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Betsyb
Help, I know you guys have seen it all before but i really need help. My son parked in a coop car park in Oct 2012 over staying the free 90 mins by 15 mins, he tried to ring the number on the sign but got a message saying no one is available. On my advice he has ignored all the letters but yesterday a County Court claim arrived. We really do not know what to do, I have spent the time since looking at all the forums and help including newbie help, I have emailed the CEO of Coop, as yet no reply.

Details of Claim are
Damages arising from breach of contract
AND
Payment by the Defendant to claimant of total amount.
signed a photo copy of Ashley

To my knowledge he has not recieved a Notice of Assignment letter, as I have kept all the letters and that is not with them.

Im not sure that he would have a defence as he overrun the free 90 mins. I really hope someone will pick this up and help as i am not legally minded at all.
Thank you so much.
doreen4161
If they are taking you to court you need to tick the box stating you will defend it. Hopefully gan will be along to help soon, but you may as well defend it if you going to have to pay anyway. It will be in your local court, just you the judge (in a suit -not a wig ) and the parking toe rag. Never phone a parking company, and get free proof of postage for mail to the court/CEL
Betsyb
Thank you he has kindly messaged me, I just need to gather a bit of information for him and then hopefully he can help me.
Betsyb
Have just received an email from Deborah Misell - Williams, what does everyone think?

Good Afternoon .....

Thank you for contacting Steve Murrells regarding the correspondence your son has received relating to a parking charge; he has requested that I respond on his behalf.

Firstly, may I apologise for any concern that this has caused your family, I do appreciate this type of letter can be upsetting, and regret that your son has received it as a consequence of using a car park at one of our Stores.

I understand that your son tried to pay the charge/contact the Car Parking Company directly at the time and as such, should only have had to pay the £45.00. As such, we will be prepared to send you or your son a cheque for the full amount of £165.00 less the £45.00 which he should have been able to pay. I am happy to raise a cheque to reimburse you for £125.00 of the charge.

Please do let me know if you would like this to be raised for you. I would need the name for the cheque and also the address to send it to.

Thank you for your continued pateince.

Yours sincerely


Deborah Misell-Williams
Executive Customer Carline Team
ManxRed
Where's the facepalm smiley?

She really really really doesn't get it, does she?
Gan
If they're stupid enough to offer it, in your son's position I'd accept it

Then defend the claim
Betsyb
Sorry if you mean me with face palm smiley, I'm new to all this (and blonde), if you don't mean me ignore my comment. X
ManxRed
No, Deborah Misell-Williams was the target of the facepalm comment!
Boris the Spider
QUOTE (Betsyb @ Wed, 23 Jul 2014 - 14:13) *
Have just received an email from Deborah Misell - Williams, what does everyone think?

Good Afternoon .....

Thank you for contacting Steve Murrells regarding the correspondence your son has received relating to a parking charge; he has requested that I respond on his behalf.

Firstly, may I apologise for any concern that this has caused your family, I do appreciate this type of letter can be upsetting, and regret that your son has received it as a consequence of using a car park at one of our Stores.

I understand that your son tried to pay the charge/contact the Car Parking Company directly at the time and as such, should only have had to pay the £45.00. As such, we will be prepared to send you or your son a cheque for the full amount of £165.00 less the £45.00 which he should have been able to pay. I am happy to raise a cheque to reimburse you for £125.00 of the charge.

Please do let me know if you would like this to be raised for you. I would need the name for the cheque and also the address to send it to.

Thank you for your continued pateince.

Yours sincerely


Deborah Misell-Williams
Executive Customer Carline Team


DMW is very busy offering cheques..
I agree with Gan,,Except her offer and defend the claim. You now have nothing to lose and could be £125 better off.
That's irony, Co-op paying us to use their Car Parks..ohmy.gif
Gan
Manx means that we have to re-calibrate the Forum's Gullibility Index as milliDeborahs
It will avoid too many zeroes after the decimal point when discussing most individuals able to function normally
Betsyb
Hi all,
I posted the acknowledgement of service getting proof of sending. Could anyone tell me whether you get a reply as There has been no acknowledgement of this, I don't know whether that is normal and the 14 days is up?
Many thanks.
matt285
QUOTE (Gan @ Wed, 23 Jul 2014 - 14:19) *
If they're stupid enough to offer it, in your son's position I'd accept it

Then defend the claim


I would be very careful with this. Depending on what the arrangement is around accepting the payment the OP may be bound to settle the claim otherwise this could constitute fraud.
southpaw82
165 - 45 = 125?
Betsyb
Thank you so much to Gan for all your help, we will see how things develop.
Boris the Spider
QUOTE (Betsyb @ Wed, 6 Aug 2014 - 10:15) *
Thank you so much to Gan for all your help, we will see how things develop.


