Free Traffic Legal Advice
Live cases legal advice => Private parking tickets => Topic started by: ashthemash on November 13, 2025, 11:39:39 am
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There's certain aspects of your witness statement which are too specific and which you could hold back until the hearing.
Think tactically here.
The problem their witness has with the issue dates is one where you could win on the day by raising these points at the hearing - their legal rep will not be able to combat your points as they will not be prepared for them.
If your WS points these errors out in advance then you give them a chance to sort their case out with either a Supplementary Witness Statement or additional points which could be clarified by their legal rep on the day.
Once you get to the hearing you would then present the inconsistency and state something along the lines of;
"I draw the Court's attention to the fact that the alleged parking contravention occurred on 14th September 2024. The Claimant's Exhibit GS-4 shows that their PCN was prepared on 19th September 2024. The date shown on the PCN does not demonstrate the date of posting and I have raised this point in previous correspondence with the Claimant. I can state that I never received a PCN from the Claimant within this time period. In her Witness Statement, Deanne Nevers then appears to acknowledge that the postal PCN wasn't actually sent until 20th October 2024. This issue date is well beyond the 14 day period allowed under Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in order to invoke what is know as 'keeper liability'. With the driver unknown and no POFA keeper liability, there is no route to liability in this Claim."
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Here is my witness statement. It's not same as the one I posted here, i think i may have a decent chance here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Dsbdp1w2ZkUAkG-xE9rUSDSoa0Dr1IrF/view?usp=sharing
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Write to the court manager as per the letter of allocation if you want confirmation that the hearing is going ahead because the fee has been paid, or just assume that it will be in the absence of getting this information.
I guess the fact that the claimant has submitted a WS means that they intend to proceed, they would not have gone to this effort were they planning on discontinuing.
The original PCN is included in the recent post from you, showing a parking period of 14:29.26 to 16:06.58. Free parking is limited to 1 hour acording to the signs in the same post.
So how will you defend this if it goes to court? The claimant will maintain that the signs are clear and therefore the driver entered into a contract under the stated terms, although I can’t clearly see anything stating £70/£40 for overstaying.
You seem to be arguing that 1 hour is too short a period of free parking, so do you have evidence why this might be the case? The counter-argument might be that if you don’t like it, don’t park there, and many people find it long enough, plus I believe you have the option for paying for longer parking also.
You originally mentioned PoFA 2012 so, since you have not identified the driver, are you making any argument of non-compliance so the registered keeper can't be liable?
If it goes to court, how do you explain your posted defence? I know you got it from here originally, but it’s a boilerplate/template which, more recently, has been struck out because it does not address the claim, it just moans about how bad the Particulars of Claim are. Of course, in your case it hasn’t been struck out.
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Okay, a bit too harsh, but I will eat the humble pie, I suppose. I certainly did not intend to waste your time. I do not know how to find if the claimant paid their fees or not. Yes, I am late in uploading my statement but I know its upto the judge to decide whether they will accept it or not. If you do not want to help you can simply say that rather than giving me a dressing down.
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The claimant has to pay the court fee by 19 June - did they pay?
Both parties - including you - have to submit Witness Statements by 3 July. Did you? Your last post doesn’t look like a Witness Statement to me, but it may be better than nothing.
We can give you advice but you need to stay on top of the process. If you’re too distracted by other things, please don’t waste our time.
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Here is the notice of allocation:
https://i.ibb.co/VYSq5dZ5/Notice-of-allocation-v2.png
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Apologies, I got distracted by illness and other things in life. I will post the notice of allocation from the court shortly.
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So that’s the claimant’s Witness Statement.
You should have received a letter from your local court - the one you nominated on your N180 form - with dates of hearing, dates by which the claimant has to pay the court fee, dates by which both parties have to submit Witness Statements.
I don’t think you’ve posted this letter.
So you are now filing your WS in response to theirs.
It reads more like a defence, although yours was previously a boilerplate/template defence.
But it probably ticks the boxes I guess. It’s too much about the process and their failings than it is about your story.
Is that a correct summary, and do you have any information on the other dates that are important here?
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That’s fine, I don’t need to edit but couldn’t read before, now it’s OK.
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Apologies, i have updated the access setting, hopefully should be editable.
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Please amend the permissions so that we can view this “legal pack”.
