Horizon Proceedings

[Gooner]

I have completed my WS, is it better to send it by email or postal mail.

[b789]

@Gooner, are you going to show me your WS? Have you received the Claimants WS yet?

Please show me your WS so I can evaluate and offer corrections or suggestions. You don’t send your WS before the Claimant have sent theirs and you’ve received a copy.

When it is sent, it will be by email to the court and CCd to the Claimants solicitor.

Remember, the PoC are defective. The defence is based solely on the PoC. You are not to do the claimants job by trying to explain something that was not pleaded in the claim. A Gladstones issued claim contains absolutely nothing.

Have you mentioned the persuasive appeal cases of Civil Enforcement Ltd v Ming Tak Chan [2023] E7GM9W44, Car Park Management Services Ltd v Charles Akande [2024] K0DP5J30 and most importantly, the binding case of Liberty Homes (Kent) Ltd v Rajakanthan & Ors [2022] EWHC 2201 (TCC)?

These all need to be in your WS.

I will be travelling tomorrow, 1 June and will only have time to go over your WS later today or later on Tuesday. Please show your WS here ASAP. Have you included court headers and a Statement of Truth (SoT)?

[Gooner]

Good Morning

My apologies for the time taken to respond.

I attach two versions of my witness statement and would greatly appreciate any advice or changes required.

[b789]

@Gooner, can you please confirm that you have not yet received the Claimants WS?

[b789]

This is the revised body of the WS I suggest you use:

1. I am the Defendant in this claim. The facts in this witness statement are within my own knowledge except where stated otherwise.

2. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle referred to in the claim.

3. The Court has ordered witness statements to be exchanged by 03 June 2026. At the date of signing this statement, I have not received any witness statement, documents, photographs, contract, signage evidence, or other evidence from the Claimant.

4. I have therefore had to prepare this statement without seeing the evidence the Claimant intends to rely upon. That is a significant disadvantage because the Particulars of Claim do not properly explain the case against me.

5. The Particulars of Claim are generic and defective. They do not identify the agreement relied upon, whether it is alleged to be written, oral, by conduct through signage, or some combination. They do not identify the specific term allegedly breached, the conduct said to amount to that breach, or the facts relied upon to establish liability.

6. The Particulars of Claim also do not make clear whether I am pursued as driver, keeper, or otherwise, nor do they properly explain how the sum claimed has been calculated.

7. My Defence was therefore necessarily directed to the defective pleading itself. I could not provide a detailed factual response to a case that had not been properly pleaded and for which no evidence had been served.

8. I understand that my Defence relies upon CPR 16.4 and Practice Direction 16. CPR 16.4(1)(a) requires Particulars of Claim to contain a concise statement of the facts on which the Claimant relies. Where a claim is based upon an agreement, Practice Direction 16 requires proper particulars of that agreement.

9. My Defence also relies upon Liberty Homes (Kent) Ltd v Rajakanthan & Others [2022] EWHC 2201 (TCC), in which Mrs Justice Jefford DBE held that it is implicit that Particulars of Claim must identify whether the agreement relied upon is oral, written, by conduct, or some combination. The Particulars of Claim in this case do not do so.

10. My Defence further referred to Civil Enforcement Limited v Ming Tak Chan, Claim No. E7GM9W44, appeal judgment of HHJ Murch, Luton County Court, 15 August 2023 and Car Park Management Service Ltd v Akande, Claim No. K0DP5J30, appeal judgment of HHJ Evans, Manchester County Court, 10 May 2024, which I understand are persuasive County Court appeal authorities concerning inadequately pleaded private parking claims. See exhibit XX-01 and XX-02.

11. Those authorities are relied upon because the Claimant’s pleaded case does not disclose the essential facts required for me to understand and answer the claim. The issue is not that the Particulars of Claim are merely short. The issue is that they fail to plead the core basis of the claim.

12. My recollection is that the vehicle was connected with a genuine stay at Travelodge Cambridge, Newmarket Road, and that the stay had been paid for, including parking. However, from the Particulars of Claim alone, I cannot tell what is actually alleged to have gone wrong.

13. I do not know from the Particulars of Claim whether the allegation is that no payment was made, that a vehicle registration was not entered, that the vehicle was not authorised, that a time limit was exceeded, that signage terms were breached, or that some other alleged contravention occurred.

