CEL PCN Claimform - White Cross Business Park***Claim Discontinued*** now going for GDPR Breach claim

[burmafriday]

Hi CAG

 

In November 2018 my wife paid for a parking spot so she could park her car in an allocated space outside where she used to work.

The payment was done through her previous employers and agreed in writing.

 

It is on Private Land; however, she has to cross a car park enforced by Civil Enforcement Ltd. (CEL), acting on behalf of Lancashire County Council (White Lund Industrial Park) to get to her space. There is a camera at the entrance to the Industrial Park.

 

The Landlord was informed my wife was using the space in November 2018 and asked by her employer to inform the Council so she could be added to the list of authorised cars.

 

She was incorrectly issued with 3 parking tickets, through late December 2018 and early January 2019.

She appealed them all through POPLA as advised by the Landlord (a mistake), and contacted the car park Council Manager, and got one cancelled, but apparently contacted them too late for the other two to be cancelled as they’d gone to POPLA.

 

Of the 2 remaining appeals POPLA found in her favour on one and against on the other.

When she did a procedural error letter to POPLA, POPLA replied they were right on both ????

AND said if CEL had sent the same defence she would have lost both appeals.

Who funds POPLA now?

Could it primarily be CEL?

 

After an ongoing saga now lasting over 18 months where she was taken to ZZPS and QDR Solicitors by CEL

the file was then returned back to CEL

and then CEL served court papers.

 

This was about a month after the landlord’s solicitors served a cease and desist order against the Council and CEL in December 2019 for continuously issuing tickets to cars parked on their private car spaces – not the Council’s.

 

CEL say tickets are issued on the grounds the cars are driven across private land and continuously cite Beavis.

There are obviously no CEL parking signs on her office car park as it is not owned by the Council, so Beavis obviously does not apply.

 

All this despite my wife writing to CEL (and ZZPS and QDR) on numerous occasions telling them she did not park on land they enforced and the landlord’s solicitors confirming with the County Council solicitors they were, ‘not seeking to police that area’, CEL were therefore not authorised to police that area.

 

They only have a photo of her driving in, not parked,

obviously. Interestingly she did not get tickets for all the days she worked only when she left at lunch time or at a non-standard time.

 

She also sent a letter asking CEL to copy in the landlord’s lawyers whilst we were on holiday in February this year

– they did not, so they issued court papers whilst we were away in February.

 

My wife is fighting this claim and has counter claimed. 

 

The parties were to serve their papers Form N180 (agreement to mediation) on each other and to the court on 18 May.

My wife served her papers to the court and CEL.

However, she has not received any communication from CEL.

 

She has written to the court initially to let them know she had not had the CEL N180 form and then after another week she wrote to the Court again and asked that CEL’s claim be dismissed forthwith. 

 

Please may I request some help from CAG - 

 

a. I believe she is within her rights to request a dismissal of CEL's case because of their failure to follow Civil Procedure Rules

 

b. Is there a particular, correct set of words we can express for this?

 

c. The ticket should never have been issued to her as she had paid for an allocated space on private land not owned by the Council, through her employers at the time.

 

d. Details concerning her legitimate right to use the parking space have been sent to Lancashire County Council who employed CEL to act against my wife.

The Council did confirm they would have cancelled them if they had received details earlier.

 

e. I believe my wife also has a case against her previous employers as they took the money but did not help her subsequently and I believe she should take out a claim against them

 

Please can you advise 

 

thank you

BF

[honeybee13]

Hi.

 

In order to advise you I think we may need to backtrack a bit. Could you start by giving us the information requested on the forum claim form sticky please? I expect the guys will have other questions to help them help you.

 

HB

 

[ericsbrother]

If they fail to do as the court orders the their cliam will be struck out.

However, the courts have a lot of powers to manage their affairs as they see fit in the interests of justice so the court manager may well give them a bit more time to file.

Check to see if they have paid the second half of the hearing fee.

Mediation is never advised for cases like this, total waste of time as there is nothng to mediate, you either admit you owe the money or you dont. they arent going to suddenly see sense and drop their claim, they are crooks.

 

You should have included the council as a defendant to your counterclaim as well, they might have taken the matter into their own hands then and you would probably have seen the end of this nonsense.

also you seem to give a lot of credibility to their actions when they are just plain unlawful processing of her personal data

[dx100uk]

you mean she had to drive through a private car park to get to her allocated and paid for works carpark.

I very much doubt that the council that owns that car park she drives thru have employed CEL to manage it..

the story does not ring true..

[burmafriday]

Hi 

 

Thank you so much for your replies. Its been some years since I used CAG  - I had forgotten how fast you respond and I am really immensely impressed.  Sorry I had to attend to some personal issues but please note the following

 

1. Honeybee - I will complete the template you suggested and have it up for your ASAP

2. Ericsbrother - Yes thank you - my feeling is the same. If you could let me have a suitable wording that would be wonderful.

 

do we submit an affadavid or witness statement saying

 

The Plaintiffs case should be struck out

The Defendents counter claim be accepted.

 

followed by statement of truth

 

signed and date?

 

In the meant time I was surprised that they did not respond on the correct date. Are we missing something here? The date they were to respond is stipulated very clearly. 

 

3. dx.

 

Yes - exactly

In the industrial zone, there are two car parks. My wife has to enter first, the Car Park owned by Lancashire City Council (LCC) to reach  the Private car park owned by the Landlords of the company for whom she worked. They are two separate car parks and the solictors of the Landlords have issued a cease and desist order against Lancashire County Council.

 

This what the solicitors for the landlords sent to LCC

 

"... As your client has failed or refused to instruct CEL NOT TO ISSUE CHARGES for parking on the Carp Park  (the car park outside my wife's office), despite the fact that such action constitutes a derogation from grant and/or a breich of the covenant of quiet enjoyment under the Lease, we have today (03 December 2019)  sent a formal cease and desist order...... It remains our client's view that the current system is unlawful in that it seeks to restrict  or limit  the ability of our client to excercise its rights to park on the car park, which in turn is causing our Client issues with its own sub-tenant. "

 

As for CEL Managing the LCC's Car Park, let me then rephrase - LCC employed  CEL to police the car park and obviiusly issue parking tickets but they transit into issue parking tickets on cars parked in the private car park. 

 

Thank you 

Warm regards

BF.

[burmafriday]

Name of the Claimant ? Civil Enforcement Ltd

 

Date of issue – 28 February 2020

 

(We were away when this Claim arrived. When we returned we wrote to the court to explain we were away, sent copies of flight itinerary showing that we returned on 28 March and also sent a copy of a letter we wrote to CEL asking them to send copies of all documents to the solicitors of the Landlords whose address had been provided on a number of occasions – they did not do that)

 

Particulars of Claim

 

What is the claim for – 

 

1.Claim for monies relating to a parking charge for parking in a car park managed by the Claimant, in breach of the terms and conditions (T+Cs).

 

2.Drivers are allowed to park in accordance with T+C’s of use.  

 

3.ANPR cameras and/or manual patrols are used to monitor the vehicles entering + exiting the site.

 

Debt + damages claimed the sum of 182.00

Violation date : 28/12/2018

Timed in : 08:01 Timed Out: 13:59

 

PCN Ref: Refxxxxxxxxxxx

Car Registration Number.: HV..

Car Park /White Cross Business Park

 

Total due – 182.00

 (ref:WWW.CE-xxxxxxxxx or Tel xxxxxxxxx)

 

The Claimant claims the sum of 198.99 for monies relating to a parking charge per above including 16.99 interest pursuant to S.69 of the County Court Act 1984

Rate 8.00% pa from dates above to - 27/02/20

Same rate to Judgment or (sooner) payment

Daily rate to Judgment – 0.04 Total Debt and interest due 198.99’

 

This was signed (typed)

“S Wilson, Head of Legal

(Claimants Legal Representative)’

 

 

What is the total value of the claim? £ 274

(which includes a court fee of £25 and a Legal Representatives costs of £ 50 )

 

Have you received prior notice of a claim being issued pursuant to paragraph 3 of the PAPDC ( Pre Action Protocol) ?

 

Yes I received Letter before Action Claim for Debt which was dated 17 December 2019, with a 30 day deadline.

I received it and a further later dated letter from them, both on 24 December 2019

 

I wrote back to them on 24 December 2019 to say I received two letters on 24 Dec 2019 telling them it was unreasonable for me to reply to them in detail within their specified 30 days because: their letter had just arrived,  it was Christmas Eve and my husband had just come out of hospital after he had collapsed with a heart condition.

 

I advised yet again that I had not parked in the car park they policed and referred them back to previous correspondence including the file returned to them by their own solicitors which contained full details of all matters.

I also told them to stop harassing me.

I also asked for a contact name to address correspondence to.

 

I did then receive a letter from them dated 7 January denying they were harassing me

wrote back to them on 20 Jan 2020 informing them that all the information they requested in their Letter before Action was in the file bundle that their solicitors had returned to them.

 

I also advised them that they had been harassing and bullying me for the last twelve months for a payment which they knew they were not entitled to. I also pointed out that they had not given me a contact name.

 

   Have you changed your address since the time at which the debt referred to in the claim was allegedly incurred? NO

 

PCN - Parking Ticket. 

 

 

 

[dx100uk]

the council are nothing to do with the claim and are not mention on the claimform

CEL are not representing the council.

