VCS/? Claimform - PCN No Stopping - LJLA.

[ericsbrother]

so inform court of new addy and keep an eye on the clock and as soon as the date for them paying the allocation fee has passed send the courts service a letter asking that the claim be struck out on the basis of no case to answer and their non payment.

 

Probably wont happen but they will get a kick to either pay up or shut up.

 

Once they know you are defending they often drop the claim anyways as they know they are on to a loser because they have been there dozens of times before.

they use the courts to bully people into paying up withoput a hearing, not to press claims that are actually due.

 

Only 15% of people fight so it is a numbers game for them

[liverpool33]

This case seems similar to mine, VCS appear to be attempting to use some new arguements at LJLA,

 

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=116961&st=480

 

Has anyone seen these arguments used before?

[lookinforinfo]

You seem to have accepted that L airport is now rid of their ByeLaws. If stated by VCS I wouldn't believe it and would definitely check that out.

 

Not sure why Peppipoo are so worried about VCS they have recently lost quite a few cases at Liverpool.

 

 

[ericsbrother]

they asked for permission to change them and it was refused so business is very much as usual. Byelaws are exactly the same

 

 

 

This case seems similar to mine, VCS appear to be attempting to use some new arguements at LJLA,

 

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=116961&st=480

 

Has anyone seen these arguments used before?

[liverpool33]

Hi all,

 

i've been putting together some arguments for the WS. Not sure if the stopping specifics should go in here? Or should they have gone in my defence? I hope I can still use them as arguements.

 

I will elaborate on the airport byelaws and signage issues.

 

Anything else that should go in or be omitted?

 

thanks in advance

 

Witness statement

 

In the county court of liverpool

 

VCS (claimaint) vs. liverpool33 (defence)

 

1. My name is xxxxx of xxxaddressxxx. On the DATE my wife, received a “parking charge notice” from the claimant. This notice actually referred to a supposed stopping episode. I read the notice and recognised it did not comply with POFA regulations. I then wrote an appeal on her behalf.

 

2. I received an email stating that the appeal had been rejected based on the “assumption” I was the driver.

 

3. The claimant has not provided enough details in the particulars of claims to file a full defence. In particular they repeatedly confuse parking and stopping and also importantly whether they are pursuing me as the driver or keeper.

 

4. At no point have I received a charge notice personally – ? shall I put a bit about preaction conduct here?

 

5. The claimant has not provided me with any satisfactory evidence to show me that I was the driver, nor how they arrived at that conclusion in the first place.

 

6. I do not recall whether I was the driver on that evening – should I include the insurance policy at the time?

 

7. The photographs provided to me by the claimant do not show a stopped vehicle, each image shows the car in a different position. The car may therefore have simply been turning.

 

8. The original “PCN” sent to my wife refers to both parking and stopping. Neither are evident.

 

9. The “PCN” explicitly states the time of stopping to be directly before 21:45.

 

10. Only one photograph is time stamped prior to 21:45. One photograph cannot possibly be expected to confirm a vehicle is stopped.

 

11. In any case the other photographs provided by the claimant show the car moving between 21:44:59 and 21:45:03, and again in a different position a few seconds later. –Is this too much detail here? Shall I save this for court

 

12. The land in question is governed by bye-laws and hence a civil contract can not be formed – can elaborate here

 

13. The signage in question is inadequate to form a contract for a number of reasons.

 

14. Firstly, the signage contains too many words to be read safely for the speed. –I can put more detail in here

 

15. The wording is forbidding, makes no offer and therefore cannot offer a contract. ?do I need to reference PCM v Bull etc here?

 

16. Even if a contract could be formed under such circumstances, it is demanding the impossible as stopping at the subsequent roundabout is required at times to give way to oncoming traffic.

 

17. If the contract is not deemed impossible, it must be therefore be considered acceptable to stop in some circumstances such as to allow reasonable compliance with the highways code in instances such as giving way at roundabouts, but not in other circumstances.

 

18. The signage does not make this clear.

 

19. The line markings in the photograph provided by the claimant show that the turning/stopping episode occurred at a junction which is on the barred side of a barred double red line.

 

20. A bar represents the end of an area regulated by roadside lines.

 

21. It may therefore reasonable to assume that the double red line ‘stopway’ does not apply to the area in question.

 

22. The airport parking T&C (website) support this, in that they state the red routes i.e. “stopway” are clearly marked.

 

23. Given the stopways are “clearly marked” the barred end of double red must therefore represent an area which is not part of the “stopway”

 

I believe the facts stated here to be true

 

signed

date

[ericsbrother]

lets us start at the beginning,

your wife didnt receive anything.

the Keeper received a letter and you cant write the WS if she is the person being sued as the keeper.

 

You will need to rewrite the whole thing as if she is writing it, you have no rights or interestes in the matter UNLESS you have been named on the court summons.

 

I would shorten the other matters of fact down to a more simple

 

the land is covered by its own byeleaws and is therefore not "Relevant land" as far as the POFA is concerned so no keeper liability can ever be created

 

It is put to strict proof that the claimant produce a document that shows their contract with the landowner has somehow a supremacy of contract over statute law.

 

the defendant believes the byelaws do not create any contractual condition as expressed in the claim nor allow for a third party to determine other conditions

 

the claimant thus has no locus standi.

 

the signage is prohibitive in nature and therefore cannot be construed as being a genuine offer to park even if the above was not true.

 

then if you want to say anything about anything else you DONT say "I do not recall"

you write the driver did not see any such signs or whatever,

you write in the third person so there is no admission of who was driving and it avoids confusion between the driver and the keeper, who is the person being sued.

 

You also add loads of previous decisions from JLA where VCS got their butts kicked and also the parking pranksters blogs about VCS's failure to get the byelaws repealed or at least stated that they dont stop them from carrying out their crooked claims.

 

Copy the whole of each relevant blog or court repoert putting the case number and dates etc in your WS and then the whole report in the appended pages.

 

take picture of the signage ect with you to shwo that no stopping isnt an offer to park and again refer to the blog and other cases.

 

Judges love precedent and these will be "persuasive".

VCS are then likely to just skulk off rather than carry on and risk getting told to stop their antics by a court, this way they still get money from the unaware and limit their costs by not getting told they know they are wrong and thus have embarked on a reckless or unreasonable course of action.

 

pay attention to the detail of wht you want to say so you dont score an own goal

Edited September 12, 2018 by dx100uk
spacing

[liverpool33]

Thanks, useful feedback, I will condense the arguements a little and add in the evidence as you suggest.

 

Apologies, not sure where is best to look for all these cases. Is there a collection of VCS losses anywhere or is there a resource I can search?

 

lets us start at the beginning, your wife didnt receive anything. the Keeper received a letter and you cant write the WS if she is the person being sued as the keeper.

 

You will need to rewrite the whole thing as if she is writing it, you have no rights or interestes in the matter UNLESS you have been named on the court summons.

 

Re: above, they are pursuing me specifically as they seem to think I was the driver. They said so in correspondence and although their Particulars of Claim is keeps mentioning they are pursuing me as driver/keeper, I clearly am not the keeper and they must know this.

[ericsbrother]

you have had 4 months to do a bit of reading on this but have a look at the other thread here by doing a subject search and also look at the Parking pranksters blogspot, you will find plenty to use and in particular references to VCS's attempts to get them included in the byelaws being spat out by the powers that be.

 

other motoring forums will also be helpful for providing more examples from JLA and prohibitive signage.

 

You copy everything you find and add it to the appendix of your witness statement and make sure you mention the case in your WS

 

so where you say signage is prohibitive you then say as in the case of VCS v Smith, Watford CC 1834 or whatever and then make sure a coy of VCV v Smith is in your evidence budle, even if it is only a court report from another blog or forum.

It becomes persuasive rather than compulsive for the judge.

 

 

So, as they keep saying driver/keeper you challenge them for STRICT PROOF who was driving at the time as you arent the keeper.

