Are ParkingEye taking you to court for a parking event before Feb 2013 at one of The Range stores?

There is a growing body of evidence that ParkingEye's contracts with The Range are all dated in February 2013 and that there was noting in place before that date.

There have been a number of court cases at various different Range outlets where the case has been dismissed because the parking event was dated in 2012, but the contract produced by ParkingEye was dated in February 2013.

ParkingEye have produced various excuses for this; they forgot to bring the email; they had a different, earlier contract that they forgot to bring along; the witness statement refers to a different document and not the contract they brought along in court...and so it goes on.

The fact remains though, that at this present time The Prankster has never seen or heard of anyone who has seen a copy of any contract with The Range dated before February 2013.

It does seem a bit funny that time after time ParkingEye 'accidentally' get it wrong and turn up to court with the 'wrong' contract. Perhaps this is because there is no 'right' contract.


What happens now?

If you are a defendant for a case at The Range on or before February 2013 you should demand sight of the full unredacted contract between ParkingEye and The Range which was in force at the time of the parking event.

If this is not forthcoming, you should protest to the DVLA and the BPA that ParkingEye were operating without authority.

You should make the court aware by filing as evidence all the cases where this has happened. These are contained in a previous Prankster post.

If you are the BPA Ltd, you should do a full audit and ask to see all ParkingEye contracts for all car parks, starting with The Range. There are so many anomalies that this cannot be put down to chance or bad preparation for a few court cases. Where contracts were not in place, you should require an orderly refund of charges paid by motorists.

If you are the DVLA, then you should oversee this, and check that BPA Ltd are policing their members correctly.

If you are Capita, then now would be a good time to introduce some quality control into your new acquisition. Cancel all court cases where a contract was not in place at the time of issuing a ticket. Refund all tickets issued in error. Revise the final purchase price of your new toy.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Well researched motorists demolish ParkingEye witness statement in court

The Parking Prankster has now received the following account from defendant Christine Lemon. In this hearing the judge decided to hear two cases at the same time, as the facts were so similar.

ACCOUNT OF COURT HEARING 6TH DECEMBER 2013 AT SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY COURT SMALL CLAIMS TRACK.

CLAIMANT: PARKINGEYE LTD

DEFENDANTS:  CHRISTINE LEMON (Case: 3QT62681) AND SUSAN HARRIS (Case: 3QT62156)

The judge opened by explaining how the proceedings would run.  He told us that the claimant's solicitor would read ParkingEye's witness statement first, as they had brought the case, and then we would read ours. We were also told, by the solicitor and the judge, that the solicitor would not be able to answer questions about ParkingEye's statement. 

The solicitor started to read through the witness statement and had not got very far when he suddenly waved a sheet of heavily redacted paper in front of us all and asked if we had all seen it.  None of us had, including the judge.  The judge asked to see it  and discovered that it was the contract  - and that it was dated February 2013. The judge seemed to be very displeased that this document had not been included in the bundles. He confirmed that we hadn't seen it.  He double checked the date of our parking incident and stated that this had occurred before the contract was in force.  The solicitor's response to this was to say that the contract had been amended in February 2013.  The judge asked to see the original unamended contract, which the solicitor was unable to produce. The judge confirmed again that the contract was dated February 2013 which was after the date of the claim.  The judge handed the contract back to the solicitor and we were not shown it.

We then spent some considerable time going through Paul Shewbrook's witness statement and many points were raised:

- there are two stores of The Range in Southampton. The specific address was not on the statement.

- it stated that "The operator has written Authority from the managing agent to undertake parking management, control and enforcement at the site, under contract."  The term 'managing agent' was used twice more in this statement.  We queried who the managing agent was, so did the judge.  The solicitor was a complete loss as to how to answer this.

- it stated that "the signage plan and images in this bundle of documents are accurate for the date 26/10/2012".  The signage plan was obviously not accurate (evidence had been included in my bundle dated 25/08/2013) so I claimed that this (Paul Shewbrook's witness statement) could not be a statement of truth.

We then looked at the signage plan.  The judge accepted it was not accurate but did not seem to attach much importance to it.

We showed him photos of the signage in the car park, stressing the poor signage at the entrance.  The solicitor kept insisting that the signs were not intended to be read while driving past. We pointed that there were no signs at the disabled bays.  The judge queried the relevance of that.  We explained that the disabled bays were right by the entrance to the stores and that everyone would see the signs as they went in. The judge then counted the number of signs on the signage plan and said that there was a sufficient number of signs, including some wall mounted ones.