 

dx

 

[burmafriday]

Hi HB

Ok I have done it - sorry I forgot I had to delete names etc.

took me la lot onger.  So, i will attach files here 

 

a. Claim 2 ... this is the Original Claim  from CEL

b. Couinter Claim -1 ... my wife's cCounter Claim (i think we may have to re-issue this document in a Court format as I am not sure this has been achieved although the court has acknowledged it

c. Harrassment -1a PDF

d. Harrassment 2 PDF

e. POPLA-1 14 May 2020.

 

I Hope everything is clearer now.

 

Thank you

Warm regards

BF

Counter -Claim-1.pdf Harrassment -2.pdf POPLA-1 - 14May20.pdf

[BankFodder]

I've removed one of the documents that you've but up – document C because one of the pages still contained all your personal details

[FTMDave]

The last thing I want to do is to be negative after all the rubbish your wife has had to put up with over 18 months, but courts set a high bar for harassment and she wants nearly three grand.  Hmmmmm ...  However, I am not an expert, wait till Caggers come on who have had years & years of dealing with these cases.

[dx100uk]

drop the counter claim!!

 

claimform removed ..shows Pword and we don't need it anyway

[FTMDave]

Before I came across this site I thought counterclaims were a great idea, and I was surprised the site didn't recommend to counter claim.  However ...

 

CEL's MO is to start court action for monies they know full well they aren't entitled to, and they have no intention of turning up in court.  They hope the prospect of court will terrorise motorists into coughing up, and they might also get a default judgement.  However, when claims are properly defended CEL invariably discontinue the case and take a small hit on costs.  It's a disgraceful abuse of the court system but they are able to do it.

 

That's why the site advises to first see off the PPC's pants claim, and then in a separate case later pursue for the hassle they have put you through.

[dx100uk]

Lancashire county devs are nothing to do with lanc County Council 

 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/01624144/officers

 

as for the counter claim..be very careful , once you issue a counter claim all costs limits are removed.

 

better to not counter claim.

 

can we also have an update on the claim from MCOL website please

 

dx

 

[burmafriday]

Hi dx, HB and Dave 

 

Thank you very much for your messages and attending to my posting so fast.

My wife is max impressed with you all working on a Saturday.

 

Thank you dx - Yes Counter Claim - i will try and convince my wife.

Its just more work and cause more delay I guess.

 

I feel and advised my wife that rather than counter claim she should serve a writ on the Landlords and her previous employers.

its their carelessness and aperthy which I think are the root of the problem

 

Regarding the documents i posted - yes please get rid of them all after you have had a chance to look at them because i dont think they will be of use to anyone else.

 

My plan tomorrow morning is to apply to the Court to have their case dismissed for not following CPR procedures 

 

Have a great Sunday

Best/BF

[dx100uk]

why have they not followed cpr?

 

[AndyOrch]

You cant dismiss a claim for none compliance to CPR procedures...they are civil...save your application fee.

 

Andy

[burmafriday]

Hi dx

 

You wanted me to update you on MCOL website claim form.

My wife did not use MCOL. 

 

My wife made the counter claim by letter and a copy of this was sent with other documents earlier.

The Counter Claim has been acknowledged by the court. 

 

I have no idea why they have not followed CPR

- thats why I commented in one of my posts that perhaps they know something I don't.

 

These guys are so experienced that some one called them "Serial Claimants" and yet they did not serve papers on time?

We have still not received them.

 

Hi Andy 

Thank you for your comment. 

In that case we have to wait and see what will transpire next. 

I will ask my wife to call the Northampton County Court and find out if CEL had served the papers yet.

 

best/BF

 

 

 

 

 

[dx100uk]

well register on MCOL and see.

 

dx

 

[burmafriday]

Hi dx

 

OK thank you - I will get that done ASAP

 

best/BF

[ericsbrother]

OK, various things in random order.

 

S Wilson isnt their legal rep, that HAS to be a solicitor and they know that because they have been spanked in court before for the same abuse , including by me so I can provide you with the outline fo that claim to use as a persuasive argument even though it is straightforward procedure. This will help you with a claim for costs though.

 

Counter claim- sorry but claiming for harassment will fail UNLESS you made a proper complaint about it before the counterclaim and that was recorded by the police or local council as such. What you have shown us is unlikely to pass muster and that means you have now created a chance for CEL and their dodgy  hangers-on to actually earn a few quid by asking for an unreasonable behaviour costs order.

 

My advice is to drop that and if necessary swallow on the costs and to start a fresh action when this is all over for misuse of personal data and unlawful processing of personal data etc

 

Their claimis mostly made up add ons that are easily kicked out.

 

Now we would like to see some pictures of the site with the relevant signage and an exact location so we can see the satellite images to look at the layout and possible problems from both sides.

