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#Post#: 122604--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: DWMB2
Date: June 22, 2026, 4:21 am
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--- Quote from: InterCity125 link ---
>
> This is a harsh sanction.
>
--- End Quote ---
It's one of the main problems with the 'vague particulars'
defence, in my personal view. The judge isn't wrong to say that
it doesn't deal with all of the allegations in the claim, and
any claims that the defendant fails to deal with can be
considered to be admitted...
#Post#: 122606--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: InterCity125
Date: June 22, 2026, 4:41 am
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I agree 100%.
However, I don't think I've seen a Judge react this way before.
Whilst I agree with your points regarding the vague PoC defence,
it generally results in no more than a defence strike out and a
further order that the Defendant must provide a new defence in x
period of time.
It's a tough sanction because the Defendant is a litigant in
person and this is a simple County Court Claim.
It will be interesting to see if DCB Legal push ahead with this
- when do they need to pay the Court fee?
I feel that we can still come up with a robust defence since it
is demonstrable that the Claimant has not engaged with the
correct processes set out in the Code of Practice - this is a
minor keying error and should have been cancelled as soon at the
operator became aware of this.
#Post#: 122620--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: DWMB2
Date: June 22, 2026, 6:39 am
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--- Quote from: InterCity125 link ---
>
> However, I don't think I've seen a Judge react this way
before.
>
--- End Quote ---
Nor me, although I note which judge it is - from a few we've
seen from him recently, I think he's losing patience with
parking claims where both sides are using templates. He's
previously been critical of parking companies for their poor
conduct, and appears to be taking a similar approach to
defendants.
From memory, this is the same judge from a case we had on here
recently where he required the defendant to provide
justification for the case being heard in person, taking the
view that a simple parking case is suitable to be heard on the
papers.
--- Quote from: InterCity125 link ---
>
> this is a minor keying error and should have been cancelled as
soon at the operator became aware of this.
--- End Quote ---
This would seem a wise thing to focus on - I get the sense Iyer
is more interested in the facts of the case than technical
procedural points.
#Post#: 122631--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: awf185
Date: June 22, 2026, 8:00 am
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Thanks both.
My first appeal to ECP didn't mention the keying error. I hadn't
realised at that point that's what had happened. They rejected
it.
I only raised the keying error at POPLA, with my bank statement
to back it (£3 paid at 18:33 on 09/08/2024). ECP's own POPLA
evidence pack had a transaction history showing that same £3
payment, wrong reg by 1 wrong letter, but carrying my card
details, the same card as my bank statement. So between their
records and mine the payment was plainly mine and easy to trace.
POPLA rejected it anyway.
The reg I typed isn't even a real registered vehicle, so it
could only have been my car.
Paper hearing wasn't really my choice, I couldn't get into the
portal, so it ended up on paper. Not fussed though, my evidence
is all documentary.
#Post#: 122633--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: InterCity125
Date: June 22, 2026, 9:35 am
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Any chance you could post up your appeal to ECP - we need to
judge weather they should have noticed the orphaned payment.
In my opinion, given how simple the keying error was, they
should never have issued the ticket in the first place.
#Post#: 122636--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: awf185
Date: June 22, 2026, 10:15 am
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Agreed, not sure how it's got this far. This was my appeal to
ECP:
"I made a payment to Euro Car Parks on 9th August 2024 at 6:33pm
for £3.00. I am the registered keeper."
Granted my initial appeal very blunt but I believed it was a
straight-forward case.
#Post#: 122732--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: InterCity125
Date: June 23, 2026, 6:38 am
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Mistyped VRM Defence.
You will need to substitute in your correct VRM details along
with the mistyped VRM.
1. That firstly I wish to apologise to the Court for the
internet based defence which I submitted in the first instance -
I now recognise that this was a mistake but would respectfully
point out that I am a Litigant in Person with little legal
experience in these matters and the pressure of the situation
lead to into a serious error of judgement.
2. I therefore thank the Judge for giving me this additional
opportunity to submit my defence and will therefore set out the
facts of the case from the information which is known to me.
3. I deny the Claim in its entirety and no debt is owned by
myself to the Claimant.
4. That I believe that the Claimant has simply pressed ahead
with this claim without adequately reviewing the precise facts
in the case.
5. That the Parking Charge Notice (PCN), issued by the Claimant,
should actually have been cancelled at the earliest opportunity
but the Claimant failed to cancel the PCN due to multiple basic
procedural errors.
6. That I acknowledge that I was both the driver of the vehicle
and the registered keeper at the material time.
7. That I acknowledge that I inadvertently entered an incorrect
Vehicle Registration Mark (VRM) into the parking operator /
Claimant's system when registering my vehicle at the location.
8. That my mistyped VRM consisted of just one mistyped character
- My vehicle VRM is AB68 CDE and I inadvertently typed BB68 CDE.
