breed, or for those that can afford a certain breed.
DIY law?
Represent yourself?
Dare to use a Forum?
"Leave it to the professionals, dear"

Castle - indeed! She really didn't seem to see the irony of us having followed the rules, and made the effort to be there, when compared to the empty seats next to us where GS should have been.

Court Judgement received today., Court findings were:
– the signage on entering Whittle Square was not easily legible for Drivers (Claimant's own evidence!)
– the white lined areas put in evidence by the Claimant is not in the vicinity and therefore did not represent parking available and relevant to this case
– the parking spaces were not correctly delineated between permissible and not permissible parking, and the Court finds that numerous people were parking in the same spot due to it not being clear.

Claimant failed to prove case, so the Claim dismissed (that feels better now!)

Expenses to be paid "to the Judgement Creditor or their Representative" - is this directly to the Defendant or who? To be paid by the 4th December.