 

theirs is the biggest problem, they dont have a claim but that wont stop them  creating false paperwork to show something to a court so you need to have the true picture to show

[burmafriday]

Thanks dx and Ericsbrother.

 

dx

We spoke with the court and they confirmed that they have not yet received the documents from CEL on this case. We asked the court if we needed to register with MCOL and were told  "it was not necessary as its all paper from now on" We were also told that the court would not dismiss their case but probably write to CEL and give them seven more days to serve their papers.

 

Ericsbrother

I did some research and found out that S Wilson is Scott Wilson, who is Head of Legal and Compliance at Creative Car Park Ltd. (CCPL) The directors of CCPL are also directors of CEL.  In Fact the MD of CEL is also MD of 23 other companies and I see that most of the people involved are the same bunch in many of the companies. 

 

From my investigation i see that CCPL gets the contracts from car park owners and manages their car parks whilst CEL chases any debts and mainly through litigation.  There are many cases of CEL taking people to court and they appear to be serial litigants.  So as Head of  Legal and Compliance he would be able to sign the writs for CEL.

 

Quite an interesting excercise doing the research!. we really are up against people who spend the majority of time rightly or ....trying to get money out of people. 

 

I will get back to you as soon as I hear from the court. Thank you all again.

 

Best/BF

 

 

[ericsbrother]

head of legal compliance at another ghost company still isnt a solicitor so cant sign anything on behalf of CEL as he is not involved directly with them.

 

the true owners of Creative and CEL are best friends and business partners and their names dont show up on the Companies House records which is itself breaking the law

 

Boss of CEL is a man of straw and a serial director without actually running the businesses he lends his name to.

You will need a degree in history to follow this crowd rather than watching current affairs

 

however, you have made an important discovery if it can be followed up and that CCPL may be the company that signed on the dotted line with the landowner and that makes CEL's claim  duff as they will have no locus standi.

 

They don't have a contract with the landowner and as they are not a subsidiary of CCPL (or vice versa) they cant assign anything either.

 

Star parking are another outfit that do this with CEL, the owner of Starpark etc is the same person who pulls the strings at creative. that makes it more likely they will want to run away but now they cant because of your counterclaim.

 

This will mean they will have to chuck more money at it which is good,, they may get a costs order for the duff counterclaim that covers their expenses for their lying initial claim which is bad

[FTMDave]

I agree with EB, dx, etc. - drop the counterclaim.

 

That will cost you £115.  However, once they've discontinued or you've given them a kicking in court, sue them for misuse of your personal data under GDPR.  

 

I've seen various figures floating around, but a minimum would be £250.  However this would be a much more serious case, they've passed the data on to various other parties to harass your wife and used the data to start court action they have no hope of winning, so £500 would be eminently reasonable.

Edited June 4, 2020 by FTMDave
Typos

[ericsbrother]

that is a tick from me as well.

Much better to separate things and beat them with a proven method.

When you have whipped them in court a complaint to the ICO and the DVLA copied to your MP should be made.

 

the reason these crooks get away with things for so long is that the powers that be dont hear about them, the DVLA will tell porkies to the govt and they will tell parliament it is all working well when it clearly isnt.

 

A huge postbag reinforced with some nice evidence via court victories for the motorist will make them wake up but this means many people need to fight back and stick it to them rather than just being happy about the result of their day out.

 

The real problem is that these companies have the resources and sometimes the political clout to carry on when they know they are wrong.

 

What need to happen is they sue someone like Lord Sugar when he is in a bad mood and they will be on the wrong end of a restraining order but little people don't have the financial clout or know which strings to pull to get a High Court judge out of bed at 2am to sign off such a thing.

 

[burmafriday]

Hi All, 

 

 

sorry for being missing the last few months as we considered the comments all round and finally, bit the bullet and persevered with this case. In short, we decided to continue with the counter claim as we felt that it was the best course of action.  

 

During this period, we received no communication from the Claimants at all.

They did not even submit their Directions Questionnaire on time, never mind sending us a copy.

BUT amazingly, the court granted them a 30 day extension (out of the goodness of their hearts) .

 

The final set of pre-hearing documents from both parties were to be submitted for 05 October, (the Monday just gone) but additionally, CEL were to pay the fees/costs on the same date.

 

We received an email yesterday, 06 Oct. - one day after their deadline that they have submitted a "Notice of Discontinuance."

 

We checked through "Part 38 Discontinuance" and know that we can submit an application to have it set aside but must do this within 28 days.  

 

So,

a) should we just apply for a stay on the Discontinuance as clearly, they have wasted the courts time and carry on the case 

 

b) should we accept the discontinuance and then serve a new writ on them (our counter claim)

 

c) we actually have formidable proof that their actions were not only reckless but unnecessary ...

the area of land where we parked was not in their jurisdiction to police.

 

Thank you

Best/BF