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Hello All,
New here, first post, be gentle...
Some time ago I fell foul of ParkingEye at a motorway service station. One thing led to another and now I'm faced with a court case which I intend to defend. Scary though it is...
I've received my Directions Questionnaire and I'm busy writing my defence. Ive got a few days left to get it done but I'm struggling with a couple of things. The defence will be along the lines of:
a. Claimant’s failure to comply with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct
b. No Keeper Liability under POFA 2012
c. No Contract
d. The Claim is for Breach of Contract
e. The amount of the claim is punitive and not a Genuine Pre-Estimate Of Loss
f. Lack of standing by the Claimant
g. ANPR accuracy, reliability and legality
I think I've got a,b and c pretty much covered, I'm struggling to come up with a decent wording for d, e and f.
I've searched various forums until I had so many tabs open on my desktop that it almost froze, I had come across a couple of decent paragraphs but can't find them again.
The car park in question is free for two hours, after that you can pay for additional parking at some retail outlets which I genuinely did not know at the time (I might have done that had I known about it and also realised I'd overstayed my welcome). Failure to do so then leads to where I am now. Does the additional payment option make a difference to my defence? I can only find examples for either free or pay and display car parks, mine seems to fall in-between the two.
For g. I revisited the scene of crime and filmed my route to show that, whilst there may well be signs there, I genuinely did not see them on the route I took. I've seen this mentioned as entrapment areas before? How do I go about submitting this evidence? I filmed it using my phone and have it stored as an mp4 file, do I send a memory stick to the court? Is it even worth going down that route?
I was also thinking along the lines of 'the claimant hasn't proven that there was any offence committed'. The reason for this is that in the heavily redacted contract they attached to the large pile of papers I received it mentions a 'grace period' but helpfully the actual period is redacted. They claim I overstayed approx 30 mins, subtract the grace period from that and any doubt I shed on the accuracy of the alleged ANPR equipment (for which there appears to be no planning consent either) and there can't be many minutes of overstay left? How do I find out what the actual grace period is (or any other details of the contract)?
Another problem I have is quoting relevant case law. I'm reluctant to just cut and paste in this instance as I've no idea what it all means and obviously will have to argue my case in court eventually. Am I, as a non legal expert expected to provide this and if so, where can I find out more?
I think that's it for now, I can safely say I've never worked this hard for £180 but it's the principle of these people that gets me.
Any ideas on how to prepare my defence further would be very welcome.
Thanks in advance,
jokn08
New here, first post, be gentle...
Some time ago I fell foul of ParkingEye at a motorway service station. One thing led to another and now I'm faced with a court case which I intend to defend. Scary though it is...
I've received my Directions Questionnaire and I'm busy writing my defence. Ive got a few days left to get it done but I'm struggling with a couple of things. The defence will be along the lines of:
a. Claimant’s failure to comply with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct
b. No Keeper Liability under POFA 2012
c. No Contract
d. The Claim is for Breach of Contract
e. The amount of the claim is punitive and not a Genuine Pre-Estimate Of Loss
f. Lack of standing by the Claimant
g. ANPR accuracy, reliability and legality
I think I've got a,b and c pretty much covered, I'm struggling to come up with a decent wording for d, e and f.
I've searched various forums until I had so many tabs open on my desktop that it almost froze, I had come across a couple of decent paragraphs but can't find them again.
The car park in question is free for two hours, after that you can pay for additional parking at some retail outlets which I genuinely did not know at the time (I might have done that had I known about it and also realised I'd overstayed my welcome). Failure to do so then leads to where I am now. Does the additional payment option make a difference to my defence? I can only find examples for either free or pay and display car parks, mine seems to fall in-between the two.
For g. I revisited the scene of crime and filmed my route to show that, whilst there may well be signs there, I genuinely did not see them on the route I took. I've seen this mentioned as entrapment areas before? How do I go about submitting this evidence? I filmed it using my phone and have it stored as an mp4 file, do I send a memory stick to the court? Is it even worth going down that route?
I was also thinking along the lines of 'the claimant hasn't proven that there was any offence committed'. The reason for this is that in the heavily redacted contract they attached to the large pile of papers I received it mentions a 'grace period' but helpfully the actual period is redacted. They claim I overstayed approx 30 mins, subtract the grace period from that and any doubt I shed on the accuracy of the alleged ANPR equipment (for which there appears to be no planning consent either) and there can't be many minutes of overstay left? How do I find out what the actual grace period is (or any other details of the contract)?
Another problem I have is quoting relevant case law. I'm reluctant to just cut and paste in this instance as I've no idea what it all means and obviously will have to argue my case in court eventually. Am I, as a non legal expert expected to provide this and if so, where can I find out more?
I think that's it for now, I can safely say I've never worked this hard for £180 but it's the principle of these people that gets me.
Any ideas on how to prepare my defence further would be very welcome.
Thanks in advance,
jokn08
just make sure there's no identifying bits in there.
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