Dirty number plate problem

Here is Islington Council's photo of a contravening vehicle GO-ing where it shouldn't

To preserre the innocent motorist's identity Mr Mustard has redacted the number plate.

He made a short formal representation that there had been a number plate read error.

As parking management at Islington are always happy to hear from and respond to Mr Mustard he also sent them an email with some questions which he would like to have had answers to, as follows:

Unusually Mr Mustard did not hear back. As this is the only case of this type to land on his desk Mr Mustard just let it go. He will link to this case if another similar one comes along.

He did receive a proper and polite cancellation so Mr Peugeot was happy.

 

The nagging unhappiness in Mr Mustard's brain is that when a council sends out a postal PCN they need to have a belief that the person sent the PCN is the registered keeper. In this case clearly when told by DVLA of the name and address of an orange Peugeot they should have compared this information to their cctv images and realised they could not hold this belief. They are not the only council not checking. If the car had been leased the lease company might have just paid up as some (wrongly) do.

The end.

 

A patient driver

The above location photo, of Acre Lane approaching Brixton Road doesn't show it very clearly but there is a section of single yellow, before some doubles reds, and on a Sunday motorists can park on the single yellow.

This led to a problem.

The driver, Mr P, found himself in what he thought was a traffic queue but he was in fact behind a parked car. Mr P wrote his own thoughtful representations.

 

 

One point that was missed was that signage was inadequate, it being turned away from passing drivers.

You would expect a reasonable length of reply given the serious points that had been made, which had the ring of truth to them. No such luck, Lambeth wrote very little:

Although the option to start an Appeal at London Tribunals is not mentioned in this formal Notice of Rejection, as the law provides, a Notice of Appeal form was provided.

Mr Mustard took over at this point and drafted the Grounds of Appeal. They were one of his better efforts, short and bang on target. He left to one side the failure to properly respond to what the representations said as that was a harder argument to get across the line and the two he did put forward were likely to bear fruit.

Mr Mustard didn't have to wait long, 11 days later Lambeth threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN.

The end.

Nine minutes in Hackney

Hackney Council sent a postal PCN because the car was driven away thus, per Hackney Council, they were entitled to send a postal PCN.

Mr Mustard disagreed. He made the representations.

Rather reluctantly Hackney Council cancelled. They really didn't have much choice as they had no evidence of a contravention at the alleged time.

The end.

City of Westminster: No, No, Yes.

Mr Mustard's client parked in the West End on 8 April 24. Mr Mustard hasn't asked but you really do need a good reason for it to make sense to drive into central London given that we have lots of public transport choices.

He parked in the bay on the right, where the grey van is.

There was a suspension sign in the bay.

Having looked straight across the road the driver could see that he was not opposite the Comedy Store so he stayed where he was and received a PCN.

There isn't a bay opposite the comedy store, only yellow lines.

It was 17 May before Mr Mustard made the informal challenge. The Notice to Owner had not yet been sent and any challenge sent up until then is known as an informal one. The discount had gone but given the factual error Mr Mustard expected a swift cancellation.

He was wrong, the challenge was rejected 4 days later in full denial of the facts. 

Mr Mustard went into standby mode. On 24 June the Notice to Owner was sent.

On 28 June 24 Mr Mustard made the formal representations on the grounds of the vague location.

It took a month, until 28 July 24, for Westminster to again close their eyes to the facts and issue a formal Notice of Rejection which opens the door to the tribunal.

On 18 August 24 Mr Mustard started an Appeal at London Tribunals.

On 19 August Westminster issued a charge certificate rasing the penalty by 50% to £195. That document could not by law be issued until 28 days after service of the 28 July rejection and only then if the penalty is not paid nor an Appeal started.

On 20 August Westminster noted the start of an Appeal.

On 21 August Westminster threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN.

Whether that was because the PCN was without merit or because of the procedural impropriety is not known but Mr Mustard expected to win on the vague location point in any event.

What this history tells you is that if you want to win you need to set your stall out clearly and dig in for the long haul, don't fret about the discount if you have a decent argument. Councils do stuff wrong all of the time.

The end.

Being 'cute' turns expensive

This kitten is cute.

This multiple PCN decision, number 2240371472 amongst others, is cute for the enforcement authority ('EA') the London Borough of Southwark, but not for the Appellant.

 

The hire company are 14 times £130 down = £1,820 which they will have to try and recover from Mr Clarke.

There is little for Mr Mustard to say about this mess and he has seen a hire agreement which one of his client's definitely didn't sign, hire companies can easily transfer a digital signature to another agreement.

The signature being different can sometimes be explained by how it was signed, Mr Mustard can't manage a real looking signature on the Royal Mail hand-held device so tends just to put a squiggle.

Ambiguity is in law usually construed against the causer which would have left this hire company in difficulty in any event.

Adjudicators are all legally qualified and bring to the tribunal their experience in other branches of the law. You aren't going to pull the wool over their eyes in a hurry.

The end.

 

Redbridge Council - Bullies and cowards

 

A legally parked Oakmont minibus

The sign in the bay: blue badge holders are exempt.

Mr Mustard wrote previously about miserable Redbridge Council and Oakmont Social Education which is providing valuable opportunities. What he didn't know when writing it was that there were a monumental 97 other PCNs in the wings (and this may not be the end).

Here is the first page of the list of cases decided this week, PCNs which had the council prevailed on all of them, have cost Oakmont £7760, money which would be better spent on education.

Now, the adjudicator's decision, which was probably the same for all of the PCNs which Redbridge hadn't conceded before the hearing. If Redbridge had thrown in the towel no location will show in that column.

 Mr Mustard has the following brief comments to add.

Failing to show at a tribunal when your attendance has been requested is dumb behaviour. Mr Mustard suspects that there will be some comment by the adjudicator on some future date when Redbridge do choose to appear.

 

The question of costs has not been mentioned here but they can come into play if a council has been frivolous, vexatious or wholly unreasonable. Mr Mustard thinks the behaviour of Redbridge Council fits squarely within the last two categories.

It is completely unacceptable that the CEO (= traffic warden) recorded a blue badge as not being on display. The image Mr Mustard looked at shows the badge in a security wallet secured by a substantial chain.

 

In order to issue a PCN in the belief that the blue badge did not apply the minibus would have had to be seen arriving at the school premises, which are in The Shrubberies, without a disabled person on board and leaving similarly. That, of course, didn't happen.

 

It is an utter disgrace that these minibuses were targeted. If there had been a scintilla of truth in the thought of fraud the perpetrators would have changed their modus operandi and the senior management of Oakmont would have been too afraid to go to the tribunal, as senior management of Redbridge Council were, as it appears.

 

It is clear that Oakmont know the rules and respect them or, if they err, they pay the penalty.

 

Each Appeal incurs a fee of c. £30 which is not recoverable by a council even if they win. On this bonfire of nasty PCNs the council have burnt almost £3,000

Now follows the other cases.

 

Will Redbridge Council learn something from this and be less vicious in future. Mr Mustard hopes so.

The end.

Let's start the story near the end, with the Grounds of Appeal to the independent tribunal.

The council response to the possibility of an independent qualified and experience lawyer looking at the evidence was to throw in the towel and DNC (Do not Contest) the Appeal.

This was curiously at odds with the reaction of the council when a challenge was made on the same basis, that a bay without a sign = free parking.

Here are some snippets from their rejection notice.

'Comments' were not made, a 'representation' was made. They were considered as carefully as a careless and carefree person would consider them.

No, the argument was that there was no signage although that could hardly be less clear. A common ploy is to reject an argument that wasn't made in order to try and give your rejection some authenticity. How can a sign which is not there be visible is quite the stretch.

The CEO's photographs do not show the car, the bay and the sign all in one photograph, because they can't. There was not a sign in place in the bay in question. The council cannot prove the contravention.

It is unfortunate that the council are terrible liars. There was no restriction in place because one was not communicated by a sign. Ultimately the onus is on the council, as stated in traffic Regulations, to erect and maintain signs. Barnet council often seem to forget any duties on themselves which although not onerous they find to be too much to manage.

Rarely has so much nonsense been fitted into three lines. Who is doing the 'deeming' ? why, it's Barnet Council, who aren't being independent here. There is such thing as a professional witness, but 'traffic wardens' don't come into that definition. Who is doing the 'considering', the council in this case and they aren't independent, they have a financial interest in the outcome. Mr Mustard has seen a tribunal decision in which the adjudicator laid into this point and said it was her job to decide on the weight of the evidence and the truthfulness of the witness.

Not true, the car was seen in a bay with no sign = a free bay. By 'nearby' the council mean in a different bay which is of no relevance to where the car was parked, each and every bay must have a sign of its own as there could be 10 bays in a street all with different rules.

No valid grounds were found because the person writing was blind to reason and fact. There is a huge shove in the final paragraph which tries to make the motorist worry that if they go to Appeal at the tribunal it will cost them more. The thing is though that unless you do risk the full value of the penalty you will never beat one so you need to make your mind up at the start as to how strong you think your case is.

What is wrong in this case is that the council didn't want their work to be the subject of independent scrutiny and if they don't have faith in their case they shouldn't be writing the utter tosh that they did write. The problem is though that the public trusts councils and whilst the rest of the council might well be worthy of that trust, many parking departments aren't and there is also the influence of outside contractors for whom this is just a job, not a vocation, to serve the public.

Mr Mustard's advice is to get your ducks in a row, learn everything you can about parking, and take no nonsense. Budget for the whole PCN value and fight the PCN if you think it is wrong. You have to develop some staying power as you might end up in a fight over three rounds but that is how Mr Mustard wins so often, by battling through every round. Every PCN taken to the tribunal which the council loses is c. £30 down the drain for the council in tribunal fees. If they get stuck with enough of them they might think a bit harder about accepting more representations at the earlier stage.

The end.