We then looked at the wording on the actual signs.  We had claimed that the wording was ambiguous and that it didn't actually state anywhere that staying over two hours would result in a parking charge of £100. The judge agreed. 

The solicitor never did finish reading PE's witness statement and we never went through ours!  The judge just kept asking us if there were any other technical points we would like to raise.

Sue Harris raised the point that £100 was an excessive amount to be charged and that it was a penalty so we then looked at ParkingEye's pre-estimate of loss statement, concentrating almost solely on two paragraphs:

- where PE explain the average payment is circa £63, circa £55 covers their costs, etc. I pointed out that as the parking charge in this case was £100, that meant that £45 was clear profit and that profit cannot figure in any pre-estimate of loss calculation.  Also that the figure of £55 included costs which were costs of running a business which should not be included in a pre-estimate of loss eg cost of installing signage. (The judge did not seem particularly interested in any of  this.)

 - and the following paragraph which explains the 40% discount for early payment and that £100 was 'approved and prescribed by the BPA in consultation with the OFT and the DfT'.  We directed the judge to my emails from the OFT and Dft which say otherwise. We looked at the FoI from the OFT about parking charges.

The judge asked the solicitor where the sum of £100 had come from.  The solicitor didn't know but I piped up that it had been decided at a council meeting of the BPA on 6.6.12 where most of the council was comprised of car park operators.  The judge asked if I had proof of that; unfortunately I hadn't included it in my file.  The judge commented that he felt £60 was a reasonable amount for early payment.

Sue pointed out that HMRC defined the parking charge as a penalty but the solicitor immediately put this down pointing out that HMRC had very different definitions to normal law, which the judge acknowledged.

At some point in the proceedings, the judge asked the solicitor if he had any questions he would like to ask us.  The solicitor replied, "Do I dare, sir?!"

The solicitor then asked us a few questions such as, "Did we agree that the owners of private land had a right to manage that land?  Would we like people parking in our private drive at home?" etc and finally asked why we had not appealed.  Sue said she had been too ill at the time.  I re-iterated what I had put in my witness statement - that POPLA was funded by the BPA, which in turn was funded by the car park operators and that I did not feel it could be unbiaised.  I then said that POPLA had been very new at that time and that if I had known then what I know now, I definitely would have appealed to POPLA because ParkingEye had lost every case where the pre-estimate of loss had been challenged.  There was no comment to this.

The judge summed up by saying that:

- He found for the claimant on visibility of signs

- He found for the defendants on lack of clarity of the signs.  He said that we had claimed that the wording on the signs said 2 hours max parking but that it then gave a list of times where parking was allowed (he stated the days and times).  He said that after this it said, "No parking outside of these times" and after that it said "Failure to comply with this will result in a charge of £100."  He said that the defendants were saying that the word 'this' is singular and that therefore it refers to one item, therefore it was not clear that staying for more than two hours would result in a charge.  He said that he agreed with this, and that he was finding for the defendants.

- He found for the claimant regarding the amount of the charge.

- He found for the defendants regarding the contract.  The contract produced in court was dated February 2013 when it had been amended.  This was after the parking overstay had occurred.  He said that the defendants claimed they had  had never been given a copy of the contract which existed at the time of the alleged offence and that they were still not in possession of such so that they still  had no way of knowing what the appropriate contract (pre-Feb. 2013) said.  He said that he agreed with us, and found for us. 

His final decision was:

- Because of these two findings/reasons?, I find for the defendants.

- The claim fails.

                                - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sue was awarded costs of £90 (the maximum allowed) for loss of earnings.  I was unable to claim for anything as I'm retired and didn't have any travelling costs.


The Prankster is very impressed at the defence mounted by these two ladies. It shows that if you research your facts, and know and can present them at court, then you can win even against a trained advocate.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

ParkingEye go to extreme lengths to avoid showing contract in court

ParkingEye have now knocked up an additional legal document and created a new, beefed-up witness statement to avoid showing their contract. The witness statement now runs to two pages. One more page and it will be larger than their contract (but not as densely printed!).

The document contains excerpts from another missive allegedly written by barrister Jonathan Kirk, contains quotes from the witness statement which are minutely analysed, references to attached signage pictures which are not present, and contains numerous legal references, none of which are backed up by supplying the actual court transcripts.

The Prankster doubts that the document is a true copy from any document from Jonathan Kirk QC. The Witness statement is not in the prescribed format; it is doubtful a silk would lend his name to approving such a Witness statement. Moreover, the actual witness statement contains completely different phrases to the referred to in the 'Jonathan Kirk' document.It seems therefore that Mr Kirk is referring to some other, completely different witness statement in his document. The document also contains grammatical errors; The Prankster is sure Mr Kirk knows the difference between principal and principle.

It seems to The Prankster far more likely that someone in ParkingEye's Department Of Dodgy Witness statements has cooked up this load of ancient shoemaker implements. (If ParkingEye disagree and want to forward the full original document from Mr Kirk, then The Prankster would be more than happy to print a clarification).

If the transcripts of the 8 cases referred to were supplied, the volume of paper needed would dwarf the actual 2 pages needed by their current contract.

ParkingEye are going to such lengths to avoid judges seeing their contract, The Parking Prankster wonders what they have to hide.

The answer appears to be, a valid contract.

Any defendant facing a ParkingEye case should ask for a full unredacted copy of the contract, a copy of the user manual referred to in the contract, and a copy of the schedule (the signed and dated bit).

If this is not forthcoming the defendant should download their own copy of a sample contract and schedule and file this as evidence with the court. Copies can be downloaded from this FoI request: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/parking_management_2

In court, the defendant should ask if the LPC Lawyer has bought a copy of the contract with them; if not, the defendant should refer to the sample copy, and point out to the judge that in a large number of cases ParkingEye did not have appropriately dated contracts to show the court, and also that in other cases
judges have taken great interest in clause 22 which specifies ParkingEye cannot act as an agent of the landowner.

Here are some case to quote.

1.     3QT52338 ParkingEye v Walkden 29/10/2013 Barrow in Furness. The hearing was originally held on 16/07/2013. ParkingEye produced a witness statement. District Judge Dodd found the witness statement extremely unsatisfactory, ordered the case to be adjourned at ParkingEye’s expense, and to reconvene at a later date. ParkingEye were ordered to produce a redacted contract from the landowner to the defendant, and a full unredacted copy to the Judge. The case reconvened on 29/10/2013. The contract sent to the defendant was dated Feb 2013 whilst the parking event was October 2012. The witness statement from Paul Shrewbrook of the Range and the attached letter of authority was not dated. The judge ruled that ParkingEye did not have authority to manage the car park because they contravened section 7.1 of the BPA code of practice which clearly states that the parking company must have written authority before any management of a car park can commence. The witness statement therefore claimed ParkingEye had authority to operate when they did not.

2.     3QT61897 ParkingEye v Barrett. 16/10/2013, Cardiff. The contract was dated 7/11/2012, which was after the Parking event on 24/10/2012. The contract was in a different name (Peachkey) to the landowner name (McDonalds Bridgend) given on the witness statement, although both contract and witness statement were signed by the same person. ParkingEye stated that the witness statement from McDonalds referred to a different document, which they did not have in court. The witness statement also stated that the parking charge was valid. However, McDonalds had not been informed the defendant had broken down and were therefore not informed of the full facts by ParkingEye. District Judge C W Dawson adjourned the case and ordered ParkingEye to bring the originals of all documents next time. McDonalds, when informed of the irregularities, ordered ParkingEye to drop the parking charge and the case. The witness statement therefore claimed ParkingEye had authority to operate when they did not.

3.    3QT29139 ParkingEye v Shelley, 23/07/2013. The contact produced in court was signed in February 2013. However, the parking event was around October 2012. Once again the witness was Paul Shrewbrook of the Range. The witness statement therefore claimed ParkingEye had authority to operate when they did not.

4.     In 3QT62646 ParkingEye v Sharma 23/10/2013 Brentford County Court, District Judge Jenkins explained he was throwing the claim out because it was brought in the name of ParkingEye and not the landowner. He said the landowner could bring the case in their own name or jointly with ParkingEye if they wished. The witness statement therefore contained incorrect information. It was not apparent from the witness statement that the witness had the required expertise to interpret the contract correctly.

5.     In 3QT58735 ParkingEye v Gardam, 14/11/2013 High Wycombe County Court. District Judge Jones found the judgement by District Judge Jenkins persuasive. On examining clause 22 of the contract, which was only produced on the day, she ruled that the claimant did not have the right to bring the case in their own name. The witness statement therefore contained incorrect information. It was not apparent from the witness statement that the witness had the required expertise to interpret the contract correctly.

[Note. The Prankster previously incorrectly referred to this with claim reference 3QT58735]

6.    In 3QT62681 and 3QT62156 6/12/2013 at Southampton County Court (ParkingEye v Lemon, and ParkingEye v Harris) the Judge decided to hear two cases simultaneously, from the same car park, The Range Southampton, and with identical facts. The solicitor for ParkingEye produced a contract which was dated Feb 2013 but the parking overstay was inOct. 2012. The witness was Paul Shrewbrook of The Range. The judge also refused the claim because the wording of the sign was ambiguous.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Do ParkingEye stand on the shoulders of giants?

No, but their victims certainly need to.

Here is the entrance sign at Aldi, Leyland. For some obscure* reason it has been sited 9 feet, six inches in the air. No other sign in the car park is sited as high. No doubt it is there for the benefit of the stilt-walking giants which are so common in Leyland.

The British Parking Association code of practice does not specify a recommended height for entrance signage, and ParkingEye are more than happy to take advantage of that oversight. Here is a picture of an entrance sign at McDonald's Bridgend, conveniently sited at the bottom of the pole, behind a bush**.

The British Parking Association have confirmed they are more than happy for ParkingEye to hide signs behind bushes.

"The operator has also provided us with the signage at this location and we do not believe this is in breach of our Code of Practice.
In view of the above, we have closed the investigation."

The Prankster fully agrees with the BPA's investigative techniques, which are apparently only to rely on evidence provided by the operator and not to consider the motorists evidence or to gather their own. The Prankster fully understands that it would cost too much to investigate complaints properly.

However, he would like to point out that the Department of Transport recommendation for sign height is as follows:

(iii) Mounting heights
1.49 Where possible the lower edge of the sign should be between 900mm (2ft 11 inches) and 1500mm (4ft 11 inches) above the highest point of the carriageway alongside. The higher mounting should be used where excessive spray is likely to soil the signs. In built up areas signs may have to be higher for various reasons where they are erected on footways and transverse to them they must obviously allow sufficient clearance for pedestrians: 2100mm is the absolute
minimum recommended but 2300mm is preferable.

This height range of approximately 3-5 feet allows the sign to be read from a moving vehicle without requiring the driver to simultaneously open the sun roof and jump up and down.

Meanwhile, back at Leyland, although the height of the sign above ground meets the BPA's non-existing regulations, other aspects do not. For car park's sited off 30 mph roads, the font size should be 6 centimetres.

The sign is woefully short of this requirement. Here we see that the font size is only 1.8 centimetres, or less than a third of the permitted standard.

The sign should also follow this general design principle.

As is apparent, there are a few areas where ParkingEye's sign does not quite comply.

Lastly, there is a second entrance sign on the other side of the entrance which is larger and has a bigger font. It is however, not visible to cars entering by turning right, and of course it is completely non-compliant with the design principles mandated for entrance signage.

There are no signs at all in the parking areas at the front of the store.

This therefore creates several entrapment zones in the car park.

The orange blobs are the entrance signs. The yellow blobs are the normal signs. The blue ovals are the entrapment zones.

There is a big entrapment zone at the front of the store where disabled drivers park. The BPA recommend special low signs near disabled parking spaces. In contract, ParkingEye provide no signage at all. Drivers with disabilities are more likely to need longer to shop, so this is an especially cruel trap.

There is a smaller entrapment zone above this, where the left hand side has no signage.

For both these areas the only visible signs you pass are the entrance signs.

There is another entrapment zone below this. Here, you do pass one extra sign.

A video showing the lack of signage is available here.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

* The Prankster does not wish to imply that this sign is obscured.
**This sign clearly is obscured though

The Prankster would like thank the person who tipped him off about this car park.

DVLA confirm get-out-of-jail signage clause is not a get-out-of-jail signage clause

The BPA's code of practice has a strange anomaly where entrance signage is deemed mandatory, and then later on in Appendix F operators are given until October 2015 to get their signs corrected.

The IPC are much stricter in this regard - you can't even be a member unless your signs have been audited.

ParkingEye often use this as an excuse in court; they say their signs are 100% compliant with the BPA code of practice while knowing full well that the mandatory entrance signs are mising.

It looks like the DVLA are coming down on the side of the IPC with this one.

Here is an extract from their consumer forum meeting.

