VCS SpyCar PCN Claimform - Bristol Airport PCN No. 1

[lapwing_larry]

Aren't the Byelaws available here?

 

https://www.bristolairport.co.uk/corporate/about-us/our-policies/

[southwestram]

Another badly made point by myself. I'm trying to find the byelaw upon which I'm reliant. I'm not sure what I'm saying in my defence when I say,

 

Another badly made point by myself. I'm trying to find the byelaw upon which I'm reliant. I'm not sure what I'm saying in my defence when I say,

The road on which the alleged contravention took place is subject to the Road Traffic Act  1988 (RTA), by virtue of Section 192 (1) of the RTA and it being a road “to which the public has access”, it is also subject to the Bristol Airport Byelaws 2012. Schedule 4 of PoFA therefore does not apply and the Claimant is unable to hold the driver nor keeper of the vehicle liable for the charges.

and,

The only basis in the DVLA KADOE contract for obtaining the Keeper details is for using PoFA. Of Course PoFA can’t apply on airport land where byelaws apply - plus PoFA is only relevant for parking, not driving along an open road.

Is my point that the road, being open to the public cannot then be subject to any restriction that would override the right to stop the car momentarily? Is it that the RTA (which would allow such an event) would have more 'weight' than a byelaw, and a byelaw carry more weight than a private company imposition? 

Or is it a requirement under PoFA that I'm making this point?

As has been made evidently clear, I have no understanding of how the law works, and wouldn't want to be proven a novice, lest my other arguments then be doubted.

[FTMDave]

The way I understand it is this.

 

POFA refers to private land - essentially car parks.  So a Sainsbury's car park owned by whoever rents the place to Sainsbury's.  Or a car park in a residents' complex run by whoever had the building done.  This is called "relevant land" in the Act.

 

But you were on an open road!

 

Say you saw someone you recognised smashing up lamp posts in your street.  You sent this person a demand for £100.  They would laugh at you.  You're not the police or the courts.  The correct procedure would be to call the Old Bill, for the person to be prosecuted in a Magistrates' Court and for a fine to be paid to the state.

 

The same goes for where you were photographed.  The area is covered by the Road Traffic Acts and also by Bristol Airport Bye-Laws.  

 

I think that's enough.  You don't have to specify a particular bye-law.  It's sufficient that you show that the area is not "relevant land" under POFA.

 

No POFA = no keeper liability.

[brassnecked]

In essence and simplistically, tVCS have taken it upon themselves to regard the entire airport and roads within its curtilage as being all Relevant Land for their purposes of if it stops invoice it even roads classed as public highway.  They would invoice an Airbus A320 outside the terminal  unloading passengers if they thought they could.   However as the access roads are just that and subject to byelaws and even potentially Road Traffic Act stopping is a Prohibition under the Byelaws or RTA, so not a Parking Event nor capable of forming any Contract. as an access road cannot be Relevant land.  LFI check that I have that correct please.

[lookinforinfo]

 

To carry on from  Brassneck's post all the land within the airport is covered by byelaws and therefore PoFA does not apply which prevents the lowlifes at VCS from being able to transfer their charges from the driver to the keeper. On top of that NO Stopping cannot be classed as offering a contract of any kind since it is a prohibitory notice. { All major airports as well as many smaller ones are governed by the Airports  Act 1986}

 

I don't think you will be there long as it is pretty open and shut. Don't forget to claim your expenses when you win.. Travel to the court, parking , loss of wages and I think it is about £8 per hour for research. 

 

You could point out to the Judge that their charge of even £100 is a penalty per the Beavis case since it was only deemed not a penalty because of the car being in a car park so there was a legitimate interest in people not over staying since that may prevent others for being able to park . Here on a road there is no legitimate interest.

[southwestram]

Just wondering how many hours I've spent

 

- a couple of dozen hours at least, asking advice from you chaps,

 

another dozen writing my witness statement, half a dozen more complying with court requirements,

 

four hours traveling to and from the airport to gather video and then another two editing said footage.

 

Plus the cost of attending court which would involve a day off work.

 

It would come to a pretty penny if it were totaled up.

 

Such a shame the judge would likely throw out a four-figure claim.

 

I'll be happy to win the case and let this be, but it would be interesting to have an idea of the success rate of applications for expenses in such situations.

[honeybee13]

From memory you can claim for the cost of a day off work, five hours of LiP admin and maybe a couple of other minor expenses. If you want to do this, you need to take a printout to court with you. 

 

HB

[dx100uk]

its small claim, costs are very limited.

you'll only at best get £90 for day off work .. little else ..poss look to forgetting the rest...sorry.

 

[southwestram]

Yeah. Much like jury service, it's based on 1985 earnings.

As I said, I'd be happy just to win the case and send an up-yours letter to VCS, politely worded of course, but with some accompanying diagrams lifted from my Ladybird Book of The Alimentary Canal, explaining how they can override their sphincter muscle when filing their next PCN.

[AndyOrch]

https://www.moneyclaimsuk.co.uk/litigant-in-person-costs-and-expenses.aspx

[southwestram]

I think I may have found an ace to keep up my sleeve.

In their rejection of my appeal, VCS state that they show a CLEARWAY sign on the main entrance sign upon which they base their alleged contract with me.

On my video, it shows a blue circle with a red edge and a red diagonal cross, all on a white background. This is also the sign that is used on all of their repeater signs along the feeder road.

This is NOT a Clearway sign. A Clearway sign (or an Urban Clearway) has only one red line crossing the blue circle. And it should be displayed on a yellow background.

It's a Red Route sign.

Taken from; https://autodaynews.com/car-reviews/what-is-a-clearway-urban-clearways-clearways-and-red-routes-explained-2/#:~:text=If the urban clearway is a clearway with,footpath as well as to the carriageway itself.
 

• URBAN CLEARWAY
• During the hours of enforcement for an urban clearway, you cannot stop or park your vehicle except briefly to pick-up or drop-off passengers.
•  
• RED ROUTE
• If the urban clearway is a clearway with a bit more room for manoeuvre, the red route is a clearway with a bit less. On red routes, which are typically found in cities and often along major bus routes, you cannot stop or park your car at any time and, unlike a standard clearway, the rules extend to the verge or footpath as well as to the carriageway itself.
• The only vehicles that can stop on a red route are licenced taxis or disabled blue badge holders, but they can only do so for the purpose of picking up or dropping off – there’s no parking allowed. Red routes, or red route clearways to give them their proper name, are marked by rectangular ‘red route clearway’ signs at the beginning and end but also, crucially, by double red lines along the sides of the road.

So they rely upon one or the other, and as a taxi driver, I am completely free to pick up or drop off passengers along the entirety of the route.

We go to court tomorrow at 10am. I'm hoping for a 7-nil win, if they actually take the plunge. I'm not sure that they will.

[dx100uk]

doesnt matter what signs there are VCS cant enforce them...

public highway TRO's put them there or the Airport Authority under byelways NOT VCS.

they are not a traffic enforcement Authority.

 

dx

 

 

dx

 

[lookinforinfo]

Not sure you are allowed to introduce new points after your WS unless you add a supplementary one.  You do have more than enough to win but you could hide it in  with other points you have already made about the signs and see if it works.

 

Best of luck for tomorrow. You won't need it so break a leg. 

[southwestram]

Lost. £222 to pay for having stopped, pulled forwards, and stopped again, got a total of 20 seconds. 

 

Is this a record?

 

They would not allow the video to be shown. 

[lookinforinfo]

They didn't need to see the video you had already admitted that you had stopped your car and therefore breached the "contract." Your argument was about the Law. IE there was no Hirer liability and No stopping cannot form a contract. Both of those should have been enough to get the case thrown out never mind the other reasons.. You got a poor Judge. We had a recent case where a Judge had not come across the argument about Hirer liability and he looked it up and came down in favour of the motorist obviously.

 

I am so sorry for that terrible result. You should have won it within ten minutes. I would appeal that decision. Have you already paid?

 

When you have cooled down a bit could you please give us a run down on the way the hearing went.

 

[southwestram]

I'm pretty cheesed off. The judge said that the contract was enforceable. That the signage is adequate, based on the map provided by VCS. (I of course could not counter that argument by showing my video.) He agreed that VCS were allowed to operate based on the 6 of 8 pages of the contract that they provided. He said that a contract does not need to be witnessed. He basically threw out all of the legal points raised in my defence, then refused to look at the video. Which kind of left me grasping at straws.

I pointed out that their signs do not tally to their map, and aren't properly fixed in position so as to be seen by a driver. I tried to make an argument that NO STOPPING couldn't apply to the entire airport, and that therefore it could only be assumed that it applied where signs were visible, but he interrupted me half way through to tell me that it could apply to the entire airport except in designated parking areas. My point was going to be that there are no visible signs in the area that I had stopped, and so assumed it to not be covered under the prohibition.

The twenty seconds between first and third photo cover two separate stops. I first stopped, then pulled forwards to let the van pass (not knowing it was the VCS camera van), then stopped again to put the phone into its cradle and answer the call. Three photos in twenty seconds!

And so, our judge decided that having pursued me for a year over a twenty second stop, upholding the claim at a cost to me of eleven pounds a second was an appropriate charge.

[lookinforinfo]

The contract is enforceable except where it isn't enforceable. Like with No Stopping. It is a prohibitive demand and cannot offer a contract since it cannot offer anything. In any event you were not liable because VCS did not comply with the Act regarding the delivery to you of the required documents. The Act is quite clear and I quoted it to you in my post. The Hirer can be pursued if and only if certain requirements are observed. And VCS did not observe them. End of.

 

Which is why you may want to think about appealing and why I asked if you had paid in Court. 

[southwestram]

Furious over the lack of attention to the WS I submitted. It appears to have been scanned over quickly, and ignored in the greater part. 

 

No, I didn't pay, and I'd consider an appeal. My faith in the British justice system has taken a seismic shock through this though. 

 

I felt like I should ask the judge to step back and take a look at what he was actually doing. In effect, giving VCS carte blanche to harass people for over a year, employing all the scurrilous tactics that provoked the new Code of Practice in the first place, and fining someone for stopping to retrieve their phone (it was on the floor) and replace it in its cradle,  and halfway through that process, spotting a van behind, pulling forwards to let it pass (there was loads of room anyway) and then retrieving the phone before pulling away. You can probably assume that i stopped for 7 seconds, pulled forward for a couple of seconds and then stopped for 10 seconds while I got the phone. And for this I have to pay £220?

 

Scandalous. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by southwestram

[dx100uk]

urm..

sounds like judge lottery to me.

 

or who they play golf with....

 

dx

 

[brassnecked]

Definitely Judge lottery,  some of them are not up to speed with the shenanigans and misleading of the couirt by fleecer's LFI's points should be part of any appeal, as in Judge failed to consider the fact POFA not applicable, not relevant land and VCS have no jurisdiction.

[Nicky Boy]

I don't know if it will have any bearing on the OP's decision on whether to appeal, but what are the cost implications of said appeal?

[southwestram]

Looks complex, potentially expensive, and quite possibly prejudiced before I begin.

This from advice Now dot Org

Appealing a county court decision is a two-stage process. First you have to get permission to appeal. Second, if you are successful in getting permission, you have to manage the appeal process.

There are special rules about appeals. You can find them in the box below.