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In the County Court at Romford
Claim No:xxxxxxxxxxx
Between:
HORIZON PARKING LIMITED (Claimant)
–and–
XXXXX (Defendant)
Introduction
1. I, XXXXX, being the Defendant in this matter, make this statement in response to the Witness Statement of Deanne Nevers dated 1st July 2026. The facts stated herein are within my own knowledge except where otherwise indicated.
2. I respectfully request that the Court dismiss this claim in its entirety. The Claimant is attempting to enforce an unfair, disproportionate parking charge alongside artificially inflated, legally unrecoverable administrative fees.
### 1. Fundamental Lack of Standing and Authority
3. In Paragraph 3 of her statement, the Claimant’s witness explicitly admits that the Claimant is *not authorised to disclose the landowner agreement* governing the site at Tesco Leyton. The Claimant relies entirely on assertions of a valid contract.
4. The Claimant misapplies One Parking Solution Ltd v Wilshaw [2021]. In Wilshaw, the explicit lack of authority was an issue raised late by a District Judge sua sponte (of his own motion) without giving the parking operator a fair chance to respond. In the present case, the Defendant explicitly challenges the Claimant's strict legal capacity and standing to issue and litigate claims in its own name at this specific location.
5. A commercial agreement must convey the specific right to assign a debt and initiate legal proceedings in the operator’s name. By actively withholding the contract under the guise of "commercial sensitivity", the Claimant fails to discharge its burden of proof to demonstrate it possesses the explicit corporate locus standi required to bring this claim.
### 2. Disproportionate and Unfair Contractual Terms
6. The Claimant asserts that the vehicle exceeded the 1-hour maximum stay limit by 37 minutes on 14/09/2024. However, under Section 62 of the *Consumer Rights Act 2015*, a contractual term is unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights to the detriment of the consumer.
7. The consumer, entering a busy retail supermarket car park (Tesco Leyton), is subjected to automated ANPR tracking from the exact split-second of entry to the exit boundary. This completely fails to factor in standard operational realities, such as:
* Time spent navigating traffic within the car park to locate an available space.
* Time spent queuing to exit the site back onto a busy main road (825 High Road, Leyton).
8. Demanding a severe financial penalty for a minor deviation within a busy commercial environment creates a gross imbalance under Section 62, rendering the core restriction unfair and unenforceable.
### 3. Artificial Inflation of the Claim (Abuse of Process)
9. In their Schedule of Losses, the Claimant seeks a judgment sum that includes a baseline parking charge of £70.00, an additional £10.00 administrative charge, and a further claim of *£70.00 for "additional costs"*.
10. This secondary £70.00 charge is a transparent attempt at double recovery and an abuse of civil court process. The baseline operational costs of managing a parking enforcement business—including debt letters and standard administrative processing—are already factored directly into the primary £70.00 charge itself.
11. The Claimant’s own exhibited case law, One Parking Solution Ltd v Wilshaw [2021], extensively details instances where courts have heavily scrutinized and struck out parking claims where arbitrary debt collection and administrative markups were tacked onto the principal sum. The inclusion of these completely unparticularised "additional costs" serves only to distort the small claims system and artificially inflate the claim value.
### 4. Flawed Witness Evidence
12. The witness statement submitted by Deanne Nevers is highly formulaic, generic, and entirely transactional. Ms. Nevers is an employee of a professional legal services firm based in Warrington, miles away from the site. She possesses zero personal, first-hand knowledge of the physical environment, localized traffic patterns, or the specific visibility/obscurity of the signage layout at the Tesco Leyton site on the date of the alleged breach.
13. Her statement consists almost entirely of generic legal arguments and aggressive template assertions dismissing the Defendant's case as "internet-sourced". It fails to establish any credible, direct factual evidence regarding the specific parking event.
### Conclusion & Order Sought
14. The Claimant has failed to provide a copy of its chain of authority to litigate, relies on unfair contractual terms that breach consumer protection law, and has actively abused the court process by tacking on duplicate, fabricated administrative fees to punish a motorist.
15. I respectfully invite the Court to:
* *Dismiss the claim* in its entirety.
* *Strike out the additional £70.00 cost element* as an impermissible double recovery.
* Award the Defendant appropriate fixed travel and loss of time expenses for attending the hearing listed on 17th July 2026.
### Statement of Truth
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.
*Signed:* ............................................................
Name: XXXXXX
Date: 1st July 2026
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Here is the link to the legal pack: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W90CGtuZ0JylVE1mxaoeHBHYRgnncWz0/view?usp=drive_link
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Hi all, I have now received the legal pack from Gladstones. I would appreciate, if anyone can review my response.
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Thank you once again for that clarification. I have submitted the defence using the wording provided. Lets see what happens next.
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What’s the point of not submitting the defence until after you receive the SAR result? The whole loin of that defence is that they have not complied with CPR 16.4(1)(a). There is no cause of action in their PoC.
If you wait for the SAR, they will try and say that you had all the necessary details before the defence was filed. The whole point is to get this struck out.
The PoC MUST give enough information for the defendant to know the details. They have to at least let you know the reason for the claim. Imagine that the first you know about this is the actual PoC. How on earth could you know enough detail about why they are making the claim?
The PoC in Gladstones claim do not even mention the reason. They just claim you owe money because the driver breached a contract. What exact term of this contract did the driver breached a? It doesn’t say. That’s the failure to comply with the CPR.
If his ever reaches the point where you must provide a witness statement, then you would use any evidence they provide in their witness statement. You don’t do their job for them by assisting them to cover their failure to comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a).
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Thank you. Appreciate your time and response.
I have not filed my defence yet only the AOS. I am waiting for Horizon to respond to my request for information under SAR which they may or may not respond to, in time.
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Without seeing what you put in your response to their LoC, it is difficult to advise much more. It seems that you may have referred to some CPR points that are not relevant to the small claims track.
There is no real value in responding to Gladstones at this point. Your defence is already filed and it squarely raises CPR 16.4(1)(a) non-compliance. Their CPR 31.14 reply comes after that, and on small claims CPR 31.14 doesn’t strictly bite anyway. All you really need to do now is:
Keep their letter as an exhibit. It confirms they have not provided the original NtK, only a reminder, and that they propose to “supply the core documents (PCN/NTK…)” later in their evidence bundle.
When you come to your witness statement, you can rely on this: note that, despite a specific request, they failed to disclose the NtK pre-hearing and therefore have not, to date, evidenced any PoFA-compliant notice capable of creating keeper liability. That goes both to conduct (PAPDC / disclosure) and to the substantive PoFA point.
Engaging in further back-and-forth now is unlikely to produce the NtK (if they had it readily to hand they would have enclosed it) and will not change the pleaded issues. Save the point for your evidence and submissions.
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Yes, I am.
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Are you the registered keeper with the correct details on your V5C?
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I have just recieved a response from Gladstones and they have only provided me the letter that I already have. I do not think they have any other document in their possession. Neither the PCN not the NTK. They have provided NTK reminder notification (which I already have) and It says Parking charge issue date 20 Oct 2024 and date of breach 14 September 24. That's more than 14 days in between the alleged contravention and the PCN issue. Surely this is not enforceable. Any thoughts?
NTK reminder
https://ibb.co/WNgyKx5f
Letter from Gladstones
https://ibb.co/YF70tmsv
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Thank you very much.
I have now acknowledged the service of the claim. Unfortunately, can't seem to locate the original parking charge 'PCN' or the NTK. It has slipped from my memory, but I remember never receiving some of the documents. Any way, I have written to the Parking provider and made a Subject Access Request and also written to Gladstones and asked to make disclosure of the documents that they have referenced in the particulars of the claim.
There is one thing I do know that I had received a PCN from Horizon re: a different incident a little time before this one and I successfully argued Non-compliance with PoFA 2012 at POPLA on account of the wording around 28 days to pay. I am confident that the same fatal error must have occured in this case.
https://ibb.co/Jwf2G13P
https://ibb.co/k2dXgvYq
https://ibb.co/JwzsZQbd
https://ibb.co/Q7g0WMSk
https://ibb.co/WNgyKx5f
https://ibb.co/Ps2M7DQ0
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The Particulars of Claim (PoC) do not comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) as they do not state the cause of action. They simply say that the driver breach a contract without specifying what terms in the contract were breached. It could be because the car is red and only green cars are allowed to park on that day of the week. Who knows?
With an issue date of 5th November, you have until 4pm on Monday 24th November to submit your defence. If you submit an Acknowledgement of Service (AoS) before then, you would then have until 4pm on Monday 8th December to submit your defence.
You only need to submit an AoS if you need extra time to prepare your defence. If you want to submit an AoS then follow the instructions in this linked PDF:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvqu3bask5m0zir/money-claim-online-How-to-Acknowledge.pdf?dl=0
Until very recently, we never advised using the MCOL to submit a defence. However, due to recent systemic failures within the CNBC, we feel that it is safer to now submit a short defence using MCOL as it is instantly submitted and entered into the "system". Whilst it will deny the use of some formatting or inclusion of transcripts etc. these can always be included with the Witness Statement (WS) later, if it ever progresses that far.
You will need to copy and paste it into the defence text box on MCOL. It has been checked to make sure that it will fit into the 122 lines limit.
1. The Defendant denies the claim in its entirety. The Defendant asserts that there is no liability to the Claimant and that no debt is owed. The claim is without merit and does not adequately disclose any comprehensible cause of action.
2. There is a lack of precise detail in the Particulars of Claim (PoC) in respect of the factual and legal allegations made against the Defendant such that the PoC do not comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a).
3. The Defendant is unable to plead properly to the PoC because:
(a) The contract referred to is not detailed or attached to the PoC in accordance with PD 16, para 7.3(1);
(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract (or contracts) which is/are relied on;
(c) The PoC do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why the claimant asserts the defendant has breached the contract (or contracts)
(d) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity exactly where the breach occurred, the exact time when the breach occurred and how long it is alleged that the vehicle was parked before the parking charge was allegedly incurred;
(e) The PoC do not state precisely how the sum claimed is calculated, including the basis for any statutory interest, damages, or other charges;
(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the parking charge and what proportion is damages;
(g) The PoC do not provide clarity on whether the Defendant is sued as the driver or the keeper of the vehicle, as the claimant cannot plead alternative causes of action without specificity.
4. The Defendant submits that courts have previously struck out similar claims of their own initiative for failure to adequately comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a), particularly where the Particulars of Claim failed to specify the contractual terms relied upon or explain the alleged breach with sufficient clarity. The Defendant refers specifically to the persuasive appellate cases:
- Civil Enforcement Ltd v Chan (2023), Luton County Court, HHJ Murch, ref: E7GM9W44
- CPMS Ltd v Akande (2024), Manchester County Court, HHJ Evans, ref: K0DP5J30
In both cases, the claim was struck out due to materially similar failures to comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a).
5. The Defendant invites the Court to strike out this claim of its own initiative. The Defendant relies on the judicial reasoning set out in Chan and Akande, as well as other County Court cases involving identical failures to adequately comply with CPR 16.4. In those cases, the court further observed that, given the modest sum claimed, requiring further case management steps would be disproportionate and contrary to the overriding objective. Accordingly, the judge struck out the claim outright rather than permitting an amendment. The Defendant proposes that the following Order be made:
Draft Order:
Of the Court's own initiative and upon reading the particulars of claim and the defence.
AND the court being of the view that the particulars of claim do not comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) because: (a) they do not set out the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract (or contracts) which is (or are) relied on; and (b) they do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why the claimant asserts that the defendant was in breach of contract.
AND the claimant could have complied with CPR 16.4(1)(a) had it served separate detailed particulars of claim, as it could have done pursuant to PD 7C, para 5.2, but chose not to do so.
AND upon the Court determining, having regard to the overriding objective (CPR 1.1), that it would be disproportionate to direct further pleadings or to allot any further share of the Court’s resources to this claim (for example by ordering further particulars of claim and a further defence, with consequent case management).
ORDER:
1. The claim is struck out.
2. Permission to either party to apply to set aside, vary or stay this order by application on notice, which must be filed at this Court not more than 7 days after service of this order, failing which no such application may be made.
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You need to re-post covering your MCOL password!
The claim number is obscured
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Do you have the original PCN?
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You need to re-post covering your MCOL password!
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Hi, have received a legal claim from Horizon Parking who are being advised by Gladstones. I intend to defend in court.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I will upload relevant documents shortly.
https://limewire.com/d/S3kw2#Rt27XRwViY