County Court Parking Eye :(

Coupon-mad wrote: »

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I didn't see anything in your appeal about the signage, you need to state that the signs are not like those in the Beavis case, not as brief and clear.

Was your Dad someone who needed more time? Elderly or disabled? Just asking...could be relevant.

How long was the overstay?

Shall i just state that the signs are not like the ones in the beavis case, I haven't actually seen them properly yet, nor studied them

Dad is elderly, and yes would need more time.

overstay was 57 minutes

will the following points suffice for the popla statement:


(6) As no appeal has been available and my situation with being abroad at the time of the incident didn't help with responding to any correspondence, I would like to ask the court to use it's discretion and request the claimant to issue a POPLA code.

(7) I agree to be bound by any POPLA decision

So, final draft of the defence:

Claim Number: ********

I am ****** defendant in this matter and deny liability for the entirety of the claim!

A parking offence took place on the 24/02/2017 using my vehicle with the registration number: ******

At this time, I was not driving the vehicle as I was out of the country and have my passports and tickets to prove this.

I have been unable to respond to the letters sent by Parking Eye as I was out of the country from the 1st December until the 6th of April.

Not having been in court before I responded to the court summons online saying I would defend my case. It was not cost effective to employ a solicitor in this case so I have had to arrange this defence myself, please excuse me if I fail to use the correct legal terms.!




I deny the claim for the following reasons:


(1) I was the registered keeper of the vehicle but I was not the driver at the time. Parking Eye has provided no proof that I was the driver.

(2)The driver was an elderly family member who is an asthmatic and can become breathless and in turn would have needed more time than able-bodied shoppers.

i) Further, this Claimant failed to make the terms clear or offer extra time for those shoppers who might need it, as they do at other sites. There were no signs seen by the driver within his visibility from the driver's seat nor between the bay and the store, and nothing to tell him that there was a maximum shopping time or a 'parking charge' of £100 in a free car park.!

ii) In this respect, this case differs significantly from!ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis![2015] UKSC 67 because as the defendant, I was not the driver and that driver did not have the offer of extra shopping time drawn to his attention at all, which is believed to be written as a secret clause in the User Manual agreement between this Claimant and the retailer. I put this Claimant to strict proof of the terms of the User Manual in terms of allowing extra shopping time and/or the right of the retailer to have cancelled any charge, had a driver known this was possible.!

iii) If elderly or disabled drivers are not informed that they can ask for more time/are unaware that £100 will be charged for purported 'breach' of a contract they never knew existed, then there is no contract formed at all.!

iv) Indeed, withholding the entitlement for drivers to know about the most onerous of terms (£100 penalty in a free car park) and to learn that, in fact, they could have asked for an extension of time on the day, simply by requesting it from Store staff, constitutes a 'misleading omission' in the CPUTRs 2008:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2008/9780110811574/regulation/6

Misleading omissions 6.—

- A commercial practice is a misleading omission if, in its factual context, taking account of the matters in paragraph

(a)the commercial practice omits material information,
(b)the commercial practice hides material information,
(c)the commercial practice provides material information in a manner which is unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely, or
(d)the commercial practice fails to identify its commercial intent, unless this is already apparent from the context, and as a result it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.

- In paragraph (1) “material information” means— (a)the information which the average consumer needs, according to the context, to take an informed transactional decision.''


(3) I have no idea at this stage whether I am being pursued under the protection of freedoms act for this debt or whether this is for civil trespass.!

(4) The Protection of Freedoms Act does not permit the Claimant to recover a sum greater than the parking charge on the day before a Notice to Keeper was issued. The Claimant cannot recover additional charges. The Defendant also has the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred the stated additional costs and it is put to strict proof that they have actually been incurred. Even if they have been incurred, the Claimant has described them as "legal expenses". These cannot be recovered in the Small Claims Court regardless of the identity of the driver.!

(5) From the initial letter from Parking Eye they may be bringing this to court under the assumption that I was the driver using Elliott v Loake [1982]. In this instance, the court decided that there was irrefutable forensic evidence of the driver's identity and made no such presumption. It is for the claimant to prove their case, not the defendant. I have already shown I was not the driver. If this is the case and the protection of freedoms does not apply in this case then they can only pursue the driver not the registered keeper.!
From the internet I found this extract in relation to lead Popla appeals Officer. Henry Greenslade (barrister, parking law expert and POPLA Lead Adjudicator in 2015 “There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver, advises Mr Henry Greenslade QC. “Operators should never suggest anything of the sort,” he says. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time. Unlike, for example, a Notice of Intended Prosecution where details of the driver of a vehicle must be supplied when requested by the police, pursuant to Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a keeper sent a Schedule 4 notice has no legal obligation to name the driver.”!



(6) I have not at any stage been supplied with any means of appealing this ticket as only the driver can appeal as I was not the driver therefore I cannot appeal. But it is clear from research that the car park in question does not have compliant signs and Parking Eye fail to provide compliant notices to keeper.!


(7) As I was abroad when the Parking Charge Notice was posted, I have had no chance to use the bespoke appeals process that all BPA members should offer and abide by. The undue haste with which Parking Eye have proceeded to court is unfair as an unrepresented consumer, bearing in mind that ADR must be offered for a minimum of twelve months, not merely an arbitrary 28 days decided by the parking firms and their Trade Body, in their own favour. As no appeal has been available and my situation with being abroad at the time of the incident didn't help with responding to any correspondence, I would like to ask the court to use it's discretion and request the claimant to issue a 'Parking On Private Land Appeals' (POPLA) code.

(8) I agree to be bound by any POPLA decision


(9) I have never been supplied with any confirmation from Parking Eye or their agents that they actually own or occupy the land in question which would allow them issue penalty tickets. So I have no idea if this is just a speculative invoice. They should supply a contract with the lawful occupier of the land being produced by the claimant, or a chain of contracts showing authorisation stemming from the lawful occupier of the land, I have the reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no locus stand to bring this case.!


DEFENDANT DECLARATION I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.!