 

Appealing against the Judge’s decision in a case is a big step

• If you have lost your case, you will only be able to appeal if there are legal grounds – that is, if the judge made a serious mistake, or there was something seriously wrong with how the procedure was followed. You can’t appeal just because you thought the result was not fair.
• You will usually need the judge’s permission to appeal.  
• You only have a very limited time to decide whether to appeal, usually 21 days. 
• If you lose your appeal, you will almost certainly be ordered to pay the other side’s legal costs.
• Appealing is complicated. It is sensible to get legal advice quickly before you start. 
•  

Other things to consider when deciding whether to appeal

• Just because you believe that the Judge got it wrong is not sufficient reason to appeal.
• You may disagree with the Judge’s decision, but on its own that is not enough to be a ground of appeal.
• If all you are saying is ‘I disagree with the decision’ then your appeal will not succeed.
• If the Judge who made the decision made minor errors, this is unlikely to be enough for you to succeed in an appeal. 
• The fact you think the Judge believed the ‘wrong’ person and should have preferred your version of events is not a ground of appeal.
• Evidence you forgot to produce at the trial or which you did not think would be necessary is not ‘fresh’ or ‘new’ evidence. It is too late to use it now.
• ‘New’ evidence could be evidence of fraud committed since the trial, for example, where one party’s representative overhears the other party boasting about how they had lied to the court and won.
• Perjury (swearing in a court that something is true when it is not) is a criminal offence.
  
  I think it's time to simply pay up, shrug and put it down to experience. Hopefully, Karma will play a big part in the lives of all those that came to the decision that 200+ quid is a fair amount to penalise someone who has stopped to retrieve a phone, put it into its cradle, press the 'answer' button and drive off - a total of 20 seconds during which nobody was obstructed, and no advantage sought or gained.
  
  thank you to all of you that have helped in the preparation for the hearing, and who gave their advice freely and candidly. Once I've paid my thirty pieces of silver unto Ceasar, I'll be back to make some form of donation to the cause.
•  
• Sorry that it didn't work out on this occasion. It will, however, perhaps serve as a warning to others as to what is admissible in a courtroom. I was shocked to find that my video for instance, ostensibly dash-cam footage would not be permitted to be shown, and that prohibition kind of blew my case straight out of the water. I think the judge read the first few paragraphs of my WS, decided it had been a copy+paste from 'The Internet', and so disregarded it. He clearly had not read through the entire WS, and I wish I'd been pedantic enough to take him through it completely. The video ban threw me off-balance, plus the way the judge greeted the claimant's solicitor like old friends well met.
  
  In any event, water passes under bridges.

[FruitSalad1010]

Unfortunately given the law system is entirely a human construct it is open to many flaws, only some of which can be overcome with experience.

I would not be despondent about the fact you consider your defence wasn't given full consideration and that errors were made.

I expect it is not unheard of that professional litigators on occasion have to be fairly forthright when they can see an incorrect decision is about to be made, this would be very difficult for a litigant in person to do.

You could wonder whether you would have been successful with a professional representative however this would have cost you far in excess of what defending this claim cost you and you still may not have succeeded in defending the claim.

If this is your first run at this kind of thing, £220 is a cheap education and I expect if you were to face it again your chances of getting the outcome you desire would be much higher.

[lookinforinfo]

 

You are missing the point about the video Southestram. The video proves you stopped. Where the Judge erred was

1] there was no Hirer liability as VCS did not comply with PoFA.

2] No Stopping cannot form a contract so VCS could not charge you and the Judge should have recognised that too though that is more of a moot point with some Judges than point one which is a definite.

 

As you can see in your post that you have grounds to appeal as the Judge erred in Law.

 

[southwestram]

15th April 2023

 

Dear Sirs

 

Further to your letter of 29th March 2023 regarding the miscarriage of justice which resulted in you being awarded a CCJ against me, I can confirm that the amount of £216 was deposited in account

30-97-51 03881002 on Saturday 8th April 2023

It appears on my bank statement under [edited - HB], the epithet I have used to identify you within my banking app. If ever I were to forget your name and very existence, the term [edited - HB] would be certain to pop into my head whenever I think of your company.

I await your confirmation of receipt of the same.

Warm Regards