CPR 44 doesn't apply to small claims, it's CPR 27.14 which deals with SCC cases. Normally Judges will only award defendant's costs based on lost earnings through taking time off work to attend court. So if there is no hearing, the chances of claiming costs for a discontinued case are between slim and none. And, to repeat what I said earlier, kirkby is not acting as a McKenzie Friend, that is only applicable to the Magistrates' courts. If he goes to a hearing and speaks for the defendant, he is acting as a Lay Representative. It's a pity some of the posters on CAG don't spend more time giving practical help to OPs, instead of indulging in petty (and ungrammatical) point scoring.

Wrong on all counts, I'm afraid. You will certainly need to send a written defence. If not, they will automatically get Judgment against you. Citizen's Advice are next to useless regarding private parking issues. They take their script from BPA Ltd propaganda. Most high street solicitors aren't that clued up on this stuff, and if you find one who is, they will probably charge £2-300 for a court appearance, which you won't get back unless the Judge decides the other side has "behaved unreasonably".

Just to correct the terminology here, a "Mackenzie Friend" is someone (not legally qualified) who assists a defendant in a criminal case at the Magistrates' Court, eg a speeding charge. A MF is not normally allowed to address the Court directly, but may sit with the defendant and advise them what to say. In a small claims County Court hearing, the defendant may have a Lay Representative who can speak on their behalf, and conduct the case for them. See CPR 27 section 3.2. If defending a claim relating to parking, where the likes of PE send a solicitor from LPC Law, the defendant would need to fully understand all the legal points in their defence statement, and make these arguments coherently to a Judge. In reality, most members of the public making a first court appearance are unlikely to be able to do that, so taking along someone with experience in such matters might be a good idea. I helped the defendant in the case which PE lost last week (reported elsewhere on these forums and on the Parking Prankster blog) and I don't think the defendant would have managed it on her own.

Apart from these ones, presumably: http://www.parkingeye.co.uk/News I know that at least two of these are real, I did the defence statement for 3QT61574, and another Pepipoo helper did 3QT29139. The reality is, that even with the most robust defence statement, unless the defendant really understands all the legal points and is able to argue eloquently in Court against the LPC Law solicitors who are now acting for PE, it is more likely than not that a District Judge will find in favour of the claimant.

Yes fill in the acknowledgement of service, and tick the box that says you wish to defend the whole of the claim. This will give you 28 days to submit a full defence, which will obviously be that your partner can prove he was elsewhere at the material time, and couldn't therefore have entered into any contract relating to parking at Aintree. He can only get a CCJ if they a) take the claim all the way to a hearing (unlikely); b) win the case (extremely unlikely); and c) he doesn't pay the judgment within 21 days. There's more chance of Shergar winning next year's Grand National ridden by Lord Lucan.

You should go to court and plead guilty due to "duress of circumstances". This was used by Nick Freeman (aka Mr Loophole) on behalf of David Beckham, when he broke the speed limit while being chased by paparrazzi. If the mags accept your statement, and I see no reason why they shouldn't, you would most likely get a Conditional Discharge, effectively a guilty verdict but with no punishment by way of fine or points.

You lost the bet. According to BPA sources, only around 40% of private parking tickets are ever paid. Largely due to sites like this one, Pepipoo, MSE etc, more people are now realising that these fake tickets are just toilet paper. Hence the increasing desperation of PPC's trolling the forums to try and muddy the waters.

It would be interesting to know when the alleged speeding offence took place. If it was, say, on the 20th September, that means they have until 21st March to lay the information before a Court. Assuming that your latest attempt to send them the completed S172 request succeeds, they should send you a Conditional Offer of a Fixed Penalty, giving you 28 days to respond. Given the incompetence shown so far, you could easily find that the 28-day deadline extends past the last date for them to lay information, in which case you just don't respond and don't contact them at all, and they'll be out of time to bring a prosecution.

Oops sorry, I meant radar not laser.

The speed reading is taken from a laser beam emitted from the camera. The two photographs of the car crossing the gridlines are taken a fixed time interval apart (usually 0.5 seconds), and the number of gridlines crossed provides corroboration of the speed reading, otherwise known as the secondary check. (The gridlines are a fixed distance apart, usually 2 metres but older ones are 5 feet in some areas). ACPO procedural guidelines state that no prosecution should ensue if the secondary check differs from the laser reading by more than 10%, or if there are multiple vehicles in the frames. That doesn't always stop the barstewards trying it on in some instances.

Yes people do win, in about 22% of cases, according to an FOI request I made. I've personally challenged 24 alleged speeding offences, and either won in court, or had the proceedings discontinued, on 20 of those 24 occasions - 3 were mine, the rest were on behalf of others. You can read about some of them under the username "bargepole" on the Pepipoo forums. It's a long hard battle, and requires a lot of research. Your first move should be to write back to the camera unit, asking for copies of photographs "to help with driver identification" - do not use words like "evidence" or "proof". If they send you those, post scrubbed copies on pepipoo, and you will be advised whether it's worth challenging in court.

Private clamping and towing will be illegal. Both clamping and towing can still be carried out by official bodies (Police, Councils, etc) so in the example given of the blocked access route, plod would arrange the towaway. PPCs won't be buying any tow trucks, they'll be too busy taking down their illegal signage then signing on at the Jobcentre.

No, it shows how out of touch you in Local Government are. In the recent public consultation on private clamping by the last government, banning it altogether was the most popular choice, even though it wasn't offered as an option in the consultation. Some faceless Ministry spokesman then dismissed it with the "landowners must have the right to protect their property" platitude, despite the fact that the Scottish Courts have declared it a form of extortion, and its subsequent withdrawal north of Hadrian's Wall hasn't caused any earthquakes. I'm liking this Coalition more and more: unnecessary public servants, speed cameras, and now private clamping all seem to be heading for the chop.

There is still no legal basis for the claim, even if they can identify the driver. Under contract law, you can only claim for your losses not for arbitrary "penalties". If the vehicle in question was parked across two bays, the only loss was the use of the second bay, so they lost the potential parking fee for that bay - what was that, £1 or even £0? Still ignore everything they send you.

You've given them more credit than they deserve already - ignore the bloodsuckers.

The six month time limit is from date of offence to laying information at Court to generate a summons. What normally happens, is that when the Police receive your form (assuming it wasn't lost in the post), they send you a Conditional Offer of a Fixed Penalty, which you have 28 days to respond to. If you don't respond, or say you decline to pay the COFP, they will pass it to the Court. It seems highly unusual that they haven't sent you a COFP after 4 weeks, which is presumably quite a few weeks after the date of offence, including the time it would have taken to track you down through the lease company and your employer. You need to work out the offence date + 6 months, this is your "timeout" date, so if they send you a COFP less than 28 days before that, they will be out of time to summons you.

They don't send you a "speeding fine". Once you've sent back the form confirming you were the driver, they usually send you a Conditional Offer of a Fixed Penalty (COFP). This is an oppurtunity to pay a £60 fixed penalty, and three points, without going to court. If you don't respond within 28 days, they will pass it to the court and you will be summonsed, which must happen within 6 months of the original offence. If found guilty in court, that is where you get a fine.

i'm not sure what form this is. You say they've already offered you a SAC - does this mean you already sent back the s172 form confirming you were the driver, or is this SAC offer combined with the request for driver's identity? In any case, if you're going to contest it, there's no need to tick their boxes as any dispute is handled by the courts, not the police. If you don't accept the SAC, and don't respond to a fixed penalty offer, it's up to them to summons you within 6 months of the offence if they want to take it further. So just send back the form nominating the driver (if not already done) at the end of the 28 day deadline, and perhaps their usual inefficiency may mean they fail to get the summons out in time.

If they've offered you a speed awareness course, and you attend it, you won't get any points on your licence. If you wish to contest the whole thing, you decline their offer of a SAC, or any fixed penalty, and when they issue a court summons plead Not Guilty. The police / prosecution will then have to supply you with a copy of the evidence they will rely on. As it was a parked police car, it may be just the officer's statement, or they may have a photographic record from some kind of device. If you go down this route, post up a copy of what they send and we can advise if there's a viable defence. You should also try the forum at pepipoo.com, where they specialise in such matters.

The Freedom of Information Act applies to public bodies, eg councils, govt. departments, not to private companies. You don't have to prove anything; it's they who have to prove in court that you owe them anything. Don't waste any more time or stamps on this, just ignore and they'll go away.

As above, lamma correctly states this is a valid defence. However, in order to succeed with this, you would have to supply all relevant details of possible drivers; request photos to assist with driver identification; and show the court that you had taken all reasonable steps to identify the driver - mobile phone records, fuel purchase receipts, cctv recordings, etc. If the registered keeper has exercised "reasonable diligence", and other possible drivers have given "all information in their power to give" then paragraph 4 of Section 172 states they should not be found guilty of failure to provide info. The speeding charge should also be dismissed, as there's no driver to charge.

As with much of this private parking issue, there is no black and white answer, it's all a grey area. If you go down the ignore route, I'd agree that court action is less likely (0.001% instead of 0.002%). This is simply because the PPC has no idea whether you really exist, whether the reg. keeper was the driver, or indeed whether the person they're writing to is a fully qualified lawyer. So you end up with the standard chain of threatograms from the PPC, debt collectors, and dodgy "solicitors" before they give up and go away. In the (very) unlikely event that they issue a court claim and it actually gets in front of a Judge, I could envisage a situation where a Judge might say "Mr defendant, why didn't you simply reply to the claimant and dispute the charge?", and that might go against you. Sending a "cease and desist, put up or shut up" type letter at the outset would possibly strengthen your defence in a court hearing, however with many PPCs this may simply trigger a standard "appeal rejected now pay up" response, and a chain of letters that goes on longer than if you ignored it. The best advice is to do whichever you feel most comfortable with.

It would be wrong to assume that, because these invoices are generally unenforcable, that PPCs never "try it on" in court. It would also be wrong to assume that a DJ will automatically throw out a PPC claim - the defendant needs to submit a properly constructed defence, not some lame tosh about not seeing the signs. Many PPCs (Euro, NCP) do avoid court altogether, but our pie-eating friend at CPS likes to cherry-pick weak defences and crow about his success - be warned.

I may be abducted by aliens this afternoon. I may win the Euro Millions lottery tonight. I may find Elvis serving in the chip shop tomorrow. If they really had a case, they would have taken you to court by now.

That site won't be of much use, because judgements will include default wins by PPCs where the defendant didn't file a defence, or didn't show up. The number of actual wins by PPCs in defended cases can be counted on the fingers of a sawmill operator's hand.