I've tried not to be bitter about it, but it really felt like they were law buddies and the case was decided before I even went in the room. It was a real shame, as the BW legal chap had not received my witness statement prior to our initial meeting, after I gave him a hard copy, you could hear him ranting and raving to his colleagues and the firm he was representing asking for better evidence, he read the statement while I was in the room and he was clearly squirming in his seat and after his whole manner seemed like he was fighting a losing case. That got my hopes up, only to have them quickly dashed by a judge who cares not for upholding the law and the rules he is sworn to follow, just wanted the case in and out so he could move on with his day. I even asked at the end what my options were for overturning the decision, as I was certain he made an error in law and had he took the time to look at my evidence, would have seen what laws I was referring to, to which he told me that he would deny any request I made for an appeal of the decision. Judge, jury and executioner.

I lost in court, was a waste of a journey, really disappointed with the judge and the way he went about things. I barely had the chance to speak, when I did the opposition interrupted me, when they spoke their lies, if I said anything I was scolded. It was an absolute joke. The judge looked through their evidence and decided that they did not need evidence of where my car was parked to win the case, so the fact they only had a handful of pictures of my car in complete darkness, where you could bearly make out the car did not matter. Nor did the fact it was actually a trespass case and they had no right to even take me to court. Nor did the fact that I had admitted being the driver of the car a long time ago, yet they were still actually taking my company to court, not me the driver, who should be liable for the charge. It was as if the judge could not be bothered, was already friendly with the claimant legal person and the law and proof and facts did not make any difference to the case, which just makes a mockery of the whole justice system. Basically private car parking firms can do what they like it seems and the public just have to sit back and feed the greedy and non-law abiding firms that run them.

Excellent advice, thank you all so much. I will leave making the edits for a short while, just in case any more helpful information is given in this forum, then I will amend and upload the better version for you all to review. I cannot thank you enough for your help, I really do hope that I win the case and I would love if someone else could then one day use this thread and case as a basis for their defence against these parking pirates.

Thanks for pointing that out, I have now correctly removed my name and car reg from the file and will upload in this post, so that the previous one can be deleted. ilovepdf_merged_(1).pdf

Redacted and merged to one PDF Attached is my witness statement and supporting evidence that I am going to give to the court, the court have said they will not even look at it until the day of the hearing, so I am OK to send it to them only a few days before the hearing. Do you think it is worth me sending this to BW Legal, in the hope they will drop the case before it goes to court? Or am I better not showing my hand to them, so they cannot amend their evidence based on what I have stated? If anyone would be kind enough to read through my statement and give me their thoughts, that would be very much appreciated.

Attached is my witness statement and supporting evidence that I am going to give to the court, the court have said they will not even look at it until the day of the hearing, so I am OK to send it to them only a few days before the hearing. Do you think it is worth me sending this to BW Legal, in the hope they will drop the case before it goes to court? Or am I better not showing my hand to them, so they cannot amend their evidence based on what I have stated? If anyone would be kind enough to read through my statement and give me their thoughts, that would be very much appreciated.

Here is a PDF of the images. I have spoken with the court and they have said as the defendant I can only request to change the court location, but it may not be changed anyway. There is also a fee for me to apply to change the location of £255! car park location google earth pictures.pdf So it looks like a long trip to court is going to happen, I'm going to write out my defence, I've taken some legal advice and they said to ensure it is short and simple, with any evidence easily referenced and found for the judge. So the basis of my defence is going to be: Trespass and who can take me to court over it as per the comment above lack of visible signage and confusing signage about what part of the car park is owned by who, especially as it was at midnight Time taken to contact me after the offence was too long Grace period not given of 10 minutes Previous court cases of the same firm losing because of similar reasons As the court location cannot be changed and I need to make a long travel to get there, plus all of the time wasted putting my defence together, if I am lucky enough to win, can I claim costs for the inconvenience? for example like this case: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/aug/26/parking-eye-takes-on-top-barrister-85-fine

OK, I will do now. I did look to black out certain things, but I was not sure what I should and should not redact and there was nothing on there that was personal enough for me to be concerned with being made public. So I am happy for all to view, but if you are kind enough to redact what is needed as per the forum rules, that would be amazing. I was planning on collecting up other court cases they have lost, to refer to as part of my evidence, I'm not sure if this is worth doing or could just confuse matters? But there seem to be many where the judge has ruled against them because of confusing and not clearly displayed signage, trespass, as well as their charge being £100, which is more than the Bevis case said was reasonable. A quick search found this article as one example Lastly, I will go to the site to get updated images, but from google earth, you can see from the pictures the entrance states it is for the hotel parking, which I followed instructions and gave my details to the hotel. Where I think my car was parked (it was that long ago I'm not exactly sure) there are signs on the opposite wall, but it was 12.30am, pitch black and they could not be seen. KBT cornwall lose case article.pdf Claimants_WS.pdf

Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment and help, I really do appreciate it. Just to elaborate a bit more on the background, just because my lack of knowledge of the process might mean I've actually done things along the way that I did not know what they were and so hadn't mention it. When they decided to go to court, I was offered mediation, which I took. I offered to pay the reduced rate, just to make it go away, but insisted it was not an admission of guilt, it was a goodwill gesture to save us all the effort of court. They refused and wanted £250. A court date was set, but in Leeds, then a couple weeks later I received another letter saying it had been moved to London. I was not aware I had any say in which court it would be held at, but I now understand i have good reason to request it is moved to a local one to me, which is also local to the offending place, I will call the court tomorrow and explain that. But so far I have only been told what is happening, I've not been given the choice for anything. They seem to be going down the route of a contract breach, not trespass which is interesting. There is a document in the evidence which has the agreement between themselves which I assumed meant they can pursue me. I am going to visit the site again shortly, at midnight the time of the offence and take pictures to build a case file of the route I took to enter the car park, how it is in the hotel grounds and no signs can be seen. Am I right in saying, the fact they do not actually have any pictures of my car in the location they say it was in, just because all of the pictures they have were at 12/30am and it was pitch black, I am going to say my car was parked correctly in the hotel side, not on their land and it is then up to them to prove otherwise, which they are not able to do, because the burden of proof lies with the claimant I think?

I only received the documents in a few days, so I wanted to get some advice before I drafted one, just so the points in my defence were valid, as not to irritate the judge with things that are not relevant or helpful.

OK, thank you. So in a nutshell, they are probably going to win by default, no matter how valid my points are with my defence. I have just found out they moved the court hearing to London, despite me living in the Southwest, so I am going to ask for it to be moved closer to where I live and the offence took place, maybe I can then have time to file my witness statement?

I do not know enough about what I should or should not be doing, so apologies if I have done things wrong. I could not see anything that I did not mind being in a public space in the upload, which is why I did not remove anything. I was not invited or told to file a witness statement, I have simply been told I have a court hearing and the details of their defence.