Betsy...Gan was a great help to me ..
don't give up..I had my case today and Cel did not show. Case was struck out. Cel are just bullies who hope people will fold. They should be brought to book for using the Courts in this way
Betsyb
Thanks Boris,
I totally agree, what a complete waste of the courts time and money.
Betsyb
As Coltrane, my son has also received a General Form of Judgement or Order stating that CEL have not returned the Directions Questionnaire with the court or paid the fee, they have until 22/09/2014 to do so. This arrived on 16/09/2014, the next day he received a Notice of Transfer of Proceedings to our local court. This is a little confusing.
Also if DEAL are now issuing claims do you think it will be a possibility that they may also make a claim against him.
Thanks as always.
ManxRed
We haven't seen a DEAL claim yet, just some 'letters before claim' stating that they will issue s claim.

Sounds like another bluff in a desperate attempt to scare more people into paying up. Given CEL's form I suspect they might issue actual claims, but again, would have absolutely no intention of seeing any of this entire farcical episode in front of a judge.
Betsyb
Hi,
My son has today 27/09/2014 received a notice of hearing at the local court and once again we need help. If anyone could suggest the type of documents etc as well as the defence that Gan kindly did for him we would be so grateful.
I'm a bit concerned as some other posts seem to suggest the tide is turning and as we are in no way legally minded we don't want to do the wrong thing.
Thanks again.
matt285
What does the hearing notice say? Have you actually read it in full before writing your message here? Also, when is the hearing?

Normally the hearing notice give you lots of directions, when to file what, how to write a Witness Statement, and whether to serve it onto the Claimant etc. This is what you need to do now.

We can't advise you if you don't even bother to read things properly (and tell us what they say) before coming here crying for help...
Betsyb
Ok, point taken, I'm sorry if I offended you. I have read it in full but obviously panicked and posted too quickly for which I can only apologise.
The hearing is on the 18th November 2014, copies of all documents on which he intends to rely at the hearing must be delivered no later than 17th October 2014.
It states that the witness statement must:
Start with name of the case and claim number;
State full name and address of the witness
Set out the witness's evidence clearly in numbered paragraphs on numbered pages;
End with the paragraph : I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. (Or words to that effect); and
Be signed by the witness and dated
Once again I apologise mat285 but I thought it was a standard court letter and people, unlike me would know the set up.
I have always felt very welcome on this forum until today, and have always read other posts relevant to try not to bother people unnecessarily
As I have always stated I am not at all legally minded and am doing this for my son and was hoping for a bit of reassurance and advice which I have always been very grateful for on here, but after reading your response I think I will probably just pay up.
Thanks to everyone who has helped with great advice in the past. Especially Gan.
Yours Betsyb. X

Boris the Spider
Betsyb, CEL probably won't turn up anyway ! They didn't for my case.
But if you are worried about court, go back to Deborah, accept the £125,
then make an out of court offer to CEL.
Personally, I would let it go all the way and hope they don't turn up. Then claim for costs.
SchoolRunMum
Have you noticed emanresu's signature that people only need to put a defence in and turn up for a CEL Hearing to 'claim their free £100 costs'! That's because CEL never turn up so instead of getting in a tizz about this, how about doing the happier task first - getting a notebook and starting to tot up all your costs so far and any wages lost to attend the hearing, and any travel/parking fees! Typical costs granted by Judges can be around £90 - £100 and you can argue that CEL have certainly been unreasonable when you attend and they don't, after all these months/years of harassing you.

Clearly your defence needs to be a padded out, well organised version of the initial defence Gan helped you with, attaching a witness statement (just as the court letter explained , a brief statement of facts) and attaching the evidence you wish to rely upon. This would include pics of the signage, a copy of any letter from the Co-op saying they want the thing cancelled (if you have complained) and a copy of the Court cases you wish to rely on. Gan may have mentioned them in the initial defence, and would include the need for you to have the transcripts for CEL v McCafferty and (recommended for a defence ) OBServices v Thurlow as well. Both are Appeal decisions by circuit Judges so those two decisions are persuasive evidence. And be ready to rebut any attempt by CEL to rely upon ParkingEye v Beavis (if they do) because that case is going to the Court of Appeal anyway so is an unreliable decision (unlike the Appeal decisions in McCafferty and Thurlow, especially seeing as the former case involved CEL).

Both are easy to find the transcripts for in the Parking Prankster's list, which I can't link here but his blog is one of the links in post #5 here on MSE:

Sticky: **NEWBIES!! PRIVATE PARKING TICKET? OLD OR NEW? **READ THESE FAQS FIRST!** Thankyou!

DO NOT just click on that link and panic about the sheer amount of words I typed there (I am Coupon-mad on MSE). I am asking you to read ONLY post #5 about court claims which has loads of explanatory links.

So when you have read all of them and found the transcripts for the 2 cases in the Prankster's website, how about climbing down off this thread and looking at other people's? You could have easily read a dozen other CEL threads from recent weeks if you had looked and could already have sent a pm for moral support and defence wording tips, to JCL and Barry 1976 and BoristheSpider to name just three:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=92899

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=90484

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=90440

Knowledge is power so start by reading post #5 of the MSE FAQs thread as I linked first, and all the links from it. Then share your thoughts with others in your shoes and find out what they did and when (bearing in mind two out of those 3 have already been there done that and found CEL never showed up).
matt285
QUOTE (Betsyb @ Sat, 27 Sep 2014 - 15:13) *
Ok, point taken, I'm sorry if I offended you. I have read it in full but obviously panicked and posted too quickly for which I can only apologise.
The hearing is on the 18th November 2014, copies of all documents on which he intends to rely at the hearing must be delivered no later than 17th October 2014.
It states that the witness statement must:
Start with name of the case and claim number;
State full name and address of the witness
Set out the witness's evidence clearly in numbered paragraphs on numbered pages;
End with the paragraph : I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. (Or words to that effect); and
Be signed by the witness and dated


Okay there we go, this already answers quite a few of the questions you raised doesn't it?

QUOTE
Once again I apologise mat285 but I thought it was a standard court letter and people, unlike me would know the set up.


It is a standard letter but each court has their own way of dealing with those things so it is really hard to give advice if we don't know the fact.

QUOTE
I have always felt very welcome on this forum until today, and have always read other posts relevant to try not to bother people unnecessarily
As I have always stated I am not at all legally minded and am doing this for my son and was hoping for a bit of reassurance and advice which I have always been very grateful for on here, but after reading your response I think I will probably just pay up.


I'm sorry if you feel this way (you shouldn't) but you need to remember that people on here give up their free time to help others like you. It is simply additional and unnecessary work to then try and ask for the details that you are already aware of. We are struggling to help as many as possible but it is important that you realise that you won't be spoon fed with everything here. This place is called fightback forum for a reason, so you do need to be proactive and take some work on yourself, rather than just asking for the easy way out.

I'm sure many people will be happy to read through your draft Witness Statement and advise accordingly (I'm one of them if you wish me to) but you can't expect to have people do all of it for you. If you want this then you would normally go to a lawyer and pay money for it wink.gif

So I hope I haven't frustrated you too much with my rather rude reply, but we see this issue here over and over again and sometimes clear words are needed.

So to summarise: you can easily defeat CEL if you now put together a Witness Statement setting out all the facts based on the Defence which you've already received. Once you've done this then feel free to ask for feedback before sending it off to CEL. You then need to complete a "Certificate of Service" form and send this form and another copy of the Witness Statement to the court - within the deadline given.

If this proceeds to a hearing then CEL will unlikely attend so you should get a default win. But let's talk about this once we're closer to the hearing date.

