ParkingEye witness "tantamount to perjury"

ParkingEye v Mr X. Crewe. 8/9/2017. DJ Rogers

Mr Price appeared as a Lay Representative for a case at Crewe County Court. The claim involved a stay of 1 hour 8mins at Ibis Styles hotel car park where no ticket was purchased.

Court Report

LPC Law representative Ms Sharma attended for ParkingEye. She had a chat before the case; she was very pleasant and explained the court process, then went on the quote Beavis and how it was binding on lower courts. She didn't like it when I simply said "only in certain circumstances..." and went on to query if she was the same Sharma as in case law that I had brought with me.

The clam was heard by DJ Rogers who outlined the case and asked if we were OK with the ParkingEye witness, a case handler, not being there. I Informed the court that we had sent an email 8 days ago to ParkingEye and the court saying that we were not happy with the witness statement as it contained 'facts' that we disputed and we had requested her attendance.

There was a short adjournment while advice was sought. ParkingEye's position was that it taked them 10 days to reply to emails so it would have been unreasonable to expect a reply before today. The DJ said the failure of PE to deal with their emails for 10 days was not his concern; it was a failing in their systems but he would allow the case to go ahead and put what weight he felt was deserved on the statement in the absence of the witness.

The case was then presented for PE. It was scrutinised at each step by the DJ who was not letting anything pass unless it was evidenced.

"Are you happy that a contract exists for PE to enforce parking on this site" - "No Sir."
"Are you happy that a contract existed on the day of this parking allegation for this site?" - "No Sir."

The evidence submitted by the claims handler included a site plan showing 18 signs, with one of them prominently to the left of the site entrance.

"So you are relying on this plan as submitted?" - "Yes Sir."

Evidence then was then examined of the "clearly displayed entrance sign".

"So you are relying on this photo of evidence of the defendant having clear notice that he was entering a paid for parking site?" - "Yes Sir."

DJ Rogers (having, unlike PE and the LPC Law representative read our submissions) "So can you explain why the plan shows the entrance sign to the left of the entrance, whereas your own photo shows the sign to the right of the entrance where it would have been obscured?"

LPC "It is a minor oversight."

DJ "No it isn't, you see the witness goes on to state that the signs as indicated on the plan were present on the day of the parking event. That is tantamount to perjury, she has ample access to all of ParkingEye's records and in the course of her employment she has tendered a document to the court which contains evidence that cannot be true. I therefore cannot rely on her evidence and I am dismissing her statement and therefore every document that she produces in that statement. That leaves you with the outline of facts on your court claim which is so brief and without supporting evidence that you cannot sustain a case, so it is dismissed."

We had no wages to claim as the defendant was not at work this day, but did point out that he had incurred parking costs of £2.10p. "Do you wish to recover that cost?" Well what do you think? The chance could not be missed could it?

The LPC Representative said outside that we were lucky as it was a technicality and she had no problems with how ParkingEye had dealt with the case. I pointed out that she might not have a problem, but the Judge obviously had, and it was a shame that we had not even got to the defence case where we had several points to put forward, any of which could have won in their own right.

If anyone else is fighting a case on this car park I will happily share the results of my research to assist them.

Prankster Notes 

The Prankster has seen many appalling witness statements from the likes of ParkingEye, Gladstones, Excel and BW Legal - basically all of the regular court attendees. He has seen signage that could not have been present, fake Notices to Keeper that were not in force on the date of the incident, and dubious statements from parking attendants. In the Prankster's opinion, there have been misleading statements, misleading calculations and regular attempts to mislead the court with incomplete information. ParkingEye are one of the worst culprits.

The only time these "witnesses" ever turn up are in major cases such as the Beavis case. It is worth noting that in that case the statements were eventually substantially altered from the rubbish that was trotted out before it was apparent the case was going to be important.

Parking companies and their lawyers simply do not care about the truth and are content with regularly supplying false information to the courts, happy that they will not produce a witness to defend their porkie pies, and that nothing bad will therefore happen to them.

The Prankster thinks this should stop,, and that a witness should be produced for every claim if the defendant so desires, so they can be challenged on their statement. If the parking company does not want their witness to be examined, they can withdraw the case.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster