OPS ANPR PCN Claimform - 17mins stay - VANTAGE POINT, BRIGHTON, BN1 4GW,

[dx100uk]

the attachments to this email you've got?

 

leaving your pers details on stuff opens you up to your details being searched on say face book etc.

 

witness statement disclosures stage of the claim.

dont forget you just dont sit around between stages of a court claim twiddling your thumbs, we don't nurse maid, nor can we, we are not the one infront of the judge (if it gets that far!).

 

you must self help and READ UP.

PCN Claimform

using our enhanced google searchbox

 

so you know whats to come

how to react.

the next stage after that. etc etc

 

but you never do anything without checking here FIRST.

 

dx

 

[BMX bandit]

Ah got it- thanks for clarifying.

 

There were no attachments to the e mail, In the text referred to all requested information for point 3 of the CPR letter having been supplied hard copy with their original letter of claim which was true.

 

I am not really on social media so limited avenues to find out my details but somehow they have.

 

OK witness statements, got it and yes I've been reading around the issue and prepped for the MCOL response which I've got the OK for from you guys- thanks

 

You mentioned cutting off e mail  - what do you mean by this and how should I effect it, HB suggested I should write to them,

 

is that the advice without acknowledging the e mail received - seems strange - what reason would I give for assuming they might have it ?

[dx100uk]

you reply be email simply stating.....

 

my email address, nor any other electronic medium,  is to be used for any communication with regard to our mutual court claim of xxxxx (CCJ number) .

writing only.

................

else they be filing fake documents and lies 1 minute before any court deadline removing your chance to counter them.

 

dx

[honeybee13]

dx, for the avoidance of doubt, might it be better to say

 

'Neither my email address, nor any other electronic medium,  is to be used...'?

 

HB

[dx100uk]

[BMX bandit]

e mail to state do not use e mail sent

 

Received a letter repeating the same questions I advised in post #96

 

Previous advice was not to respond on the question re sections of the 2007 Town and planning act so no action regarding that.

 

I also completed and submitted the defence to the claim on the MCOL portal prior to the deadline-

 

What are the next possible steps and what are the timescales?

 

I have read around the subject and have a generic view of a Witness Statement  but do I need to regularly check the MCOL portal for advice that it has ben taken to the next stage?

 

Appreciate feedback

[honeybee13]

Have you been reading up here as dx advised? Looking at other threads will tell you how this all works. As dx said, CAG is a self-help site.

 

HB

[BMX bandit]

Thanks HB and yes for sure, I am pulling threads as I go but getting a bit lost as to the the sequence of events, Appreciate your patience and support

 

An update of events for completeness

 

Sent E mail to DCBL stating not to use e mail address and have since received a letter from them repeating the same questions from the e mail as I advised in post #96

Previous advice was not to respond on the question re sections of the 2007 Town and planning act so no action regarding that.

 

I also completed and submitted the defence to the claim on the MCOL portal prior to the deadline and have received an acknowledgement letter from the court. it indicated that the defence had been issued to the claimant and that they had to contact the court within 28 days if they wished to proceed

 

A week later I received a 'without prejudice to save costs' letter from DCBL offering to settle at £190. I have 7 days to accept or they will continue the normal court process. This seems to be standard practice looking at other threads and I assume the advice is to ignore?

 

So it looks like unless they drop it at this stage, They will take it to court and I will need to prepare a witness statement. I have found several threads detailing airport slip road stopping and pure gym where signage was changed. In these cases the WS contained quite a bit of specific mitigation such as confusing signs or that the vehicle had broke down.

 

I have yet to find specific past examples which are closer to my circumstances. Do you believe that they lack of permission for signs not entering into a contact and that loading is not parking are strong enough? I will keep researching

 

 

[lookinforinfo]

It will not always be possible to have exact circumstances to yours but any case where motorists have overstayed will be relevant. So reasons to challenge their PCN could be-non compliant PCN, poor signage, not relevant land, not taking grace period or consideration period into account,  invalid contract etc. Some of those such as not relevant land  do not pertain to your case.

 

You mentioned no planning permission which in the past have not been recognised on their own as being able to cancel a PCN despite the fact that not having the necessary  permission is a criminal offence. However under the new legislation  Private Parking Code of Conduct   S14 Relationship with Owner  "[g) responsibility for obtaining relevant consents e.g. planning or advertising consents relating to signs"

 

At the moment these Regulations are suspended because of a dispute over some of the new tariffs by the BPA but S14  [g] is not in dispute. The contract will be governed by the Law of the land which overarches any Code from the BPA and the IPC.

 

I think it  therefore incumbent on Judges to recognise the importance of Council permission for cameras and signage and take it into account. It would seem fairly obvious that if it is a criminal offence not to have permission that the signage should not be allowed. It is also a bit strong that motorists are being charged for often comparatively minor breaches while the breach by a parking company is major yet they get away scot free.

 

I did say in an earlier post that your first PCN was compliant. That was before the new Regulation came out I think. It is now clear that parking companies using ANPR to register the arrival and departure of vehicles are not complying with the definition of parking period.

 

The time taken to enter the car park and find a place to park as well as leaving the parking spot at the end of shopping, and driving to the exit is not parking. The bit in between is but the driving part can take quite a few minutes especially on busy days or leaving a car park that leads to a busy main road.

[BMX bandit]

Thanks for your feedback LFI

In my research I noted that the government regulations have been withdrawn at this time which in itself I take as an indication of confusion and difference of opinion between state and the PPC's. OK so there's a planning consent and PCN compliance angle to consider. I totally agree that the 6 minutes overstay (11 mins grace period) could have well been used on entering, manoeuvring etc. given there are several concrete pillars at the site in question

 

-Through research there seemed to be a theme about not admitting who was driving at the time- The vehicle does have several insured drivers- is this relevant to this case?

 

-Another angle I think was suggested early on was that loading is not considered parking- Does this carry any weight? I have yet to found any cases citing this? Does the fact that their signage states no waiting or idling is permitted (albeit in small font) cancel this avenue out? but then do we get into the whole debate about whether I entered into a contract with them or not simply by being there?

 

-Is Covid a mitigation in that many councils and private companies modified their terms to account for the unprecedented times - this case in point happened just as we were coming out of lockdown?

 

-Further Covid related issue and the reason for the protracted activity was due to the fact that the bike shop (where the drop/ pick up / loading ) was taking place) had a 1 in 1 out policy in operation with hand sanitizing etc. I'm not sure this can be framed as any form of mitigation can it ?

 

So planning ahead for the WS, taking from past examples, am I right to assume that the sections required (basis of defence) are as follows;

NO KEEPER LIABILTY

LOCUS STANDI

ILLEGAL SIGNAGE- CPR31 request

ABUSE OF PROCESS- Unicorn tax

 

Re Abuse of process,  In their response to my snotty letter that indicate the signs say additional costs may be incurred but not specifically how much, furthermore they cite the appeal decision of Britannia v Semark-Julien in support of the unicorn tax not being struck out as 'abuse of process'. Reading up on that case it looks like the judge didn't find in either favour and the famous Parking eye v Beavis. which they all cite costs must be in the parking charge itself- Am I right in my understanding of this point?

[FTMDave]

Whatever WS you draft will have to be altered when the fleecers' one arrives, but try to flesh out the following.

 

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS - briefly describe what happened.

 

NO LOCUS STANDI - the fleecers are not the landowner, they have refused to produce the contract with the landowner following a CPR request, you do not believe they have th4e authority to bring the case.

 

NO KEEPER LIABILITY - use LFI's points above.  (Yes, you should never admit to being the driver, they have to follow legal steps to pass liability from driver to keeper and they haven't as LFI has explained).

 

ILLEGAL SIGNAGE - you do not believe they have planning permission, no contract can be performed when there is illegality concerned.

 

LOADING IS NOT PARKING - I see you're genned up on this.  You weren't idling, you were there to load something.

 

DE MINIMIS - the grace and consideration periods give you 15 minutes, you only stayed two minutes over which is a trivial breach, especially during COVID restrictions

 

FRUSTRATION OF CONTRACT - even if, despite all the above, the court considers you entered a contract with OPS, it was "frustrated" by the COVID restrictions of the time which meant everything took longer.

 

ABUSE OF PROCESS - the Unicorn Food Tax they add, that can be copied nigh-on verbatim from just about every WS.

[brassnecked]

 

I know its  a Residential case but Jopson v Homeguard might be applied as it infers temporarily stopping to load is not parking. 

That's the case a Courier might use if a PPC tries it on when the liveried Sprinter stops and the driver delivers a parcel, then gets invoiced.

 

http://nebula.wsimg.com/f6d657adf7df70d27e1dd285688b5701?AccessKeyId=4CB8F2392A09CF228A46&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

 

Loading can take up to 20 minutes or all day if a house move or bulk delivery

[BMX bandit]

Guidance appreciated always and in anticipation

 

 I have been doing my homework reading around legislation and finding examples for the sections you advised

 

One points for clarification if I may

-The signage in the car park states an 11 min grace period, FTM you quoted 15mins- where have you taken this from, I noted in  the currently withdrawn Gov COP it states 10 min in table B1?

 

Also - Is the refusal to provide all copies of all correspondence on the matter as requested in the CPR- A legitimate part of defence ? what section would you include this aspect in?

 

In their response to my CPR request they stated that they had previously provided the documents in their response to my snotty letter after their LOC- which is true

 

Does this negate raising it in a WS or are the relying on a sentence the include in the letter 

 

'The courts direct both parties to provide all evidence prior to hearing' to mean that if they really have to put some effort in and photocopy/ reprint some pages and their intimidating tactics don't work that they may do it if they decide to take it to court?

