Newham Council are Cheats - #48

 

Starting the year with some cheating by Newham Council. 

Barnet Council must be so pleased that Mr Musatrd's eye is elsewhere and that takes the pressure off them but as they don't routinely cheat, just get things a bit wrong sometimes then they don't appear in this blog do often. If Mr Mustard tells the Barnet manager, problems get fixed.

Newham is like the wild west even though it is in the east.

As every bay must have its own sign it is logical that it must also have its own suspension sign. In this case Newham Council clearly failed to erect a sign in each suspended bay and to issue a PCN in such a situation was flat out cheating.

We are up to #48 in this series, will we reach 100 by the end of 2026? Place your bets.

The end. 

Newham Council are Cheats - #44

 

It is evident from google street view that this is a location where signs get damaged and by the evidence of this motorist removed altogther.

Fairly rourtine cheating by Newham Council. There was not a sign in the bay where the car was parked so the 'traffic warden' (CEO / officer) took a photograph of a sign in a different bay, one which unless you are informed by signage as to the rules may well have different ones.

Newham Council must know by now, this being one of dozens of cases Mr Mustard has written about that cpz signage does not set the restrictions for parking bays but only for unsigned yellow lines.

They removed the car to the pound so the traffic warden cheated, the back office cheated in rejecting perfect representations and in opposing the Appeal to the independent adjudicator who wasn't having any of it.

The end but not of cheating at Newham Council.

Newham Council are Cheats - #42

 

That is a comprehensive decision but given that a picture is worth a 1,000 words here are 2,000 to show you the parlous state of the line in Gower Road

 

The test for lines is that they are 'substantially compliant'. Lines like these look like they have been left to wear away and abandoned. Definitely unloved by the council and impossible to see at night.

The issue of a PCN was cheating, removing the car to the pound was cheating, rejecting representations was cheating and fighting the Appeal was cheating. Mr Mustard is not at all surprised that such worn out lines were found to be lacking. 

Newham Council are Cheats - #41

 

Vehicles causing an obstruction can be removed instantly, for persistent evaders or on double yellows the time limit is 15 minutes and from a permit bay the vehicle should not be removed before 30 minutes has expired.

It would be fair and reasonable to not start to remove the vehicle before the 30 minutes has expired as the driver may have been unavoidably detained somewhere (doctor or dentist for example) and as removal is a draconian remedy a council should not rush to remove but this is Newham and although in the east of London it is like the wild west.

The photographs that Newham Council place on their website are not date and time stamped. If you want the times make a subject access request by email to InformationRightsTeam@newham.gov.uk Include proof of your identity (driving licence or passport and proof of address (a recent utility bill) quote the PCN ref. and say you want to know the times of each photo. If the council get enough requests they might decide to stop hiding the information online.

The contravention did occur so the 50% paid for the PCN was not ordered to be refunded but that is a useful £200 refunded to Mr Harea. The removal fee is now £280 so be careful.

Newham Council broke the law, that is cheating.

Newham Council are Cheats - #33

 

This case went wrong at the first hearing but was put right by a very experienced adjudicator.

Another bay with no sign. More cheating by Newham Council which they nearly got away with.

Newham Council are Cheats - #32

 

This is point blank cheating which Newham Council should have learnt by now given the body of allowed Appeals.

Newham Council are Cheats - #20

 

In this case Newham Council made up a rule about the time it takes a lady to load not one but two 20kg bags of rice plus other purchases, for which she needed the assistance of the shopkeeper. Whilst the council might claim there was continuous observation, and that isn't clear from the available information, their photos are always devoid of dates and times so whether or not the CEO wandered round the corner to deal with other cars at the same time is unknown.

Making up rules is cheating.

Newham Council clearly (& wrongly) made a point that paying isn't loading but they need to read the key cases on loading on the tribunal website, coincidentally by this very adjudicator, of Jane Packer Flowers and Bosworth & Others (sitting in that case with a second adjudicator) which set out very useful guidance for motorists and councils alike. 

These are the relevant words about pre-ordering a chair but not having paid for it until collection:

'The fact that he had not pre-paid for it would not, in our view, be fatal to a correct use of the loading bay.'

Never mind a bag of rice, you need a sack of salt when reading rejection letters from Newham Council.

Newham Council are Cheats - #1

 

Mr Mustard has come to the conclusion, based upon evidence of the PCNs he has fought this year in Newham, that Newham Council are serial cheats. The above decision by a highly experienced adjudicator, a qualified lawyer, an expert in signs, is the first decision of many similar ones which Mr Mustard is going to show you many of which won't be ones that he fought.

It flies in the face of a decision by the Local Government Ombudsman in which Newham Council admit that (obviously legible) signs have to be in place in order to issue a PCN.

That decision is here.

What traffic wardens often do is to take a photo of the CPZ (controlled parking zone) entry sign (which don't apply to bays) or a photo of the sign from the next bay (which may have different rules) or one from across the road, which never applies although could by coincidence have the same rules.

Councils always have to prove their case and fail surprisingly often, at least they do when Mr Mustard puts them to proof.

The end. 

Blue badge misuse - please don't do it

Auditors at Barnet Council looked at PCN cancellation processes last year. Here are some of the points they were concerned about:

Best not to cheat by using a blue badge when you shouldn't or use the same untrue excuse time after time as you'll put yourself under the microscope. In addition, Mr Mustard will not assist you if he thinks that you may well have cheated.

If you are a cheat, take the hint and stop now.

End.

N.B. CAFT = Corporate Anti-Fraud Team.

Looks like the traffic warden was a bit too crafty

Mr Mustard has tweeted about PCNs going missing. he has suggested to the council that they log places and traffic warden numbers of instances in which the PCN goes missing to see if there any patterns. Either there are phantom ticket nickers about in certain streets or it's always, mysteriously, the same traffic warden's tickets that go astray. Their pockets should be checked when they gets back to base?

This PCN doesn't look very well attached

but it should still have hung on unless a hurricane passed through Barnet.

The unfortunate thing for this traffic warden is that he/she issued 2 PCN within 3 minutes of one away to vehicles parked next to each other and neither driver got their PCN. Mr Mustard has worked in High Barnet for 27 years so is well known and he knew both drivers, honest people, who passed on their Notices to Owner to him. Mr Mustard doubts that anyone would steal a PCN from a vehicle parked outside a shop. He strongly suspects that both PCN were removed afterwards by the traffic warden who clearly doesn't know what he/she is doing, or maybe they do?

So that is the front vehicle of the two that Mr Mustard is dealing with. You can see two signs, one of which is angled away and not visible from the driver's seat. The driver can see the right hand sign which is a dual resident and business bay for which the vehicle had a valid permit. The left hand sign is PayByPhone. Can you see the join between the two bays? (nice fresh lines - pretty but wrongly painted) no you can't and that is because it wasn't visible before they were repainted as the 2 payment bays were only introduced about a year ago. So the driver could see a sign and walked off as he was correctly parked, or so he thought. Which sign did the traffic warden photograph, the incorrectly aligned left one (which would enable the issue of a PCN as no payment had been made) or the right one which the van was entitled to be parked against. Yes, you guessed correctly

This action by the traffic warden is at the sly end of the scale if not downright cheating.

He took his final photograph at 9:26 and then proceeded to ticket the other van at 9:27 for code 11 which in Barnet contractually requires a 3 minute observation period; was it given? Mr Mustard doesn't know as the PCN went missing. It is possible that both vehicles were observed at the same time and Mr mustard will ask the parking manager as he is just about to email him.

If you have had a PCN recently in Union St, High Barnet thanks to this confusion Mr Mustard will help you to sort it out. Email him at mrmustard@zoho.com.

This sort of behaviour is unacceptable from a contractor to a council. At the very least their contract should not be extended or renewed. We should look to bring the task back in house asap and only employ traffic wardens who sign a declaration that they will only issue a PCN when there is no doubt about their right to do so. 

It says in the current contract that signs and lines should be checked before the issue of a PCN. Clearly, that isn't happening.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Why?

PCN appeals can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride

Last year a number of people asked Mr Mustard why he spent so much of his time helping people with their parking ticket (PCN) appeals. Mr Mustard wasn't giving very complete replies as he hadn't really thought about it. One day, on the tube on his way back from a PATAS hearing, he reflected and here is the list of the main reasons:

1. To combat the council using parking tickets as a revenue raiser instead of council tax.

2. As Mr Mustard has built up certain skills and read the relevant legislation which would be wasted knowledge if he didn't use it more than once.

