Hatton Garden robbery foiled

Mr Gold (not his real name) parked his car in Hatton Garden within the confines of a painted bay that usually had just the one parking sign but on this occasion didn't have one at all. Essentially, due to missing signage, the bay was a free bay (not many of those in central London). If this is a situation that you encounter take a photo of the car which includes in the background the location of the missing sign then you have proof of the facts at the time of parking in case the sign gets replaced whilst you are away from your car.

Mr Gold knew he had not done anything wrong so he made his own informal challenge (as representations against a PCN are known at the first stage). He expected a cancellation as he pointed out that the sign which had been photographed was from the next bay and so not applicable (although by design they are often the same but not necessarily so) and here it is.

The blue shop sign and yellow banner are not above the bay in which the car was parked.

The council's response was designed solely to try and extract £40 from an innocent Mr Gold.

The first line encapsulates the challenge and so that is what the response should focus on.

It doesn't matter if the CEO (traffic warden) observed the vehicle for 5 minutes or 5 hours, no contravention had taken place. Within that 5 minutes the traffic warden had plenty of time to note that the bay did not have a sign and so there was nothing to enforce (had it been a loading bay with Loading Only marked on the road the answer might be different).

The vehicle was not '8 yards from a time plate warning drivers of the restrictions in place' as that sign (which was more than 8 yards away) was in a different place, the next bay along, separated by a yellow line. It was no more relevant than a sign on the opposite side of the road or one in Hatton Cross.

In Hatton Garden the bays are individually numbered with the one the car was in appearing to be 13355 (which a motorist wouldn't know as the sign is missing) and the one which the traffic warden took a photograph of being 13354. If you pay in the wrong bay you get a PCN so the advice to pay for the wrong location number was bad advice. Here is one sample adjudication decision, there are hundreds of them.

The writer of this terrible rejection, whose name Mr Mustard knows but has decided to withhold, creates a non-existent duty on the motorist to make up for council deficiencies by refusing to park without payment and going somewhere else where the council has managed to maintain its signs to park and pay (Mr Mustard doubts they get vandalised much given the private security which operates up and down the road).

When a council employee says they are 'unable' to withdraw (they mean cancel) the penalty charge on this occasion they are writing piffle. If a council can't withdraw a charge when it is point blank wrong, then they never can. What they meant was that they were 'unwilling' to, a council has an absolute power to cancel any PCN including one that is 100% correct and obviously they can and should when 100% wrong as in this case.

A friend of Mr Gold knew of Mr Mustard and so matters moved swiftly on. Now that Mr Mustard has been interested in PCNs for over a decade he has some contacts within management at councils and Camden was one such. This way he can sidestep the restrictive rules about only making representations at certain times and bring to the attention of management a problem which would cause them more trouble if left to fester.

This is what he sent to a senior manager at Camden Council. Polite but pointed.

The manager was quick to act with Mr Mustard getting a response on the same day as his complaint was read. All of sudden, someone who knew what they were about was writing and the content was much more acceptable. No ifs, no buts, 'we were wrong, we will learn'. Lovely to see.

The only thing that bothers Mr Mustard at the end of this is how many other nonsense letters have been sent and led to wrongful payments by the innocent public but at least this one was quickly sorted.

End.