ParkingEye have retained their 100% record of losing in court when faced with a lay representative, as this post on pepipoo shows.
Analysis of transcripts where ParkingEye have won have shown that the defendants were universally unprepared, asked the wrong questions and used the wrong points of law.
Analysis of cases where lay defendants took part show that the LPC Law advocates are having to fight with the equivalent of one hand tied behind their back, and in some cases, also a gag in their mouth.
If you take on ParkingEye in court you can win if you are well prepared and get a fair judge who is happy to look at the evidence.
3JD02357 ParkingEye v Gosnold. (High Wycombe 23/01/2014) District Judge Devlin
Once again Bargepole was the lay representative for the defendant. ParkingEye must be fed up paying large amounts of money to take cases to hearings, only to never get past the first hurdle.
In this case, there wasn't much evidence at all. The landowner witness statement was declared worthless by the judge. Despite not turning up to court with contracts for the last few cases, once the witness statement was discarded a contract miraculously appeared. Perhaps in future cases the LPC Law advocate should be asked if the contract is available right at the start! In any case, the contract was so heavily redacted as to be worthless. Even the much famed clause 22 was blacked out. The judge decided there was no locus standi and the claim was therefore doomed to fail.
Bargepole took the opportunity to ask the judge point to consider if Jonathan Langham was committing perjury by stating that PE’s costs were £53 per ticket, when it could be proven from DVLA figures and their own published accounts that the true figure was nearer £15. The Judge said that didn’t relate to the issue of standing, so he wasn’t going to examine that.
No doubt all future defendants will be more than happy to raise the issue of perjury if ParkingEye continue to lie that it costs them £53 per parking charge issued. POPLA defendants will also no doubt be raising this with the Lead Adjudicator. No doubt the BPA Ltd and the DVLA have also taken note of this and are busy investigating whether any sanction points should be awarded and whether ParkingEye should be suspended from the DVLA database.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
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I note that the judge himself said (according to the poster on Pepipo) that "if we felt that perjury had been committed, we should inform the Police"...!
ReplyDeleteI think the perjury angle is worth perusing. I'm not sure of the legal definition or test, it could be argued that the fifty quid figure is a genuine mistake, but you would expect a professional company to get it's figures right.
ReplyDeleteIf PE are using the law to their perceived advantage, then it's important that we should look at how the law should protect us. I'm currently looking at the building regulations / planning permission issues of on of Parking Eye's "Cash Cows."
Perhaps we need to look at how Aldi create entrapment zones, as they let their trolleys sprawl over the car park. Isn't this a health and safety issue ?
It seems that the offence is "live" only when made under oath... http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/1-2/6
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