 

Have you been named anywhere in the paper trail as admitting being the driver (ie id you appeal and say "I" or write an appeal on behalf of your wife?

 

If so they will infer things that they dont know to be true and that assumption may well be sufficient without a denial.

 

If you may have dropped yourself in it dont bother denying being the driver, it doesnt change the signs because a different person didnt read them

Edited September 13, 2018 by dx100uk
Spacing

[liverpool33]

Yes I've made a list of cases I've seen around the net, just wondered if there was a publicly available court databases for the official report etc. I'll start collating documents and reference them.

 

Re the driver issue: So they claim I said I was the driver when I appealed on behalf of the keeper. They sent me a copy of the text of the appeal, which doesn't say anything about being the driver. However, they have manually added a line at the top of the document that says something along the lines of "Note: driver was selected option".

 

Now, I don't recall ticking that, it's nearly 18 months ago but I vaguely remember ticking something along the lines of appealing on behalf of someone else. Anyway my main error was getting involved and putting my own email, and not just getting the keeper to respond as they had lost POFA at that point due to time-frame.

 

Anyway, we are where we are and I'm quite looking forward to it. Thanks for the advice as always

[ericsbrother]

no need for it,

the judge wlil only be interested in what you have to offer rather than a scour through databases.

yes, they have access to all of the detail but want they wnat to see is that you have bothered to do something and found some relevant cases to show them that you understande what your defence means.

 

You can still challenge VCS's assertion that you said you were driving because tick boxes that dotn have an alternative selection mean nothing.

 

However, now you know the perils of playing the gae their way rather than using a pen and paper and writing to them to tell them to foxtrot oscar.

 

The plus side is they are unlkely to have any real evidence you were driving but as said, the court can decide on balance of probability it was you so only worth fighting that point if it wasnt you.

[liverpool33]

Actually don't know who was driving, for a number of reasons. Happy to let VCS try and show it was me, if the court decides on balance of probs that is was me (and I can see there is a chance of that) would it likely impact negatively on the rest of my arguements?

 

I have seen in some court transcripts the judge ruling on one part of the case first as that affects the rest of it, do I have to ask the judge to do that? Or is that just part of their remit as judges, wouldn't want to patronise them

[ericsbrother]

It wont impact on your other arguments but if you are coy about who was driving, saying somehting like it may or may not have been me will annoy the judge and they will consider that you are not being fully truthful in your eveidence or responses.

 

So, if you genuinely werent driving say so and be assertive about this.

If it was your son for example, by all means give that relationship if directly asked but avoid saying it was Fred Smith, just it was my son and leave it at that.

 

If VCS then want to spend another £200 tryig their luck again that is up to them ( he can deny it and they wont be able to chase you again and as there is no keepr liability they will run out of road) but they still dont have a right to make a claim and their signage is still crap.

[liverpool33]

I have condensed the arguments (abit) and added in some cases I've read about and seem to be relevant:

PCN vs BULL

CEL vs Maccafferty

Pace Recovery & Storage vs Lengyel

 

I've got photos of the signs, which I'll include in the documents I send.

 

I notice in Crutchley, the Judge didn't pay very much attention to the small signs and how it's impossible to read them without stopping. Is it worth me pre-empting VCS use of Crutchley in their WS by putting something in about the size of those signs? Or just waiting to take it on in court?

 

Found some statements on LJLA website where they refer to it being the same airport for 80 years so I've included that as well

 

Witness statement

 

 

1. My name is xxxxx of xxxaddressxxx.

2. I perceive a number of issues with the Claimants claim against me and I have attempted to outline them in my witness statement.

 

Driver/Keeper issue:

 

3. On the DATE the keeper of the vehicle in question received a “parking charge notice” from the claimant. This notice actually referred to a supposed stopping episode rather than a parking offence.

4. I read the notice and felt it did not comply with POFA 2012 regulations that apply in these circumstances for establishing keeper liability.