9. That my payment was still processed against the incorrect VRM
and, as such, the Claimant has not suffered any financial loss.
10. That the payment against the incorrect VRM was never
refunded by the Claimant and therefore they remain in possession
of the parking payment.
11. That I believe that the mistyped VRM should have been
spotted by the Claimant before the Claimant issued the PCN - the
parking operator is required by their Code of Practice (CoP) to
manually double check the details of each contravention before
requesting DVLA keeper details / issuing the PCN.
12. That, as well as keeping records relating to correctly
matched VRMs and payments, the operator is also required to
maintain a list of payments which have no matching vehicle
details (relating to vehicles entering and leaving the site) -
this record is known as the orphaned payment record (OPR).
13. That in a case of suspected non-payment, the operator is
required to examine the OPR in order to establish whether a
closely related VRM has been wrongly entered by a driver - this
examination also acts as a check against possible ANPR errors
where the cameras misrepresent characters from recorded VRMs -
the operator will already know the time at which the driver
entered the site from their ANPR data - therefore a search for
the orphaned payment is extremely simple as you would only be
looking for an orphaned payment in the 10 minutes or so after
the entry time of that particular vehicle.
14. That in this instance, this check was not carried out and,
as a result, the correct VRM was not reconciled against my
payment and the Claimant applied to the DVLA for my keeper
details.
15. That an examination of the Claimant's own payment logs
clearly shows my payment allocated against a VRM which has one
letter mistyped verses the VRM which they are supposedly
searching for.
16. That under the Claimant's own Code of Practice, this simple
mistake is known as a 'minor keying error'.
17. That under the Claimant's own Code of Practice, "Parking
charges must not be pursued in relation to vehicles where
evidence is provided that they are identified as h) where the
driver has paid the tariff but made a minor keying error when
registering their vehicle"
18. That on receiving the postal PCN I immediately appealed to
the operator - in my appeal I clearly stated that I had paid the
relevant sum and I provided additional evidence relating to the
exact time of my payment as provided by my banking app.
19. That the parking operator replied saying that they could not
find a payment matching my VRM - the wording of their reply
appeared to demonstrate the fact that they were not prepared to
look for any variation in VRM and that it was purely my exact
VRM which was being searched for - there was absolutely no
mention of them also searching the OPR in order to establish the
presence of a mistyped VRM - the operator is required to check
for both major and minor mistyped VRM in an attempt to match
orphaned payments with genuine car park users.
20. That had the parking operator acted correctly, and according
to their own Code of Practice, this matter would have been
corrected without the need for any Court action.
21. That in order to access keeper records through the DVLA the
Claimant is required to agree to abide by their Code of
Practice.
22. That in this instance it is demonstrable that the Claimant
has accessed the DVLA record for my vehicle but has then ignored
the strict requirements of the Code pertaining to mistyped VRMs.
23. That I therefore put the Claimant to STRICT PROOF to provide
the Court with a detailed analysis of why the processes set out
in the Code of Practice are not relevant to this claim. The
analysis should include details of how the incorrect VRM was
overlooked (when they were clearly sat there in plain sight) in
the lead up to the request for my keeper details from the DVLA.
24. Based on the above the claim is refuted in its entirety and
I believe that the Court should determine that I owe £0.
We can put a little more meat on the bones for the Witness
Statement.
Have you received the Claimant's WS yet?
#Post#: 122738--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: awf185
Date: June 23, 2026, 7:03 am
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Awesome, thank you. I'll get the defense submitted tonight.
I have not received the claimant's witness statement yet.
#Post#: 122812--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: awf185
Date: June 24, 2026, 5:20 am
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Quick update - this morning on the day my amended defence was
due, DCB Legal emailed me a Notice of Discontinuance and said
it's been filed with the court. N279 attached -
HTML https://imgpile.com/p/yZnQuhw
From what I can tell it's a full discontinuance: "discontinues
all of this claim" is ticked, signed by a director, dated
24/06/2026, with the service certificate completed. Can someone
confirm I'm reading it right and there's nothing else I need to
do?
Also, given they discontinued, is it worth me trying to recover
my costs/expenses as a LiP, and if so what's the current
process? And is there anything I should watch for in case the
debt-collection letters restart?
#Post#: 122818--------------------------------------------------
Re: CCJ – Paid for parking but mistyped car reg (one letter off)
DIR By: InterCity125
Date: June 24, 2026, 7:29 am
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Yes - You've won.
Not sure on costs - others may have specific experience.
Did you end up submitted your defence yesterday as you
previously suggested you would?
Given what the Judge ordered I'm surprised they didn't proceed
with this one.
Of course, one might argue that when they came to prepare the
Claimant's Witness Statement they could well have become aware
of the parking operator's failings with regard to the minor
keying error.
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