3. As to many people the sum of £110 is their food bill for the rest of the month and it's all they've got.

4. As he has spare time (for now).

5. To raise money for charity. If Mr Mustard's assistance leads to your PCN being cancelled he asks you to make a donation to the North London Hospice (amount of your choice).

6. To combat the sharp practices of NSL and/or Barnet Council. A car was taken from a pregnant lady for a parking ticket where the council didn't follow procedure, a traffic warden photographed a sign from a  different bay to prove his PCN, a motability car was clamped, a motorist caught a traffic warden out telling stories because he had cctv at home which captured his broken down car being pushed by him, where the council know that lines are too faded to enforce and they carry on issuing PCN.

7. To encourage others to stand up for their rights.

8. As it's fun (yes, really, pedantic as well!)

9. As he hopes that continued exposure will lead the council to change its ways for the better.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard was sad (but is OK now)

At the end of September Mr Mustard was sad. A lady phoned, early one evening, whose car had been taken by the bailiff on behalf of Barnet Council when she was outside the health centre with her toddler (not yet 2) and her disabled grandmother as, having just moved flat, she didn't have the £450 that the bailiff demanded otherwise he would remove her car. When dealing with bailiffs time is of the essence and Mr Mustard was on his way out to a meeting and was also at the hospital the next morning for a procedure and so he just couldn't help. Instead he passed the caller on to a bailiff advice line.

The lady, we'll call her Miss Ford, had 3 parking tickets from 2012 that she didn't know about for two reasons. The first was that she wasn't driving the car at the relevant times; her sister, now living abroad, was the driver and hadn't given her the parking tickets (always assuming she did get them as a lot do go missing). The second reason was that she lived in a block of flats each of which had its own letterbox but the postman used to leave the post in the communal hall. Sadly, the main street door was not locked and so anyone could steal the post which also happens a lot to facilitate identity theft.

So just like my other recent bailiff case, of Mr Toyota, the first that Miss Ford knew was when she had the shock of coming out of the health centre and seeing her car with a clamp on it. She had to call a minicab to get home.

Now there is a procedure within the legislation which is meant to provide justice in situations like this one. The motorist files a witness statement within 28 days of receiving the Order for Recovery. If you don't get the Order for Recovery then you file a witness statement out of time and explain why you are late in applying which must be the reason why you didn't get the various council documents. The flaw in this procedure is that the council can oppose it and they appear to routinely oppose such applications pretending that all is right with the world when it obviously wasn't (the use of bailiffs for PCN is a subject on which Mr Mustard plans to write in detail with his recommendations to the Chief Operating Officer). The application is considered by Court staff at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) attached to Northampton County Court. It is a sausage machine for churning out PCN related matters which otherwise all the local county courts would have to deal with. It would be better if each local county court did handle applications for its area as then local knowledge would build up and a more considered approach could be taken.

If the Out of Time witness statement is rejected, and this takes 4 to 6 weeks to process, during which time your car is stuck in the car pound, then you can ask for the matter to be considered by your local County Court. You can have a paper based decision (a bad idea as you can't influence an undecided judge) but a far better idea is to pay £80 and have an audience with a District Judge. The previous case, of Mr Toyota, took 3 months to get in front of the judge and during this time your car remains stuck in the car pound. If you convince the judge to allow your witness statement out of time the PCN is rolled back to the start so that you can make representations, or the case is referred to PATAS, and your car is released. If you don't convince the judge then you need to settle the £1,000+ bailiff bill or your vehicle will be sold and probably for less than it is worth on the open market.

In the case of Miss Ford the council (NSL) opposed the Out of Time witness statement on the grounds that they had sent everything to the address shown on the vehicle log book even though they knew of the postal delivery difficulties. They simply wanted to keep the enormous advantage they had over a by then 7 months pregnant lady. There was no compassion, sympathy or empathy in the internal emails Mr Mustard has seen; it was, per the council / NSL, all her own fault that she didn't get her post, post which she wasn't expecting to receive and she received all her bills by email so a letter was a rare event. The TEC duly refused the application. That was when Mr Mustard became involved as he had finished with his hospital visits.

He studied the 3 PCN. Let us call them 1, 2 & 3. He had 14 days in which to file the application to be heard in the local county court although he was minded to do a deal to have certainty and to save time and court fees.

PCN 1:

Pre dated December 12 so had invalid wording.

The locus of High Rd (FN) was too vague a description as Miss Ford wouldn't know where in the High Rd due to her not being present when the PCN was handed to the driver.