5. There was clearly a number of other issues with the notice, however with the notice causing distress to the keeper, I offered to write an appeal on her behalf.

6. I received an email stating that the appeal had been rejected based on the “assumption” I was the driver.

7. Complicating this, the claimant repeatedly confuse whether they are pursuing me as driver or keeper, see Particulars of Claim, thereby affecting my ability to file a full defence.

 

Relevant land

 

8. The land in question is governed by Byelaws made by the Merseyside County Council in pursuance of Section 3 and Section 5 of the Civil Aviation Act 1968 and Section 8 of the Civil Aviation Act 1978, and Section 26 of the Civil Aviation Act 1980, in respect of Liverpool Airport.

9. Section 5 refers to Control of the Motor Vehicles.

10. The Byelaws have at no stage been revoked.

11. The Byelaws do not make any provision for the creation of a contractual condition as expressed by the Claimant.

12. The airport has previously tried to change the Byelaws. see Liverpool Airport Consultative Committee Friday, Additional Papers.

13. The airport was unsuccessful in these attempts.

14. It now seems that, having unsuccessfully revised the Byelaws the airport (and the Claimaint) now claim that Byelaws do not apply to the land and the Byelaws only applied to a previous Airport – see Liverpool Airport Consultative Committee Friday, Additional Papers.

15. Baroness Kramer (Minister for Transport at the time) answered a written question in Parliament, confirming that the aforementioned Byelaws are still currently in force. See Parliamentary written question HL5109

16. The fact the Byelaws are still in place has also been confirmed by the Information Commissioner. see FOI request

17. It is worth noting the airport has in fact not moved, simply moved terminal. The runway in use was built in 1966 - See newspaper article

18. The airport has had the same International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) code throughout it’s history. - see ICAO document

19. Liverpool John Lennon’s Airport’s own website makes reference to the fact the airport has been in continuous service for over 80 years. – see LJLA 80th birthday celebrations press release

20. The Byelaws are therefore relevant, cover the issue of controlling motor vehicles in the airport, including parking, and therefore a civil contract cannot supercede this.

 

Was a contract formed at all?

 

21. The signage on approach to the airport is insufficient to form a contract.

22. It has too many words to be read when driving past. –see attached photo

23. The signage is forbidding, stating only “No Stopping” and therefore a contract cannot be formed. See PCM (UK) v Bull (B4GF26K6)

24. However, to understand the sign and in particular, who the contract is with, one must stop their car, immediately contravening the supposed contract.

25. The signage makes no reference to formation of a contract nor any Terms & Conditions.

26. The sign states “£100 charge if you stop”. This does not appear to be an offer or an agreement, but more like a deterrent to discourage drivers to stop their vehicles. Reliance is placed on CEL vs Mccafferty (3YK50188) where a deterrent penalty clause was deemed not recoverable as it did not form part of a genuine offer.

27. Smaller signs are present but are so small that they cannot be read from the road whilst driving – See attached photos

 

If a contract was formed it is a contract demanding the impossible

 

28. Even if a contract could be formed under such circumstances, it is demanding the impossible as stopping at the subsequent roundabout is required at times to give way to oncoming traffic.

29. A contract must therefore be invalid under the doctrine of impossibility of performance. See Pace Recovery & Storage vs. Lengyal C7GF6E3R

30. If the contract is not deemed impossible, it must be therefore be considered acceptable to stop in some circumstances such as to allow reasonable compliance with the highways code in instances such as turning and giving way at roundabouts, but not in other circumstances.

 

 

Was the vehicle stopped in a “stopway”?

31. The photographs provided by the claimant do not show the vehicle stopped in the “stopway”.

Edited September 19, 2018 by liverpool33

[ericsbrother]

dont ask questions, you make statements so change it round so as it reads as though you are giving a list of why the claim is wrong rather thasn inviting trouble so for example

"was a contract formed at all?"

change to

 

"I do not belive that a contract can be formed at all because....."

do that for all points including the "if a contract formed....."

 

 

The judge will ask themselves all of these points as questions of law and may do so out loud. Your job is to say your bit, not try and replace their deliberations.. Now, dont forget you have to send a copy of this to VCS and the court. If you have absolute mountains of additional papers that youhave referred to and the cost of copying is prohibitive then you can normally get away with just a single copy of these to be taken on the day but then you have to add more detail in your witness statement so you dont just say in the case of PPS v Bloggs you need to say what it was all about and then use the actual report as evidence you havent just made it all up.

 

 

Also you have missed out the more obvious stateemnt of saying a lack of authoirty because.... and I would also push the point about the signage being prohibitive by saying no stopping and therefore the signs arent a gernuine offer of terms for a PARKING contract and also make the point that you have to stop to read the signs that supposedly offer the contract so would by necessity only form a contract by breaching its conditions!

Edited September 20, 2018 by honeybee13
Paras

[liverpool33]

Thanks I'll make those changes.

 

I actually received the WS from VCS when I returned home from being away yesterday. It makes interesting reading. They make some quite bizarre errors and factual inaccuracies e.g. wrong name and dates in places, refer to me by the wrong sex at times (expect they have just copied and pasted from Websters case over on pepipoo). I don't expect these error to be fatal for their case but looking forward to pointing them out.

 

Perhaps the most interesting is the way they have worded some of their claims, they seem to be pursuing the argument that the signage permits access to the land only under the T&C provided in that sign. I assume this is to allign themselves with the FGW vs Jones/Tighilt case to get around the Byelaws issue but it really does leave them open on signage as that is clearly not what the signs say, and if they lose this case I presume they would have to need to change all their signage. Is anyone else suprised they are taking that approach/risk?

[dx100uk]

Can we see it please

One multipage pdf inc exhibits

[ericsbrother]

well, if they are quoting other sources to claim they know who the driver is that will be worth pursuing from the outset because if the judge sees that they have made some dreadfullly wrong presumptions and inaccurate reporting in their statement the rst of it will be considered to be unreliable at best.

 

 

 

You could suggest that this is enough to have it stated that the WS is so poor that you would need to cross examine the author over many points and as that person wont be present request that the entire thing is deemed inadmissible. It has happened before.

Edited September 20, 2018 by honeybee13
Paras

[liverpool33]

attached, hope that works

VCScasepdf.pdf

 

Split it into 3 bits: WS, and 2 x exhibits

 

Looks redacted again to me?

 

If someone confirms it I'll add the other 2

VCredacted2.pdf

[brassnecked]

Can't see how Beavis applies, it wasn't parking per se. VCS would try to invoice a cyclist or electrically assisted scooter rider who stopped to look at the notice if they could idenify them. Neither are registerable with the DVLA however VCS would invoice them if they could, they told me so when I phoned and asked them

[lookinforinfo]

Jake Burgess who wrote the WS is a nasty little Scrote.

Very early in his statement he averred that His company by Being members of the IPC are fully compliant with all the legal requirements

Of the IPC. This is wrong.

 

They are fully accredited Members because they LIED that they had all the Necessary legal requirements when they didn't And still don't to this day.

Jake knows this since he has worked there long Enough to see VCS lose cases precisely because They do not have the necessary legal permissions In all of their car parks.

 

Time and again they lose Because of a lack of planning permission or no Contract with the landowner for example

-which They should have had already if they were IPC Compliant.

 

By misdirecting the Court in this way, they give The impression that all their necessary paperwork And legalities are in order.

Nothing could be Further from the truth.

[ericsbrother]

It is rare but does happen that a judge will call out the WS of the claimant as being patently not a statement of truth and then make comments like if the author had the guts to attend they would be taken down for contempt of court.

 

It does however allow you to stick the knife in when challenging the veracity fo the statement by saying something like I would have wished to cross examine the witness on these points, is there any cahnce of an adjournement so they can attend and answer these questions?

 

You will be told NO but you may get the WS itself struck out as inadmissible or stated that it is so unrelaiable it will be ignored