[FTMDave]

There are two periods.  The "consideration period" when you read the signs and decide if you want to accept the conditions and stay.

 

And the "grace period" where you drive out of the car park, having to slow down for other cars, etc.

 

The "grace period" is 5 minutes in the government's CoP and the "consideration period" is 10 minutes.

 

I see OPS are members of the BPA, and even the BPA agree with the government.  Read section 13 here  https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/AOS_Code_of_Practice_January_2020_v8(2).pdf

 

In fact the BPA say "a minimum of 5 minutes" and "at least 10 minutes", so the 15 minutes could easily become 17 minutes in the case of, i don't know, an unprecedented world pandemic (which actually did happen in your case!)

[FTMDave]

4 minutes ago, BMX bandit said:

In their response to my CPR request they stated that they had previously provided the documents in their response to my snotty letter after their LOC- which is true

But they didn't include a copy of their contract with the landowner nor planning permission for the signs (because it doesn't exist) so you bring this failure up in both the NO LOCUS STANDI and ILLEGAL SIGNAGE sections.

[BMX bandit]

Ah ha,  gotcha, They are both shown in table B1 but I didn't twig that they could be added together

 

Got it re failure to conform to CPR request and have included the fact in both sections you mention

 

Thanks again

[dx100uk]

You need to be a bit careful here, they dont have to ever comply to a cpr 31:14, its only a request.  Maybe comply is simply the wrong word to use.

 

Dx

[lookinforinfo]

Britannia v Semark was one of the few cases that they one. And it was only won because the defendant was using a Freeman of the land argument which never had a chance of winning and why Britannia appealed it.

 

The new Private Parking Code of Practice may not be valid at the moment but it is quite clear in the new Regulations that those extra charges are definitely not allowed. I can see no reason why Judges would go against those strictures currently and the majority of Judges already disallow those charges already.

[BMX bandit]

Thanks for the above pointers guys, I will be sure to include in any WS which is looking more likely to be needed if the attached recent correspondence is anything to go by.

 

I have not seen this in other threads, Is it a standard tactic to offer direct mediation ? What's the advice from the forum? Is it worth a phone call or best to keep our powder dry?

 

They have included their court directions questionnaire as it says, again is this normal, why have they done this, Is it a scare tactic to try to show they are serious about going all the way??

 

It states that they agree to the case being referred to the small claims mediation service which seems to be a 1hr phone call, this doesn't sound like a bad thing and I guess I still prepare my WS as a script to go though and hopefully get a fair minded mediator?

 

Playing this out to the potential conclusion, if mediation failed and it went to court they have indicted i the form that they would like any hearing to be held at their local court. As they are in Runcorn does that mean I might potentially have to go all the way there to defend this? I'm not against it but are they really going to go to all this trouble for a claim of £272.64?? Is this the maximum amount that they can claim or if it goes to court and win, are they entitled to claim further costs??  Surely they have spent more than this on all the paper they have sent to me so far- utter madness!!!

2022-09-21 DCBL Settlement before court.pdf

[FTMDave]

Don't worry.

 

You are a Litigant in Person and you get to choose the court.

 

The letter is a standard tactic.  They know their case is pants but hope to scare you and to be able to squeeze at least some money out of you.  Ignore it.

 

Don't agree to mediation.  There's nothing to mediate about.  You don't owe them anything.

[FTMDave]

Regarding costs.  Even if you were to lose the case the judge would add the £35 hearing fee but then certainly disallow a big chunk of the interest and also probably (but not certainly) the £70 Unicorn Food Tax they have made up.

 

There are no other costs at small claims.

[BMX bandit]

Thanks as always for the feedback guys

 

Have received the 'notice of proposed allocation to the small claims track' letter

 

Understand the instruction to tick no for mediation

 

What about section D1 - suitability for determination without a hearing ??

 

I am assuming I tick 'no' as we want a day in court if it gets that far and to cause maximum inconvenience to the claimant

 

Comparing the N180 that DCB sent me in anticipation of court, I think it is a version dated, (04,14) whereas the one I have received says (06,22) 

 

The sections are different there's goes to A to D and the one I have goes A to E with this current D1 being a new question

 

Does their use of the wrong form count against them, Its another sign of incompetence I guess

Appreciate your viewpoints

[dx100uk]

Not an issue.

 

 Just follow the like advice in any PCN claimform thread 

 

3 copies

dont give dcbl email/phone on their copy 

 

Dx

 

[BMX bandit]

Perhaps because this D1 is a new question, I haven't found any mention of whether to agree or not that the case is suitable for determination without a hearing?

it also says if No- please state why not? 

What's your view?

 

Good spot re the 3 copies, I missed that , SO one for the court, one for DCB and one for me, do I need to send a copy to OPS or are we past that point now?

[dx100uk]

No 

 

You don't want it on papers only as they will lie/fake stuff you can't then question 

 

Dx