Name of the Claimant: KBT Cornwall Ltd, t/a Armtrac Security Services Date of issue – 16th October 2019, then 16th November 2019 when case was allocated to a different court Date of issue 19th August 2018 + 19 days ( 5 day for service + 14 days to acknowledge) = XX + 14 days to submit defence = XX (33 days in total) - Particulars of Claim What is the claim for – the reason they have issued the claim? Please type out their particulars of claim in full (verbatim) less any identifiable data and round the amounts up/down: No permit What is the total value of the claim? £265.12 Have you received prior notice of a claim being issued pursuant to paragraph 3 of the PAPDC ( Pre Action Protocol) ? No Have you changed your address since the time at which the debt referred to in the claim was allegedly incurred? No Did you inform the claimant of your change of address? N/A Is the claim for - a Bank Account (Overdraft) or credit card or loan or catalogue or mobile phone account? No When did you enter into the original agreement before or after April 2007 ? After Do you recall how you entered into the agreement...On line /In branch/By post ? Automatically agreed by parking in their car park Is the debt showing on your credit reference files (Experian/ Equifax /Etc...) ? No Has the claim been issued by the original creditor or was the account assigned and it is the Debt purchaser who has issued the claim. – It has been assigned to BW Legal Were you aware the account had been assigned – did you receive a Notice of Assignment? Not that I am aware of Did you receive a Default Notice from the original creditor? No Have you been receiving statutory notices headed “Notice of Sums in Arrears” or " Notice of Arrears "– at least once a year ? No Why did you cease payments? I was unaware there was a payment due and when I did find out, I disagreed that a payment should be made as I believe no offence was committed What was the date of your last payment? None made Was there a dispute with the original creditor that remains unresolved? Yes Did you communicate any financial problems to the original creditor and make any attempt to enter into a debt management plan? No The documents they have sent me are attached, please note the dark pictures of my car are not bad scans, that really is the images they are using as evidence of my car in the dark! I tried to follow the guide the best I could, hopefully I have not broken any rules and I am very grateful for your help.

Hi On the 16th December I am due in the small claims court to defend myself against in my opinion, an unfairly issued parking charge invoice issued by a private parking firm. I'll give as much detail as I can, in the hope someone would be kind enough to give me some advice and confirm if my planned defence is likely to succeed or could be improved. The claimant is KBT Cornwall Limited, trading as Armtrac Security Services, being represented by BW Legal in court. The alleged offence took place on 19/08/18 and was for breach of their car park contract terms, with the reason given as parking without a permit, with a parking charge issued of £100, reduced to £60 if paid with 28 days. My defence is planned to consist of the following: - I was staying in a hotel, of which included parking for residents, unknown to me, they shared their car park for their customers with the claimant who issued my parking charge. There was no clear signage that differentiated which part of the car park was for hotel guests and which was owned by a different firm, so I was not to know that by parking in the shared car park, where I was apparently parked was not for hotel guests. - they have provided me with their evidence bundle, which includes some photo evidence, but I feel this evidence should only help my cause. The pictures were taken at 00.35am and are in total darkness, so there is a picture of my car number plate, then a picture of my car, which because of it being pitch black, you cannot establish either the signage explaining it was private land, or even where my car was parked in location to the car park. - I feel they did not follow the correct procedure with regards to contacting me about the offence. The offence took place on 19/08/18, they made an enquiry to the DVLA on 04/10/18, receiving a response on 08/10/18 and then issued a notice to keeper to me on 09/10/18. I am unsure of the exact time required, but I am sure within the protection of freedoms act, they are required to contact me within 14 days, possibly 28 days, either way, their contact to me was much longer, I feel this could be a crucial part of my defence. - The same act also implies that the car park owner must have adequate signage to give notice to the driver of the contract they are entering into. Not only is the signage confusing as it is not clear which part of the car park is for the hotel and which is for them, as evidenced by their pictures, you cannot see any of the signage at all as it was 00.35am and the signs were not illuminated, or visible and were impossible to see. - The pictures they have as evidence are time stamped from 00.34am to 00.37am, yet they have noted they gave a 10 minute grace period and observed the car from 00.27am to 00.37am, yet none of the evidence they have offered validates this. - I did not receive any correspondence about the parking charge, until I was told I was going to court. No letters were sent recorded delivery, however this seems to not matter as BW Legal have already told me they will have this point dismissed on the grounds of the balance of probability that a letter should have arrived. - I also wanted to refer to previous cases of similar cases. KBT Cornwall vs Jackson 10/03/17 where the judge agreed the signage was misleading and confusing and from a quick google, it seems this company are notorious for being over zealous in their approach and there are multiple cases of them losing at court. Any help or advice would be very appreciated and I am happy to supply more information if needed