Signage

13. Concerns were raised about the lead time of three years for the introduction of mandatory
entrance signs. This timescale was seen to present a risk that motorists would be misled
and in turn the companies in question could have their access to DVLA data suspended.

14. BPA advised that it requests a programme of work from companies to show how they
intend to achieve the necessary changes within the three year period. The vast majority of
companies would have updated their signs well within this period. BPA also made the
point that longer lead times for parking sign changes were observed by the public sector.

ACTION: The BPA was invited to share the programme/s of work with DVLA 

The minutes clearly state that misleading signage is a possible cause to have access to DVLA data suspended.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

New dirty tricks warning. Are ParkingEye taking you to court this week (2 Dec 2013)

The Parking Prankster has heard that the ParkingEye dirty tricks brigade are at it again.

Over the weekend documents have been arriving for cases scheduled this week, containing new witness statements and two pages of complicated new legal arguments.

This is, in The Prankster's opinion, a cynical abuse of process. Practice Directions require that all documents be served at least 14 days ahead of the hearing and in any case ParkingEye should certainly seek the permission of the courts to file new legal arguments.

A lay motorist with no legal experience will have little chance to come up with an answer to these new arguments in the 4 or 5 days before the hearing.

The Prankster would like to hear from anybody who has been treated in this way at prankster@parking-prankster.com. (Any other dirty tricks ParkingEye use are also welcome information)

The Prankster suggests the following.

At your hearing, point out that you only just received these documents, that they introduce new and complex legal arguments and that you have not had a fair chance to have time to research an answer. Ask that the hearing be postponed at ParkingEye's expense to give you time to prepare.

Point out that in a case heard last week that it was adjourned and rescheduled for a whole day, and that your case is likely to be of similar complexity. State that you would be prepared to use POPLA instead as alternative dispute resolution, and that you would be prepared to be bound by its verdict. Point out that this will limit costs of ParkingEye t o£27, and that this has been ordered by the court in the past.

If the case goes ahead anyway, ask the judge to look at clause 22 of the contract (the ParkingEye LPC Law representative will have a copy, but you should also download from here.) and say that in 2 previous recent cases the judge has found that this means ParkingEye cannot bring the case in their own name.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Aldi target elderly and vulnerable with £70 charge for shopping too slowly

This post on the Aldi facebook site says it all.

Aldi, through their partners, ParkingEye, have cynically ripped off two elderly and less mobile shoppers because they could not get round the store in 1.5 hours. The Prankster has helped large numbers of elderly, disabled and vulnerable motorists and can confirm this is not a one-off incident.

Elderly and vulnerable people are far more likely to pay up when targeted in this way. They are not likely to be internet savvy, so will be unaware that ParkingEye's charges have been ruled to be legally unenforceable 100% of the time when challenged at POPLA.



The Prankster has previously posted a list of POPLA verdicts here. This list is no longer up to date and new verdicts continue to come in, as reported in this thread.

To fight a ParkingEye charge The Prankster recommends the following.

1) Send an appeal to ParkingEye, along with the list of POPLA verdicts

Dear ParkingEye, 

I wish to appeal your charge because it is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Please see attached list of POPLA verdicts showing this.

If you use snail mail, don't forget to get a free proof of posting because The Prankster has evidence that ParkingEye 'lose' mail sent to them in this way. Similarly, if you use the web, get a screenshot because ParkingEye also seem to lose some of these, and there is no confirmation email. Because of this, the Prankster recommends you also email your appeal to enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk as a backup until ParkingEye start sending confirmation your appeal has been received.

2) Complain to the BPA and the DVLA that ParkingEye's charges are not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
aos@britishparking.co.uk
foi@dvla.gsi.gov.uk

Dear BPA/DVLA,

ParkingEye have sent me a parking charge which is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. This is against the BPA code of conduct. Please see attached parking charge and  list of POPLA verdicts showing this.

3) Complain to Belinda Barlow at Aldi who handles this.
B Barlow, Aldi Parking Appeals, Scimitar Way, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN3 4AL

Dear Ms. Barlow,

ParkingEye have sent me a parking charge which is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. This is against the BPA code of conduct. Please see attached parking charge list of POPLA verdicts showing this.

If ParkingEye reject your appeal then appeal to POPLA. You could go with the above minimalist appeal, or if you prefer to cover all bases, got to moneysavingexpert, pepipoo or parkingcowboys for a fuller appeal guide.


Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster