Thanks again Dave.  I'll save those links to have a read of over the weekend and decide how to proceed next week.

I tried calling the court today to confirm that the notice of discontinuation was genuine but I can't get through to them.  I've emailed them anyway just to check.  I can't imagine PE trying to pull a fast one by sending a fake notice and hoping they get a default judgement, but at the same time I wouldn't put it past them.  I'd like to think that kind of behaviour would get them royally screwed six ways from sunday if they were to try it.  But we'll see.

Cheers

CD

Update!!

Arrived home tonight to find a letter from ParkingLie.

They have discontinued the claim. There's a copy of a Notice of Discontinuance on the back that's dated March 8th. Just over a week after they sent their £70 settlement offer.

I'll be contacting the court tomorrow to make sure that this is legit and they're not trying to pull a fast one.

Thanks everyone for your help with this. Now on to the claim for the GDPR breach...

Thanks

CD

WS deadline is the 19th, hence my surprise that PE sent theirs so early.  I'm looking at getting everything printed off and posted at the end of tomorrow at the absolute latest.

Cheers Dave, I couldn't have done it without you. Top man.

LFI: Of course you'd think they'd realise they're beaten already but this is Parking Eye we're talking about here, so anything could happen.  If it goes ahead "on the papers" then there won't be any expenses incurred with regards to attending court (which also fists their "legal representation" argument).  Hopefully we get a decent judge who either schedules this for a normal hearing, or just strikes the thing out entirely.

Of course there's a chance that all of this could be for nothing if they've neglected or simply forgotten to pay the hearing fee.  It was due to be paid yesterday by 2pm so we'll see what happens on that one.

Thanks again both of you for the help.

CD

Top notch service as always.  Thanks Dave and LFI.  

I'm currently applying a new coat of gloss to my WS based on the suggestions mentioned.  I'll post a new draft up shortly for consideration.

Thanks

CD

Here goes, Witness Statement 2.0

Thanks

CD

WS Draft version 2 - Redacted.pdf

Legendary, cheers Dave.

I've updated the first part as you suggested and have inserted a section regarding Loading vs Parking.

I'll wait until you've had a proper look later before I post up a second draft.

Thanks, as always for your help

CD

Perfect, thanks Dave.

Yes, the remaining parts of their "pack" were an aerial shot of the site, with the locations of the signs marked, pictures of random signs, copies of the NTK and all the letters they'd sent, plus the heavily redacted contract.  Rest assured I'll be including the non-redacted version as part of my evidence.

Basically as far as I can tell it was a carbon copy of the "reply to defence" pack they sent a couple of months ago.  Hence why I didn't see the need to include it all again, plus it'd have taken me ages to scan it all one page at a time but I can do if it's necessary.

Cheers

CD

Right, PE's witness statement and my own are now (hopefully) attached.

Thanks

CD

PE_WitnessStatement_Redacted.pdf Draft Witness Statement - Redacted.pdf

Morning all.  Received the witness statement and "evidence bundle" from Parking Eye.  Unsurprisingly they're happy for this to go ahead on the papers.  No surprises there. 

The claimant also has until 2.00pm today to pay the hearing fee, or else the claim gets struck out.  Will wait and see what happens here.

I'm going to try and get this scanned up for your perusal today, and also my first draft at a witness statement, as I'll likely need to get this in by the end of the week regardless.

My thoughts exactly.  They must have cottoned on to the fact that I have their unredacted contract which should sink their case and hopefully land them in hot water.  I'm now wondering if they're going to bottle out before the hearing or whether they'll try and see it through.

An update received from the court today;

The District Judge has made the following comments:

“Objection to lay on file for consideration by the Judge on the date at the time of the hearing as per paragraph 2 of the order of 24/1/24”

So it looks like this is not going to get looked at until the day of the hearing at the earliest.  Means I'm going to have to get my witness statement and evidence pack in order in case it does go ahead on the papers.

I'll start putting something together and post it up here for feedback once I have a first draft.

Hi JK. It wasn't that I didn't plan to, I just didn't realise that it was necessary as this was a request to the court and didn't concern the other party. Doesn't matter now, as it's sorted.

Nothing back from the court yet but I did receive a letter from ParkingEye today offering to settle for £70, not the £200-odd that they're claiming in court.

I'm almost half tempted to write back to them to say "give ME the £70 for wasting my time with this rubbish and I won't countersue you for the GDPR breach".

Yes that is encouraging.  Have sent it to info@parkingeye.co.uk and to the court again, this time confirming that they have been sent it.  Fingers crossed that'll be sufficient.  Thanks as always for the prompt response Dave.

I'll keep you posted as to developments.

Cheers

CD

I CC'd that one but I got a bounced back message.  Doesn't matter now though

I've had a response this morning though from the hearings team.  Stating that due to civil procedure rule 39.8 I need to copy in all parties on my objection.

I'm guessing I just need to write a short letter to ParkingEye advising them that I am objecting to the paper hearing, but in my letter to them I don't need to deep dive into the reasons why?  Or in the interest of transparency should I just forward my email in a letter to ParkingEye as it is, so they can't claim shenanigans later on?

Thanks

CD

Saw that, there was no specific "listings" email.  I tried phoning them earlier to find out but had to hang up after 30 minutes on hold.  I'm sending it to the enquiries address listed at the top and CC'ing it into cardiff@administrativecourtoffice.justice.gov.uk as this seems to be the closest thing they have.  Fingers crossed that'll be sufficient.

My sincere thanks to everyone who has helped with this so far.  I'll keep you posted.

Regards

CD

Ahh I'm with you now.  I've got the enquiries address already but I'll try and find a listings address for Cardiff CC as well.

Thanks for your assistance with this.

Cheers

CD

Email is typed up and ready to go.  Just one last question for jk2054.  In a previous post you stated;

On 24/02/2024 at 01:41, jk2054 said:

Also copy the PBC email to the court's listing email.

What's the PBC email?  

No worries, I'll get the email out at the end of today if nobody has anything else to add.

Thanks

CD

Thanks as always Dave.

I'll leave it until the end of the week in case anyone has anything else they think should be included.   The email address I have found for Cardiff County Court is enquiries.cardiff.countycourt@justice.gov.uk.  Does that sound like a sensible address to use or do I need to send it somewhere more specific?

Thanks

CD

So this is what I've got so far;

PLEASE PLACE THIS EMAIL BEFORE THE COURT WITHOUT UNDUE DELAY 

Re: Case Number XXXX - ParkingEye Ltd (claimant) vs Cardiff Devil (defendant)

In response to the letter from the court dated 19/02/2024, I am writing to the court as the defendant in this claim to register my objection in the strongest possible terms to the hearing being heard “on the papers”, and to request a regular oral hearing instead.

Since the claimant is a nationwide parking company with net assets of over £53,000,000 on their balance sheet as at the end of December 2022, it is therefore safe to assume that they will retain a team of qualified solicitors on their payroll to prepare court paperwork on their behalf.  Conversely, the defendant is a litigant-in-person with little legal knowledge.  As a result, the defendant contends that the case being heard on paper evidence only would put the defendant at a severe disadvantage.

The defendant also contends that the circumstances of this case are not at all straightforward and there are several points that the defendant wishes to contest at the hearing, such as inaccuracies in the claimant’s CPR 31:34 submissions, the potential intentional redaction of crucial evidence in the claimant’s contract with the tenant, also the claimant's lack of compliance with the Protection of Freedoms act 2012 to establish the defendant liable as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, and their lack of adherence to local planning laws amongst others.

Thanks

CD

Thanks Dave and JK.  

So I need to get an email off to the court ASAP?  This has been assigned to Cardiff County Court now so I'm guessing this will need to go them now rather than to the Northampton bulk processing centre?

