Vehicle Control Systems lose claim. Google shows keeper was not driver

VCS v Mr W C7DP4Q93, 22/2/17 Bradford.

According to Vehicle Control Systems (VCS) Mr W's vehicle was apparently parked in "Cavendish Retail Park", in a "Restricted Area of the Car Park" on 12/05/2015. They did not provide any more information as to the location or the period when the contravention happened.

As Mr W was not the driver and keeper liability was not invoked, he was not liable to the charge.
VCS disagreed and engaged a bottom-feeding law firm, BW Legal, to issue a claim.

Mr W's defence requested VCS to provide a copy of the PCN, and the permission from the landowner to take the proceedings forward. He stated that VCS did not comply to all the conditions that must be met in Sch4 Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA), and therefore there was no keeper liability

In his witness statement a map of "Cavendish Retail Park" (Google Maps), which is in Rice Lane, Liverpool and also provided his Google Maps Location History on the date they specified. This did not place him in Liverpool or any other apparent Cavendish Retail Park's in the country.

14 days before the hearing, BW Legal supplied their template witness statement and the information that he had requested, along with their usual tripe, consisting of 49 paragraphs of inaccuracies, misinformation, legal misdirection and general garbage.

The Hearing

The Judge clearly knew his stuff and had done his homework. The poor young lady from BW Legal was ripped apart and the Judge handled the hearing beautifully. The Judge was also amazed with the data held on Google Maps Location History.

Some brief points that VCS failed on were:

No Compliance with PoFA 2012, and keeper was not driver
No Compliance with their IPC Code of Practice Part D and other parts
No Permission from the Landowner to make the proceedings (the Judge spotted that contract expired in 2011, 4 years before the PCN issued)
Not marking out the area of the "restricted area of the car park". The Judge gave an example in Leeds where a company had done this.
The supplied PCN was unreadable, as was the rubbish diagram of the car park
The Images did not show anything relevant
The Witness Statement was tooooo looooong and most irrelevant.
PE v Beavis, Elliott v Loake and CPS v AJH Films were not relevant

And they were unable to spell Mr W's name correctly.

Not so much a win, as a rout.

Prankster Note

Both Google and Apple provide location history facilities. Although some people hate them, they can have their uses, as this case shows.


Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster