UKCPM/Gladestones Vanishing windscreen PCN Claimform - Parked in loading only bay - The Edition - 130 Colindale Avenue, colindale, London nw9 5HE ***Claim Dismissed***

[lookinforinfo]

Honeybee it was just by chance that I looked in. 

     LFI X

 

 

[lookinforinfo]

I know £40 is the easier solution.

However you may feel different when you walk out of Court without paying the crooks a penny.

Plus they will have paid around £300 for the solicitor and £35 court fees which I hope will be educational (certainly will have taught them a lesson.

Don't forget to ask for your costs when you win. Things like lost money by not being at work today, travel expenses and parking. Oh the irony!

 

In Court it is very informal- you address the judge as Sir not your honour.

You have a strong case-you were not the driver and the non compliant PCN means they cannot transfer the alleged debt to you.

 

Take a copy of PoFA 2012 and the Private Parking Code of Conduct with you and include the preamble by the Minister where he says that he expects that the parking companies should be making  some changes already.

[honeybee13]

Sir or Madam, for the judge LFI?

 

HB

[lookinforinfo]

Sorry HB, I stand corrected. In my defence when I have been in Court (3 times - parking tickets in the early days when they were statute barred after 6 months -,happy days) all the Judges were men.

 

[Picante]

Can the defendant claim expenses on behalf of the lay helper who is "me" (sorry if that wasn't clear that i'm not the defendant) as the defendant is retired. I however have wasted loads of time on this. Also i'm self employed which might make a difference on that.

 

does it matter that the private parking code of conduct is currently withdrawm since June 7th pending a review of the level of the fees?

[dx100uk]

no .

what withdrawal review?

 

dx

 

[Picante]

"

This publication was withdrawn on 7 June 2022

Private Parking Code of Practice is temporarily withdrawn pending review of the levels of private parking charges and additional fees."

 

 

 

[Withdrawn] Private Parking Code of Practice - GOV.UK

WWW.GOV.UK

---

The Code of Practice sets out the requirements that private parking operators must follow when enforcing parking restrictions in England...

 

 

Was the no to the it doesn't matter about the withdrawl. Or no to the lay helper costs?
 

[dx100uk]

no thats the changes they intend to impose not what exists.

 

im a bit concerned that you now tell us you are not even the defendant....

 

you think a lay rep or mackenzie friend can get costs too.

 

sorry but it now appears you've not been truthful from day one to CAG members

 

but the defendant should be able to get the claim dismissed with the work you have done and the fact the claimant is not attending

but they MUST ATTEND. 

 

dx

[Picante]

I don't know if lay reps can get costs that's why I asked. I'm guessing by your answer they can't.

 

The defendant is attending.

 

 

 

 

[Picante]

Hey,

 

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

We won the case.

 

Phew! Boy was it a close call though.

 

1) Judge wouldn't let me argue the point about PoFA 2012 because he said the point of the defendant not being the keeper was not raised in the defence.

(I realised later that in the defence it said "no contract exists" and that perhaps I could have argued that there was no contract because defendant was not the keeper) I didn't really understand why the judge wouldn't allow it considering it was in the defences witness statement.

 

2) Signs not clear. Not accepted so watch out for that in future cases. He said the signs seemed acceptable. I was surprised about this as it was clear from the actual photographic evidence that the signs particularly any of the terms in the small paragraph were not even close to readable. If you can I'd say take a full size copy and stand to court and show it to the judge from 2ms away to stand a chance or something perhaps that would work. I don't know what world he's living in if he thinks a reasonable person should be expected to get out of their car and stand within 1m of a sign and read a paragraph of text in newspaper size print to see if they are good to park there.

 

3) Luckily and I don't know how this got accepted as it wasn't raised in the defence specifically either. He ended the case on the grounds that sufficient evidence had not been given by the claimant to demonstrate the there was no loading because taking place as there was only a time stamp in 2 sequential photos of about a minute. He seemed like he was going to allow that but I mentioned about a 10min grace period which I think helped a tiny bit. His reasoning was that you don't have to be carrying boxes in and out of the car the whole time to be loading. You could be walking 10mins to the place to get the box for instance. (I think that bodes well for other loading type cases maybe) 

 

Those were the only points raised really.

 

I asked if costs were possible for printing and postage. He said costs were only permissible if the claimant had acted unreasonably and that for printing and postage these are typical costs that you should expect in a trial. (which is a bit unfair if you're supposedly the winning party and the trial is brought through no fault of your own and suddenly you're lumbered with costs for defending yourself.)

 

The other point he made which I thought was interesting was that he felt that the parking companies use a copy and paste approach to their claims and just through everything in there and go ona fishing expidition to see what they can catch. The way he expressed this gave a strong impression that he felt this was reasonable approach and acceptable.

 

The last thing I was unsure about was the claimants witness statement. In small claims court do you get to question the witness? I tried to argue that if I didn't mention the PoFa thing in my defence that I could raise it when questioning the witness (who was not there but i was hoping that then I could get it thrown out that way, I really have no clue about law as a lay person) My thought was that I could attempt to discredit the witness and question the factual validity of the statements made in the witness statement and bring up the PoFA point that way. But he said as it wasn't in the defence I couldn't do that anyway.

 

Is it the case that you can only ask witnesses questions in regard to things you have previously stated in your defence?

 

Anyway a lucky escape in the end. To be fair to the judge he did seem to be looking for any holes in their argument.

 

I think the biggest victory was that there was no delay in the morning cases and so we were in and out within 1hr which was good going.

 

Anyway thanks again for all the help much appreciated.

 

 

[FruitSalad1010]

Congratulations on your victory.

CPR 27.8 (5) The court may limit cross-examination.

Also you state the witness was not there, so there was no witness to cross-examine.

You cannot cross examine the judge who is there to consider the law and decide the claim, and who of course cannot advocate the claimant's claim.

Was the claim heard in the claimant's absence or did they appoint a solicitor who was present?

It is interesting that the case was decided on the point of loading. Under the road traffic regulation act loading areas are reserved for goods vehicles, however where the dispute is on private land I can see how this doesn't apply.

As to the earlier discussion of addressing the judge, Ma'am works well in practice as some consider it flows easier than Madam, ultimately it is simply a matter of personal preference.

Edited June 14, 2022 by FruitSalad1010

[FTMDave]

Well done on your victory! 

 

I feared the judge might have refused to accept your late WS, so glad I was wrong.  That was brilliant work you & LFI put in to get the WS prepared.

[lookinforinfo]

I am very pleased you won. Aren't you glad the £40 wasn't paid.?

 

Some times I despair with Judges how they  come to their decisions. In this case there were so many reasons that could have won the case but this Judge chose perhaps one of the least expected ones  to deny  UKPCM. That is why everything has to be thrown in to win a case since we never know which item is the one which decides the Judge in favour of the defendant..

 

Well done once again.

[Picante]

Yeah that was my point that  I should be allowed to cross examine the witness to question the validity of their testimony. As in their testimony they claimed their claim was elligble becuase of their reliance on PoFa 2012. Which we believed was invalid claim.  And that as they were not there the case should either be dimissed or at least rescheduled. (although the judge said , on another point, that he'd probably not reschedule anything as it's a small amount and would be a waste of the courts time. I don't see how they could win in that case as surely it's more onerous on me.

 

What would be a valid reason for not allowing cross examination?

No claimant and no solicitor present. They had notified us that the claimant would not be present, but didn't specify that there would/wouldn't be a representative.

 

I didn't even pick up on us not being a commercial vehicle, as it "not so clearly" says commercial vehicles on the sign. I guess the definition of commercial is it's use and not it's actual appearance. Plenty of delivery drivers such as yodel  in regular cars these days. I think the judge was just being nice.

 

The judge declared at the start he doesn't read any documents before the trial as oftren people don't show up so it's a waste of time. (or so he claims anyway)

 

 

I'm incredibly pleased I don't have to pay the £160 or whatever they were asking for nor the £40. But rest assured I shall be walking or paying the ticket/reduced fine as it's a waste of my time and too stressful. But everytime I park now at least i'll get to think of how i'm still £160 up on them.

 

"Some times I despair with Judges how they  come to their decisions."

 

I was quite pushy in the trial to be honest, I don't think he was used to someone so insolent. I kept asking him about the points he dismissed as I just couldn't comprehend the conclusions he was making from the evidence and premises placed in front of him.

 

My conclusion from all this was to be rich so you can afford stuff, and stay away from lawyers and the courts as much as humanely possible as they're living on another planet from the rest of us.

 

Thanks again everyone it's a great relief really and you do a great service here for lots of people.

 

 

 

[dx100uk]

you dont as such cross examine. not like you see on tv much of which is American fake based anyway.

if it ever got to a point you didnt agree with something they say or claim in court whilst there.

you bring it up when its your turn again

 

you were very lucky not being the defendant to be allowed to speak at all. so obviously there were good mitigating reasons?

 

dx

 

 

 

[Picante]

the defendant doesn't have the best hearing and had asked the judge to repeat something at which point the judge offered to sit at the desk next to us for ease of communication, perhaps this or just perhaps the very informal nature that meant the judge never bothered to stop me from talking when i kept saying stuff. who knows?

[dx100uk]

these speculative invoice hearings mostly are.

unless you've a judge that is their pockets oneway or another or play golf with them so to speak and you never get a poke in.

 

dx

[Picante]

That's All Folks!