County Court claim form

Please find below a draft of the defendants WS. This has to be sent off in the next few days, can someone please cast an eye over it to make sure its sufficient. Thank you.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: XXX

BETWEEN:

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

XXX (Defendant)

________________________________________
WITNESS STATEMENT
________________________________________


1. I am XXX, of XXX, the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:

2. I was the authorised registered keeper of the vehicle, registration XXX at the time of the alleged incident, however I am one of two people who regularly use this vehicle and attach evidence of insurance as Exhibit A.

3. I have on occasion used XXX Car Park in XXX and visit the city approximately once every three months, however I have no recollection of parking there on the date of the alleged incident.

4. I did not received a PCN (Parking Charge Notice) until XXX, informing me that payment was overdue. I wrote back to the Claimant on XXX denying their allegations and informed them I would not be paying their charge of £100.

5. The photographic evidence supplied by the claimant suggesting a breach in contract was deemed insufficient. The images provided did not identify my vehicle or any specific vehicle, as no VRM was visible. In addition the time printed on the images did not make reference to any pay and display machine from which the parking ticket may have been issued. This evidence is attached as Exhibit B.

6. On XXX I submitted a SAR (Subject access request) to the claimant’s Data Protection Officer, however there has been no reply to date. This evidence is attached as Exhibit C.

7. It is my position that, costs on the claim are disproportionate and disingenuous. CPR 44.3 (2) states: ‘‘where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will
(a) Only allow costs, which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) Resolve any doubt, which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

8. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

9. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

10. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

11. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

12. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

13. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge, which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 or with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum, which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''


13.1. The Court will note that this Claimant, UKCPM, is one of those known to have been sanctioned for abuse of process by the above court circuit and continues to file claims with the same untrue and unrecoverable added costs. This evidence is attached as Exhibit D.

14. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is my position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

15. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters, which are near identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

16. I invite the Court to dismiss this claim in its entirety, and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.

Signature





Date

thanks for the advise.

With regards to sending a copy of my WS to the Claimant and the court, will an email with attached file be sufficient or should I post it by recorded delivery. In addition is it sent to the CCBC in Northampton or the County court the hearing is taking place?

With reference to deadline day for the exchange of witness statements, the defendant has not yet received anything from the claimant. The deadline is now 2 days overdue. What does this mean with regards to the hearing? Is the defendant within their rights to ask the Judge to refuse any evidence presented by them at the hearing?

They have now failed to reply to the SAR or supply the defendant with their WS. Is this something the Judge will take a dim view of, or is it common for these companies to ignore the rules.

Thanks Coupon-mad,

I'll give that a go, i'm not overly keen on going to court if it can be avoided. Would that email be addressed to the court manager? Also is there a specific form or format to follow when drafting a costs schedule?