14. If the Claimant serves a witness statement or evidence after the Court-ordered deadline, that will be the first time I have seen the factual case and evidence being advanced against me. I will not have had a fair opportunity to deal with that material in this witness statement.

15. Any late evidence which introduces the alleged contract, signage, terms, breach, authority, photographs, payment records, or other factual basis of liability would not be evidence supporting a properly pleaded case. It would be the first explanation of a case that should have been pleaded from the outset.

16. I understand that in private parking claims conducted by Gladstones Solicitors, witness statements are often signed by an employee or representative of Gladstones rather than by someone from the Claimant with direct knowledge of the material facts. If that occurs here, the statement will not be direct evidence from a person who witnessed the relevant events or who can give first-hand evidence about the alleged parking event.

17. I have therefore made this statement on the basis of the only case currently before me: the Claimant’s defective Particulars of Claim. My evidence is necessarily limited because the Claimant has not pleaded its case properly and has not served any evidence by the time this statement had to be prepared.

18. I deny that the Claimant has provided me with a properly pleaded case to answer, and I rely on my Defence and this witness statement.

I suggest you attach as your exhibits the transcripts from Chan and Akande as exhibits XX-01 and XX-02 (replace "XX" with your initials.

Do not send anything until the deadline day, preferably just before the 4pm deadline.

[Gooner]

@b789

Thank you very much again, I confirm that I have not received the claimants WS

[Gooner]

@b789

I have sent this morning my WS and attached exhibits by email to:

enquiries.peterborough.countycourt@justice.gov.uk

cc'd to:

enquiries@gladstonessolicitors.co.uk

I will not have access to my computer this afternoon to do this any later.

I have only recieved an automated response from Gladstones at the moment and not the court, would I normally expect a response from a County Court or is it reasonable to assume that the email has been received ?

At this time I have not received a WS from Gladstones.

Many  Thanks

[b789]

Not sure if Peterborough issue acknowledgement emails. As long as you sent it and you also CCd the same email to yourself and Gladstones and received the CC’d copies,that is usually proof enough thatit was sent.

[Gooner]

I have also sent the WS using a G-Mail account I have and once again received an automated reply from Gladstones but not the County Court so I guess we can assume that the court does not automatically acknowledge receipt.

Further to this I have not received a WS from Gladstones, so I assume that I wait until the 19th of June now to see if the hearing fee is paid, would I generally receive notification if they have defaulted in any way ?

[b789]

@Gooner Yes, for now you wait to see whether the £27 hearing fee is paid by 19 June, but do not assume the court will promptly notify you if they default.

Courts are often slow with notices. If the fee is not paid, the claim should normally be struck out or the hearing vacated under the terms of the order, but you may not hear immediately.

If you have still received no WS from Gladstones, keep a clear record of that. Do not chase them for it. They had the same deadline as you. If they later serve a late WS, you can object and point out that you had to prepare your own WS without seeing any evidence from the Claimant.

After 19 June, I suggest you phone the court and ask whether the Claimant paid the hearing fee by the deadline and whether the hearing remains listed. Until then, make sure your own WS has been both filed with the court and served on Gladstones.

I would not assume Gladstones will discontinue just because they have failed to serve their WS on time. I would work on the assumption that Gladstones may now try to serve a late WS after seeing yours. Do not chase them. They had the same deadline as you and they have failed to comply with it.

Keep a clear note that, as at the WS deadline, nothing had been served by the Claimant or Gladstones. If they now serve a late WS, you should not treat it as automatically acceptable. It should be challenged on the basis that:

1. it was served after the Court-ordered deadline;
   
2. you had already been forced to prepare and serve your own WS without seeing any of their evidence;
   
3. the late WS is likely to contain the very details missing from their defective PoC; and
   
4. they should not be allowed to use late evidence to repair a claim that was inadequately pleaded from the outset.
   

If a late WS arrives, keep the envelope/email and note the exact date and time of service. We can then prepare a short objection to the court asking that the late evidence is not admitted, or alternatively that you be given permission to file a short supplementary response limited to the new matters raised.

For now, do not help them fix their own breach. You have complied. They have not.