Hope this helps,

Good luck!
Betsyb
Thank you for all your replies, I am finding the links very useful as I have spent a lot of time looking through other posts and not really sure if they are relevant. I think I was a bit shocked by the response, I understand that it must be frustrating when people seem to have not done their research, but believe me I have spent hours trying to figure it out, I find it so overwhelming.
I so appreciate everyone's help.
SchoolRunMum
You are doing great and Gan's initial defence has given you the points you need to now expand on. Hopefully you have read links such as the one to bargepole's summary of what to put in a defence at this stage, and found the two case transcripts? If not then shout for help. We love the fact you are fighting back and we KNOW they won't turn up so you will be posting another success soon.
Petal36
Hang in there Betsy! I'm fighting one too & I know it's a bit scary, but these people seem to know their stuff smile.gif

Good luck!
Betsyb
Thanks again for all your encouragement, I'm trying to tackle my sons witness statement, in the initial defence kindly drawn up by Gan it states that the defendant denies that he was the person who parked the vehicle, with this in mind I'm finding it hard to word the statement so it doesn't contradict this. Any suggestions would be great.
Am I also right in thinking that you don't need the court transcripts of cases you are referring to in your defence until the actual court appearance? I'm hoping so as I'm having trouble finding them.
Many thanks everyone.
SchoolRunMum
The witness statement could just say that he is the registered keeper of vehicle xxxx xxx. He received a letter around xx/12 and blah blah just talking about the letters received and the fact no POPLA appeal has been undertaken even though the incident was just after the POFA 2012.

But I am concerned, in view of your first post - WHY is he making a statement that seems to me not to be true? Don't even go there when it's at court stage - be honest but robust with the defence on other grounds if he cannot honestly swear that he wasn't the person who parked the car.

The transcripts are in the Parking Prankster's blog.
Betsyb
I know school run mum, he overstayed 15 mins, but when Gan did the initial defence he put that he wasn't the driver, I was so grateful that I didn't query it (I know I should have), so I now don't know what to do. Do I contradict the initial defence and admit to the error or run with it and stick to the defence?
Thanks
kommando
You stick to the truth and if that contradicts the initial defence so be it, much better now than in court.
matt285
Guys I've taken this Off-Board. Don't worry it will all be sorted out. No need to confuse things, the OP will state the facts as they happened.
Betsyb
Hi all, just thought I would update you, my sons court date had been set for 18/11/2014 but today he received a letter from CEL stating:
In light of the defence that has been submitted, we have now reviewed the matter and on commercial grounds, without prejudice , have decided to withdraw claims and discontinue proceedings.
I would just like to thank everyone that has helped me on this forum, I know it can sometimes be frustrating for the regulars when newbies ask for help with things that to you may seem trivial and it looks like they haven't bothered to do their research, but I think the fact that there is a lot of information to take on can be very daunting. I would especially like to thank Gan for helping with the initial defence and Matt285, who I initially thought was a bit harsh and then turned into my knight in shining armour, for help with the witness statement and all his help and advice.
For any newbies reading this, I know it is overwhelming, but do as much research as you can and if you ask for help put as much detail in your posts so that the regulars have all the information to be able to advise you.
DBC
In other words, you stood up to the bullies and they have once again backed down .
ManxRed
Well done you, and well done Matt.

This lot are bullies and cowards.
matt285
QUOTE (ManxRed @ Fri, 7 Nov 2014 - 16:28) *
Well done you, and well done Matt.

This lot are bullies and cowards.



I'm not a bully and neither am I a coward!

Joking aside - it's good to see that another one of those spurious claims has been fought.

A costs claim letter will be sent to court by OP shortly, of course smile.gif
SchoolRunMum
Well done Matt.
ManxRed
I would be sending a copy to Steve Murrells and telling him I'll never shop at the Co Op again and will be advising friends and family the same.

But that's just me.
Gan
Everybody who receives the £495 letter should also send it to Mr Murrells

I notice from my records that Co-op sent your son a cheque to pay the claim
Makes an application for costs a bit iffy

Could however remind Mr Murrells of the fact
Tell him that it although it goes some way to compensate him for the cost and inconvenience resulting from their employment of a disreputable contractor but he won't be spending it at any of their stores
matt285
Oh right, I didn't know anything about a cheque sent from the co-op to the OP. I thought this did never happen in the end and was just an option given by the co-op but refused. If this is the case then to be honest it would be most prudent to return the cheque to the co-op because the claim has been cancelled and it was sent from the co-op with the understanding to settle the claim.
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