Is there a template for this email I can use?  I just want to make sure I'm including all the right things.

Thanks

CD

My thoughts exactly BN.  Seems ridiculously off-kilter that such a thing could even be considered fair in small claims court.

This is what I've got down so far;

Quote

 

In response to the letter from the court dated 19/02/2024, I am writing to the court as the defendant in this claim to register my objection in the strongest possible terms to the hearing being heard “on the papers”, and to request a normal hearing instead.

Since the claimant is a nationwide parking company with net assets of over £53,000,000 on their balance sheet as at the end of December 2022, it is therefore safe to assume that they will retain a team of qualified solicitors on their payroll to prepare court paperwork on their behalf.  Conversely, the defendant is a litigant-in-person with little legal knowledge.  Subsequently, the defendant contests that the case being heard on paper evidence only would put the defendant at a severe disadvantage.

The defendant also contests that the circumstances of this case are not at all straightforward and there are several points that the defendant wishes to contest at the hearing, such as inaccuracies in the claimant’s CPR 31:34 submissions and the potential intentional redaction of crucial evidence in the claimant’s contract with the tenant, also the claimant's lack of compliance with the Protection of Freedoms act 2012 to establish the defendant liable as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, and their lack of adherance to local planning laws amongst others.

 

Hope that's along the right lines, obviously I don't want to give too much away at this stage but I want to let the judge know that this case isn't as simple as it may seem at first glance.

Thanks

CD

That's what I thought, thanks Dave. 

That seems ridiculously unfair that this could potentially be decided by my witness statement vs one written by a lawyer if the judge on the day decides so.

Also there's the whole other issue of them deliberately redacting crucial evidence. 

I'll have to start putting together a letter to the court, but I might need some help drafting this so I'll put something together and post it up here for review once I've done it.

Cheers

CD

Hi all, and a belated happy christmas and new year.

Got home this evening to a letter from the court that I've not come across before.  I can scan the whole thing up tomorrow if needs be but I'll just outline it briefly now to hopefully get some context.

At first glance it looked like the bog standard "notice of allocation to the small claims track (hearing)" letter that I was expecting.  But under "Allocation", it states;

Quote

 

1. The court has decided to determine the case upon consideration of the written evidence of the parties without the parties attending court to give any oral evidence.  It does so in accordance with Practice Direction 51ZC, the court believing it to be a proportionate and efficient means of determining the case.

2. If any party objects to the case being determined in this way, they should write to the court not less than 7 days prior to the hearing date providing brief reasons why they think such a determination is not appropriate. Such correspondence will be placed before the judge on the date and at the time listed for the hearing of the case who will then reconsider whether the case should be determined on papers or whether the case should be re-listed on another date when the parties can attend court to give oral evidence.

 

The rest of the letter is pretty standard stuff.  Except with the hearing date, it states "The parties must not attend the court building".

On the DQ I specified that I objected to the case being heard on paper evidence only, I can't remember the exact wording that I used but it was something along the lines of;

Quote

"The Defendant objects strongly to these proposals.  
The Defendant denies that the matter is relatively straightforward.
The issues in dispute include uncertainty about the terms of the claimant's contract with the landowner, among others.  As a litigant in person, the defendant would be seriously disadvantaged against the claimant, a multi million pound parking company that inevitably will have a team of solicitors on the payroll to prepare its documents.  The defendant also requests the opportunity to question the claimant regarding its witness statement and other documents."

Am I right in thinking that I want to STRONGLY object again to this hearing going ahead "on the papers", and push for a normal hearing instead?

Thanks

CD

Hi LFI

I've uploaded both versions on here already, the original (redacted) contract they sent me is on post #36.  I then got the full, unredacted contract from the tenant company which is on post #64.  

Cheers

CD

28 minutes ago, Nicky Boy said:

I understand that this is scare tactics, but surely, they aren't stoopid enough to take it any further....

Surely?

Oh I really, really hope so.  This is going to be hilarious if it does go to a hearing.