CEL - Court Claim Options

[HotKnife]

Hello everyone, hope your Fridays are going well.

I am helping defend someone from a court claim they have received from Civil Enforcement Ltd.

The claimant alleges the defendent parked in a private car park which is next to a Morissons and did not pay the parking fee. The claimant's evidence for this is pictures taken of the vehicle using an ANPR camera.

The defendent believes the signage at the car park was majorly insufficent. They have not admitted to being the driver to the claimant. After further research I have found out the car park operates a system where parking costs £2 and then £1.50 is taken off the price of shopping over £10 in store to bring the cost down to 50p. The defendent has a copy of a receipt from the Morrisons from during the time the claimant says the vehicle was parked there and argues that if they had any knowledge of a charge and this system being in place they would have obviously paid. Therefore the defendent makes the point they was never a contract between them and Civil Enforcement Ltd and this PCN is illegitimate. The defendent also has photos that show how poor the signage is as evidence and a witness willing to make a statement corroborating the fact the signage was not noticable.

The defendent is commited to fighting this obvious scam and would even happily attend a court hearing if it came to that although if this can be avoided then all the better.

I have been doing a fair amount of research on similar cases and have found some templates for defences.

My main question is should the receipt be included as evidence as it ay tie the defendent to being the driver which I have read is generally not advised in these sorts of cases.

Any other advice is also welcome.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

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[Redivi]

First step is acknowledge service

As you must have found by now, CEL defences have little to do with the actions of the driver

The tactic is to persuade the company to cancel rather than let a judge examine the business model and practices

If the receipt identifies the driver don't include it
Simply say in the defence that the driver was a customer who didn't see the signs - the statement counts as evidence
CEL will in any case cancel before a hearing and usually before the evidence pack has to be provided

[SchoolRunMum]

No evidence goes with the defence anyway.

Has the person done the AoS online on MCOL, to extend the time to respond with a defence (NOT to be submitted by MCOL)?

[HotKnife]

First step is acknowledge service

As you must have found by now, CEL defences have little to do with the actions of the driver

The tactic is to persuade the company to cancel rather than let a judge examine the business model and practices

If the receipt identifies the driver don't include it
Simply say in the defence that the driver was a customer who didn't see the signs - the statement counts as evidence
CEL will in any case cancel before a hearing and usually before the evidence pack has to be provided

No evidence goes with the defence anyway.

Has the person done the AoS online on MCOL, to extend the time to respond with a defence (NOT to be submitted by MCOL)?

Ah I see, so mentioning evidence is pretty pointless at this stage anyway. The AoS has been completed and processed so the next step is submitting the defence and awaiting CEL's response. I'll finish drafting the defense then based on what I've found through my research on here.

Thank you both for your replies, very helpful!

[ostell]

How could a morrisons receipt identify the driver?

[HotKnife]

How could a morrisons receipt identify the driver?

Well, the last 4 card numbers of the card used are on there which could if paired with the card but I'd think that if the defendent uses the receipt as a defence then it's as good as admitting they were driving the car.

If it won't increase the chances of the case being dropped by CEL at this point then there's not a huge amount of point mentioning it yet. Unless not mentioning it may harm future defence. I'm not sure as I'm still doing research on the process currently.

[SchoolRunMum]

Ah I see, so mentioning evidence is pretty pointless at this stage anyway.

No, that's not the case. Certainly MENTION evidence the D will later rely on. ]

A receipt does not make a person the driver of a car. Passengers spend money too.

[ostell]

And with the last 4 digits of a few thousand other cards !

[nosferatu1001]

Yep, and they wont have acess to the card anyway!
Seriously

Mention the reciept as proof of spend etc.
An occupant of the vehicle spent the money
Could be the driver, or any passenger.