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.