AS Parking case thrown out - bad particulars of claim

C3GF84Y2, Daniel Mason, Plymouth County Court.

Independent Observer Court Report

This was the beach car park in Perranporth for a flipped ticket case.

The judge struck out the claim as Gladstones Solicitors had not submitted proper Particulars of Claim.

Kevin McManus knew nothing about it as Gladstones clearly hadn't alerted him so that's yet more obscene incompetence on their part. The judge said this is not the first time it's happened and they have previously been warned about this. Kev apparently said well done as he was leaving!

Costs of £115.80 were requested; the judge awarded half.


Prankster Note

Gladstones use a suspected Roboclaim system where operators submit basic details and then this is used to make an automated template claim with little or no human involvement. A largely meaningless claim emerges at the other end

-- DATE -- DESCRIPTION -- AMOUNT --DUE DATE
09/01/2015 FA10BHE/102988712 £150 09/03/2015
Total due - £150
AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS
The Claimant claims the sum of £152.50 for
Parking services and indemnity costs if 
applicable including £2.50 interest pursuant
to S.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 Rate
8.00% pa from dates above to 01/12/2016
Same rate to Judgment or (sooner) payment
Daily rate to Judgment £0.03
Total debt and interest £152.50

One of the main benefits to Gladstones of submitting this gobbledygook is that it is impossible to file a meaningful defence based on this information, giving their clients a huge advantage over unrepresented defendants.

The other benefit is that there is essentially zero cost involved in submitting a claim like this, as there is little or no human involvement and no due diligence to assess the merits of any particular claim. Although Gladstones add on £50 in Legal Representative Costs they have admitted in witness statements that this is not billed on to the client and that once a case is finished they decide between themselves how to divvy up the costs and returns. This therefore appears to be an easy way to artificially add £50 to every claim, meaning parking companies get a better return if a motorist is scared into paying up on receiving a court claim.

This of course encourages abuse of the court system.

The £50 charge was set long ago before the advent of roboclaims. The Prankster believes this fee is now due for a review, and that wholescale abuse could be prevented simply by reducing this charge to £5 for roboclaims. This would remove a major incentive to the roboclaim industry and would reduce the burden on the courts.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster