Gladstones Letter of Claim

2. Defendant is unable to admit or deny the precise times he was parked on the land at Spaw Street Arches as he has no recollection of this. The Claimant is put to proof of the same.

''he was parked''?

You want to throw away the POFA?

Much better, in that part.

But your 2 x points #7 are both not suitable and need removing. One talks about 'no GPEOL' (dead as a dodo) and one talks about the UTCCRs (repealed), both unable to be used, since 2015. And SIP do not call their charges a 'penalty'.

As for #4, #5 and #6, I would add to the end of each point: 'The claimant is put to strict proof.'

Your defence is very short and misses out this sort of thing (hat tip to Lucy Bea and LoadsofChildren123):


- The Claimant’s solicitors may attempt to use Parking Eye Limited v Beavis 2015 UKSC 67. The Defendant maintains that this case in fact supports this defence in that:
(a) In Beavis, the Defendant accepted that there was a contract formed by the clear and prominently displayed signage.
(b) In Beavis, the Claimant was held to have complied with the Code of Practice of the British Parking Association; it was held that strict compliance with a Parking Industry code of practice was expected of any Claimant seeking to enforce a parking charge. It is averred that this Claimant has failed to comply with the IPC Code of Practice, including but not limited to, non-compliance with the rules about clear signage and grace periods, as well as the ban on predatory practices.
(c) In Beavis, the driver was identified.
(d) In Beavis, there was a 'complex' commercial justification, which was deemed to be 'entirely different' from cases the courts had seen before where a small parking fee was alleged to have been unpaid. More 'ordinary' transactional parking charge cases, where there was a quantifiable tariff/charge of a few pounds alleged to be due, were held to 'rarely' avoid falling foul of Lord Dunedin's four tests for a penalty, and the penalty rule is certainly engaged in such cases as this.
(e) In Beavis, the Judges at the Supreme Court were not unanimous but ParkingEye managed to avoid falling foul of the penalty rule, due to the unique circumstances at the location, the unusually 'clear and brief' signs placed all over the car park, including at the entrance, and due to a rare 'legitimate interest' in charging a sum to deter drivers from overstaying a free licence to park, instead of charging an hourly tariff.

- No evidence has been provided that the driver breached the terms, or what those terms were, or whether the signs were legible and/or capable of offering a parking licence and creating a contract to pay a parking charge displayed in equivalent large lettering to any tariff.

- The driver has not been identified by the Defendant and the Claimant has produced no evidence to show that he was driving the vehicle at the relevant time.

- The only liability which the Defendant can have is therefore as registered keeper of the vehicle. The Defendant denies that he has any liability as registered keeper. Although there is a provision in law under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act of 2012 ("the POFA"), which provides that a parking company can recover unpaid parking charges from the vehicle’s keeper, the Claimant has not served the required, compliant Notice to Keeper. Further, it is averred that the Claimant failed to provide 'adequate notice' of the charge to the driver, in clear, brief terms on prominent signage.

- It is denied that there was any 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' relating to any single parking event. As such, there can be no 'keeper liability' and the Defendant has no liability in law.

- The Particulars of Claim disclose no cause of action and are in breach of several aspects of Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), so much so that they are incoherent, containing no details about the Claim, how it arises or to what it relates.

- The Defendant responded to every letter from this Claimant and the subsequent debt collector demands, asserting that the Defendant was not the driver (the vehicle is shared between family members who work at the same location). The Defendant also requested the Claimant’s solicitor to comply with the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct and Protocols as per paragraphs 6(a) and (c) and provide basic details to show any cause of action, in prompt response to their ultimatums to pay the charge now claimed.

- The Defendant has also requested ADR but was denied any right to appeal or ADR, at all stages. The Claimant’s solicitor has not replied to recent letters and has instead proceeded directly to court proceedings the small claims court. The Defendant draws the court's attention of the court to paragraphs 15 and 16 of the Practice Direction regarding non-compliance and sanctions. Moreover, a Claim must be set out in full in the Particulars of Claim, a clear requirement of Rule 16.2(1)(a), 16.4(1)(a)).

- It is submitted that (apart from properly incurred court fees) any added legal costs are simply numbers made up out of thin air, and are an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which would not be recoverable in the small claims court. In any case, the POFA Schedule 4 prevents claims exceeding the sum potentially recoverable which is fixed and restricted under that statute, to the sum on a compliant Notice to Keeper. There are no true legal costs; in fact the Defendant understands that Gladstones offer claims filing free of charge to paid-up IPC members. At the time this Claim was filed, the IPC and the IAS 'appeals' process and Gladstones Solicitors all shared the same Directors. This and the lack of detail and diligence in this robo-claim, demonstrates Gladstones do not come to this matter with clean hands.

- The Claimant’s solicitors are known for proceeding to court with generic claims with no scrutiny of details or even confirming a true cause of action. The Defendant understands that they are currently under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Defendant thus believes the Claimant and its their solicitors are showing disregard for the dignity of the court and using small claims in order to extract money from panicked and busy unrepresented consumers without the time or know-how to formulate a defence, using an automated system which is against the public interest.

- There are many examples of similarly poorly pleaded claims being struck out, e.g. District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 struck out a similarly poorly-pleaded claim without a hearing, due to Gladstones' template particulars for a private parking firm being ''incoherent'', failing to comply with CPR16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''. In addition, District Judge Musgrave of Birmingham County Court struck out another Gladstones claim 19/1/2017 for being “utterly hopeless and inadequate” and “an abuse of process.” One of their solicitors have been quoted as saying “We issue on a vast majority of claims, majority of which are not defended and therefore it is time consuming and not financially viable to send further particulars of claim.” The Defendant asserts that financial viability is not an excuse for court rules to be ignored.

- The Claimant has not in fact provided any facts or evidence to enable the Defendant to file a proper defence, meaning the Defendant has had to research and cover all possible defences, causing significant distress and taking a considerable amount of time. The Defendant has reason to believe that this claim will proceed without and facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, a significant disadvantage to the unrepresented Defendant, who has no legal experience.

- I reserve the right to amend my defence if the particulars are at some stage brought forward and show otherwise. Again, it is denied that the driver had any contract, and that even if they did, that the keeper has any responsibility for contracts the driver may or may have not made.

- It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant and the Claimant’s solicitors is wholly unreasonable and vexatious, and a punitive costs order will be sought against the Claimant and a wasted costs order against its solicitors.

I believe the facts stated in this Defence are true.


Signature


Date

Yes, use that together with your first points, minus the ones mentioned.

No not on MCOL, and only in writing by post to CCBC if you get proof of posting. And only if you have lots of time.

Most here email it as a PDF to CCBC with the claim number and 'defence' in the subject line. How to set out the top headers/font and line spacing of your defence to stay onside with the Judge is explained by bargepole in a link in post #2 of the NEWBIES thread, self explanatory and well worth reading.

You might want to send Gladstones a copy as a courtesy (partly because the CCBC are behind with paperwork by weeks).

Tell G's robustly, that this defence has been filed with the CCBC, and ask them not to waste your time with rubbish about suggesting the case is heard 'on the papers' or drivel about Elliott v Loake or CPS v AJH Films.