Barnet Council relentlessly pursue a trifling error

To get to the tribunal your perfectly reasonable representations to Barnet Council will have met with one refusal as a minimum and possibly two. Although historically Mr Mustard has seen most such Appeals refused and the PCN upheld because the adjudicator has applied the law strictly there is a move by some adjudicators away from such a position to a more purposive one. Here is such an example:

 

The 8 and 9 keys are small and adjacent on a horrible little metal keyboard designed to be tough not to be tactile.

Although the adjudicator put it in English as the Courts have moved away from Latin this is the principle of 'de minimis non curat lex'.

What Mr Mustard has never understood is why the council think it is acceptable to punish a motorist in this way. He has paid to park his car, the council will not have refunded that sum and so they want to have their cake and eat it. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth with the motorist who quite rightly thinks that the council is staffed by pettyfogging bureaucrats with no common sense and if he can 'get them back' some day he surely will.

The end.

DVLA - one part of their advice is dangerous & could be expensive

Here follows a standard letter from DVLA

Do not follow the line which Mr Mustard has highlighted in red as if you do not challenge (make representations against) a PCN that you are not the keeper of the vehicle which was given the PCN, but that it is a clone, the PCN will progress though a number of stages and end up with a bailiff.

 

Report the car cloned to the police and the DVLA and challenge every PCN that you receive. You may get a lot of PCNs at the start but you should by reporting the cloning to the police make it too hot to continue to use and then the criminals will stop and move on to another plate.

The end.

 

TfL - as slippery as sin

A congestion charge PCN had a long (and unhappy) life. The issue date of 2 December 2023 was a Saturday and that is enough to invalidate it, a Congestion Charge PCN must be posted on the date of issue as otherwise motorists lose some of their statutory time to respond and it is a straightforward breach of the law. Here is the PCN history in backwards date order:

The PCN went wrong the month after Mr Mustard had made the fornal representations which were to the effect that the motorist had been short changed as to time to respond. TfL decided that what he had written didn't amount to a representation (they aren't the first enforcement authority to try this silliness but none so far has prevailed in their attempt)

Mr Mustard knows the proper procedure to follow inside out and so he fired a warning shot across the bows of TfL clearly pointing out why they were wrong:

That email to a named officer (employee), sent on 11 January, met with a response on 14 February in which TfL said they would send a full response and the penalty would remain on hold.

(The named officer is known to a friend of Mr Mustard's who describes him as usually looking like he is chewing a wasp).

Not on hold for long: on 16 February, a charge certificate was issued which increased the penalty to £270. Ouch.

The issue of a charge certificate made it look to the motorist as if Mr Mustard didn't know what he was doing. He usually does (if he drops a clanger he makes good financially & does not have to put his hand in his pocket very much at all).

On 20 February Mr Mustard emailed the group inbox of TfL (cccorrespondence@tfl.gov.uk) pointing out the error of sending a charge certificate at a time when the file was on hold due to a representation and suggesting that out of fairness TfL would now want to cancel the PCN.

That email didn't do any good either. The penalty was registered by TfL as a debt at the Traffic Enforcement Centre, part of the Northampton County Court (but mostly just a register of supposedly overdue PCNs).

The motorist had to visit a Solicitor and swear a Statutory Declaration that he had made in time representations, which was never in doubt as they were on TfL's files.

It took less than a week for the TEC to cancel the Charge Certificate, the PCN still staying alive in such a situation.

Another fortnight passed and TfL finally cancelled the PCN. If they sent an apology it didn't reach Mr Mustard, via his client, but the case history doesn't show one. Good manners are rather missing in the world of PCNs, they shouldn't be.

The end.

Don't do it again: park legally that is!

Typical double yellow lines

 

Parking on double yellow (or single yellow) is an exemption if you are engaged in boarding or alighting of a passenger. Normally 2 minutes will be allowed but longer if the person is too young to walk unaccompanied or elderly, or disabled or in this case has just come out after two weeks in hospital following major surgery for a perforated bowel. This is known in parking circles as assisted boarding / alighting.

Mr Mustard made the challenge to the PCN a week after it had been placed upon the car.

The observation period which the 'traffic warden' had made was zero minutes so  he/she was unlikely to see any boarding taking place. Thus when the council rely on the traffic warden not having witnessed any you calmly point out how unlikely they were to see anything much.

Mr Mustard's challenge was this:

The response also only took a week. The PCN was cancelled but Mr Mustard takes exception to the churlish way in which it was done.

The stated reason for cancelling, of 'goodwill', is no such thing. It was because of the overwhelming medical evidence which was the discharge note showing the length of hospital stay, the reason for admission and 6 active problems including heart failure and a malignant tumour. A council, yes Barnet, aren't doing you a favour when they cancel a PCN in a situation in which stopping is not only allowed but it is really a duty to assist your parent who has been battered by health problems. You don't say, 'sorry mum, there are double yellows outside, I had to park 300m away'.

There is no 'enforcement' for this PCN. It was only at the first stage. Mr Mustard would have gone on to make formal representations and if those had also been refused he would have gone to the independent tribunal where he rather expected to win. Only after that if the adjudicator had decided against you and then 28 days had passed and you hadn't paid could any enforcement commence.

The final sentence is more rot. If the same situation arises, of assisted boarding of a sick person, then the same outcome should prevail. 

Why do councils feel the need to poke a person in the eye who has done nothing wrong? A PCN is notification of an alleged contravention. Councils treat a PCN as a cast iron contravention. They need their thinking changed. Mr Mustard is doing his best to make councils think again but it is an uphill struggle.

Don't be a soft touch. If you have a good argument, fight the council and then take them to the tribunal where you get an independent hearing.

The end.

 

More dropped a clanger than dropped kerb - Barnet Council

It was inconsiderate to park, allegedly for a short time, on this corner but as it wasn't a contravention Mr Mustard fought the PCN. He doubtless also gave the driver some words of advice.

Barnet Council rejected both the informal challenge and the formal representations which wasn't very bright of them but doubtless the revenue imperative was running the show.

This led to Mr Mustard starting an Appeal to London Tribunals which means c. £30 in wasted fees by the council, who have to fund the independent tribunal mostly based upon their share of usage.

Mr Mustard decided to have a bit of fun and waxed lyrical in his Grounds of Appeal.

The council then proceeded to waste at least 2 hours of their agent's time (NSL) in getting them to produce the Evidence Pack for the tribunal. There was more nonsense within it:

'The CEO has a legal obligation to issue PCNs to any vehicle seen parked in contravention.'

Mr Mustard will let Captain Hastings of Poirot fame speak for him: 'What rot'.

(CEO = Civil enforcement officer a.k.a. Traffic Warden.)

The independent adjudicator was even-handed and thorough in her assessment of the evidence of both sides but there was only ever going to be one outcome, a cancelled PCN and so it turned out.

This is a classic example where Barnet Council claimed that black is white (there aren't even any shades of grey here). It was an abuse of power which should be punished but there is no mechanism to bring that about. If a council had to give £130 back for every unlawful PCN there would be more care taken.

Please don't pay PCNs which are patently wrong, you only encourage them.

The end

Barnet Council - lawbreakers

If you miss a deadline Barnet Council will routinely increase your penalty by 50% from £130 to £195. It is programmed into the software.

If the council miss a deadline, one which has deemed them to be due no money at all (and this only applies to parking PCNs) they will calmly carry on as if nothing has happened and break the law with impunity as there is no mechanism to penalise them for their wrongdoing. The whole story is contained within Mr Mustard's skeleton argument, a document filed 10 days before the tribunal hearing.

Probably worried about the damning conclusion that an Adjudicator was likely to reach the council responded to the skeleton by throwing in their hand and cancelling the PCN, thus their wrongdoing did not see the light of day, until now.

The public only ever get 28 days at most to respond to PCN paperwork, councils get 56 in this instance, you would think that even the most incompetent council could manage to meet such a generous deadline.

 

What should happen, of course, is that the same software should be programmed so that a PCN on which a formal representation has been made and not answered for 56 days is automatically set to zero. Most of the public will miss this rule and adjudicators won't apply it unless the affected motorist raises the argument or the adjudicator happens to notice the long delay and is inclined to make a decision of his/her own volition in the interests of justice.

PCNs are a lifelong learning process.

The end.

Islington - not everything was as it first appeared.

 

One of Mr Mustard's regulars is a heating engineer. Despite being from Enfield, and also notwithstanding the extra £10 per hour or part thereof, Harry (not his real name) is still prepared to drive up his diesel van up to Islington. Naturally he asks his customer to arrange parking rights if they are willing (they may be a tenant so they may not have an account or may not think it is their responsibility) and if they can't he then pays to park. This can take a few minutes and in that time a traffic warden inevitably arrives.

In this case the PCN didn't make it off Harry's dashboard, a veritable paperwork graveyard, in time to challenge with the discount still intact. In such a situation Mr Mustard fights to the end even if he thinks he doesn't have a prayer. Mr Mustard would need to be frivolous, vexatious or wholly unreasonable in order to have costs awarded against him. They are rarely awarded and in this case the PCN had a wording error in that the 28 days quoted should refer to the date of the alleged contravention and not the date of service which was an argument that held sway at first and then adjudicators changed their minds.

Once the Notice to Owner dated 22 January 24 arrived Mr Mustard made the formal representations (as they are known, it is simply a challenge made at the correct time). His representation was the sign and the traffic order differed. He relied on a decision he had himself obtained against Barnet Council, that the traffic order did contain a tariff for the location in question.

 

Needless to say, Islington Council rejected the contention.

It is irrelevant whether or not the decision relied on was for the same road or a different one or whether it is for Islington Council or another one. It is the case that tribunal decisions are not precedents as they are 'legally persuasive'. What they means is that the council should look at the factual matrix of the decision and compare it to the facts in their case and decide the extent to which they are on 'all fours'. The failure to do so was, in Mr Mustard's opinion a procedural impropriety i.e. a failure to consider the representations which is a statutory duty. Mr Mustard often wins on procedural error.

 

The error which Islington made was to not offer the discount as at this stage Mr Mustard had quite a weak hand but there was nothing to lose by bluffing it out. Not offering the discount at this stage when it isn't obligatory is a growing trend that Mr Mustard has noticed.

Mr Mustard duly started an Appeal at London Tribunals. That is free for the motorist but costs the council the thick end of £30. Only 1% of PCNs end up at the tribunal. Mr Mustard would like to see that percentage rise radically.

Mr Mustard doesn't mince his words at Appeal.

Mr Chan is now the Chief Adjudicator so you would expect his decisions to be given careful consideration by other adjudicators.

The Appeal was started on 26 February with an in-person hearing date of 28 March. Islington served the Evidence Pack, which contains the arguments of both sides, on 19 March.

There was more nonsense in the council's case summary:

The next paragraph in the Case Summary piqued the interest of Mr Mustard

What this means is that in Islington if you pay for location 61095 and you should have paid for 61059 but they are both within zone A then you are not in breach of the requirement to pay. People often pay for the next bay along or the one opposite and in Islington 99% of the time that will be OK.

At this point a curve ball arrived. Mr Mustard asked Harry for his payment records for the day in question. They disclosed that on the day in question Harry had paid for parking in Hardwick Street (and as it happens for the correct bay number) and it has expired at 10:32 am. He had paid for a mere 10 minutes of parking but that gives you 20 minutes as thanks to the Right Honourable Eric Pickles MP as he was at the time (now Lord Pickles) a payment of 10 minutes leads to an extra period of 10 minutes when a PCN cannot be issued.

If you look back to the start of the blog the PCN was issued at 14:05. The PCN was for not paying. The actual contravention which had occurred was staying beyond paid for time. Mr Mustard had a little laugh to himself, he had been on the high wire and he was saved, the traffic warden had blundered. Mr Mustard wonders if the hand held equipment of the traffic warden simply does not show expired payments? The evidence pack suggested that the traffic warden only checked for payments from 1:29 when he first observed the van.

Mr Mustard filed a preliminary argument on 22 March. Adjudicators probably quite like these as if they are correct they can ignore everything on the file and Allow the Appeal, thus cancelling the PCN, without having to study the typical 100 pages of evidence.

Islington Council saw the writing was on the wall and took the very rare decision, after they had done all of the work to produce the Evidence Pack of cancelling the PCN which thus vacated the hearing.

Mr Mustard learnt a lot from this case.

The end.

Barnet - an age friendly borough? not until you are over 87 years of age.

Here are just a couple of snippets of the typical council puff that spurts out of the Town Hall. 

Reality for one elderly motorist was not friendly. The council fought him all the way, over a PCN issued whilst he was having medical treatment, to the point where he had to take a half day to travel into the centre of London to argue his case in front of an independent adjudicator, one who isn't motivated by the need for revenue.

Given that most parking meters have long been removed in Barnet and that a trip to the nearest suitable shop (during which time you get a PCN) to buy your parking time using PayPoint makes the elderly, who are likely to be less mobile, walk further, doesn't strike Mr Mustard as age friendly.

Well done Mr Stellman for standing your ground.

The end.

The Fairway - again

Sometimes when Mr Mustard looks on the internet for information he finds he has himself put something relevant into the public domain. That was how it turned out when it comes to the keep clear yellow zig zag markings in The Fairway, the previous post being here.

This latest tribunal decision is equally devoid of any real world view by some faceless council bureaucrat:

 

A learner driver will make errors (although they didn't on this occasion) because they are a learner and at the start of their first lesson they will know nothing. Some leeway should logically and fairly be given to driving school cars.

The end.

Try hard not to laugh

Another random tribunal decision about a PCN that Mr Mustard decided to read

Clear signs

 

The outcome, fancy thinking you were exempt when you didn't have a permit. 

 The end

Decorum in Dacorum

 

The above is the standard acknowledgment to formal representations made in response to a parking Notice to Owner. A representation in which Mr Mustard picked a lot of holes in the Notice. That was on 17 February 2024.

Mr Mustard checked the balance on line most weeks and could see the PCN was stuck at £50, being a lower value PCN outside London. Suddenly, on 16 November, he heard from his client.

Above we have a page about how wrong the driver was.

The first two paragraphs are padding about a process which has been and gone. In paragraph three we get to the meat of the matter, Dacorum had, by doing nothing, cancelled the Notice to Owner and given their oversight they also cancelled the PCN (they couldn't really do anything else almost a year after the PCN was issued).

Having signally failed to do their own job the council then give the registered keeper a warning about their future conduct which is a bit rich in the circumstances. If Dacorum always take this long they are deemed to have cancelled. Mr Mustard was confident of winning on this technical grounds in any event.

One day humility may come to parking. A short letter saying the council failed to stick to the deadline and they are sorry for the delay would be much better received and enhance their reputation.

The end.

Fat finger PCN relief

 

Another tribunal decision that Mr Mustard only looked at because the location was familiar.

Decent people everywhere will probably agree with Mr Mustard that this is a typical case of a penalty charge too far. There is zero traffic management purpose to this PCN, there was no wish to avoid paying and a PCN of this kind just helps the public to hate faceless council bureaucrats.

What Mr Mustard notices, and the adjudicator may well have done but he usually writes refreshingly short and to the point decisions, is that the letters E and W are adjacent on a qwerty keyboard and that the keyboard in question is a small metal type designed for its robustness not for the efficiency of pressing. With all respect to Mr Wall, who may have a piano player's fingers (at which point someone will tell me of excellent piano players known for their pudgy pinkies) this looks like a fat finger error. 

What Mr Mustard does in this kind of case is to give the council a choice, to accept the challenge and cancel the PCN or to refund the sum paid to park. Of course the greedy swine usually do neither and so hoist themselves on their own petard.

It couldn't just be about the money, could it?

the end.

You can stop in an empty yellow box junction

 

Another random tribunal decision which caught Mr Mustard's eye.

This not being one of Mr Mustard's cases the cctv is not available (unless you can put Mr Mushtaq in touch with him).

Mr Mustard went looking for a suitable image and found this one of a black cab which is stopped somewhat obstructively (although there isn't another vehicle in sight) but it isn't in contravention.

 

The story about the black cab is here. Mr Mustard does not know the outcome of the black cab PCN.

The issue of many moving traffic PCNs is 100% automated with a computer extracting snippets of footage, obtaining keeper details from DVLA and then printing a PCN. Before a PCN is generated, a human being is meant to check the cctv to verify that a contravention had occurred, this clearly does not happen. It doesn't seem to happen in Redbridge.

If Mr Mustard is out late one night he will visit Goodmayes Road and pull up in the empty yellow box for 10 seconds and see if he gets a PCN.

The end.

Barnet Council behaviour is inexplicable

Not Mr Mustard's description but that of a long serving (and occasionally suffering) adjudicator:

A restricted street is one with single or double yellow lines.

 

It wouldn't be wise in Greater London, or indeed in most urban areas, to leave a vehicle boot open whilst loading or unloading. If your delivery is out of sight of the car, as one can't always park right outside, then of course a traffic warden won't see any loading/unloading activity. That does not mean it is not happening.

If the council reject your loading/unloading argument you will have the ebst chance of winning at the tribunal if you go there in person (treat it like a fun day out, Mr Mustard has one every week) as then your honesty can be tested by the adjudicator and the council will rely only on the paper evidence so cannot dispute what you have to see on the day.

Good luck.

Barnet Council are 'surprising' (not a good thing)

Another random decision Mr Mustard fell over.

 

When a Solicitor expresses surprise it doesn't necessarily mean they are surprised. Legal people often employ withering under-statement to get one over their opponent in Court and this is what Mr Mustard thinks is happening here. Most of the time adjudicators don't make remarks about the viability of the case itself confining themselves to the factual rational of their decision.

Mr Mustard isn't sure which High Road this PCN was issued in (possibly East Finchley) so can't look at the bay markings for himself but clearly one bay ran into the other. 

What doesn't surprise Mr Mustard is that the council and their enforcement agents NSL could not see for themselves that the location layout was not clear enough. Traffic wardens are meant to check signs and lines before they issue a PCN so this 'ticket' was clearly wrong from the off. Rejecting perfectly good representations is a daily occurrence in the back office.

If we look at 2024 and representations rejected by Barnet Council Mr Mustard has taken 44 such cases to the tribunal. He has won on 38 occasions. The council should almost never lose, they need a radical overhaul.

The end.