PCN 2:

Pre dated December 12 so had invalid wording.

The Charge Certificate was issued 26 days after the Notice to Owner whereas 28 days is the minimum clear period.

PCN 3:

Pre dated December 12 so had invalid wording.

There was a delay of 9 months between the Charge Certificate and the Order for recovery whereas there should not be more than 6 months.

Mr Mustard's main concern was to get the car back so despite Barnet Council being procedurally incorrect on all cases a settlement deal was offered of £110 (the value of one PCN) in return for the return of the car and the closure of all 3 files.

The counter-offer received was that the council agreed to unequivocally cancel PCN1 & PCN2 if a reduced fee of £450 was paid for PCN3 which they felt was OK. Now Mr Mustard had written 3 pages of detailed argument about:

• the PCN
• about service of documents
• about statements of truth
• about the bailiff himself
• about the attitude of staff, and
• about how vulnerable individuals should be treated

and got a page and a half in response.

One vital piece of information received in the reply was about the service of the Charge Certificate and Mr Mustard was told (full marks for honesty to the parking client side person involved) that it had been returned undelivered by the Royal Mail.

That was the smoking gun. That document being returned meant that the council (acting by their agents NSL) were not entitled to issue the Order for Recovery and weren't entitled to instruct a bailiff to seize the car. Oh dear.

Why did Mr Mustard ask this question? It was because he had put the 3 council witness statements (actually signed by an NSL employee whose identity Mr Mustard has chosen to redact as he must be junior and that is the deal Mr Mustard has with the Chief Operating Officer) side by side and noticed a sentence that wasn't there. Here they are:

to mislead by omission (bit obvious though)

So Mr Mustard wrote again to the parking client side of Barnet Council and copied in the Chief Operating Officer in the undoubted belief that he wouldn't be impressed with the council (NSL) cheating and pointed out that the Notice Processing Officer would have a hard time in front of the District Judge and that regulation 22 of the General Regulations 2007 had been breached. Although Mr Mustard could now demand the return of the car for nothing he would stick with his £110 without prejudice offer. It only took a little over 24 hours for this to be accepted and it has been paid so the pregnant lady (now 8 months) can collect her car and once again start taking her disabled grandmother to weekly medical appointments. Mr Mustard's sadness receded.

What does it show us though?

There is a Notice Processing Officer at NSL who is not doing the right thing.

The parking client side at the council can't properly monitor NSL's behaviour at a distance.

The parking client side are honest.

Misdemeanours like this have the potential to ruin the reputation of the council and they would have been a long time recovering if they had sold this car off.

The NSL contract needs a through auditing as to whether they follow the PCN process properly.

If NSL own the bailiff involved, TASK in this case, which they do, then the temptation to say no to everything to make more money for NSL must be enormous.

Once the council / NSL have you backed into a corner they don't want to let you out even if right is on your side (this episode has taken Mr Mustard two months to the day to resolve during which time a pregnant innocent lady has suffered without the use of her car).

It's all about the money.

The use of bailiffs to collect PCN is a big stick for a little problem.

Outsourcing carries huge risks and parking is the last service that should have been outsourced.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A traffic warden is a complete liar.

On Monday Mr Mustard attended the Budget & Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee. It is not as dry as you might think. Mr Mustard was there because he has been expecting the budget to be broken for 2 years because the way the council was overrun with consultants and temps had to eventually have consequences. All those Judicial Reviews for radical and/or stupid decisions also carry a fair cost. The Special Parking Account is short by £1,081,000

There were also other items on the agenda like reviews of parking in North Finchley (with Edgware and Chipping Barnet to be reported to the committee soon).

That item led to Cllr Alan Schneiderman, who is in opposition but is always working hard asking questions about parking, as it is in his shadow portfolio, wanting 30 minutes free parking in town centres (some ruling councillors agreed but with the hole in the budget that would create it will be a long time coming) and he also wanted less zealous enforcement. The Director of Place, Pam Wharfe, went into Yes Minister mode and said that he should of course bring her examples of such a thing and she would look at the specifics. Of course the whole of Barnet knows that enforcement in 2012-13 was much worse than in 2011-12, you only have to look at the 25% increase in the number of PCN to see that or read this blog but hey, let us help Ms Wharfe out. Here is the report of an adjudication that took place at PATAS very recently, it is case number 2130357773.

The appellant, who appeared before me today, said that his vehicle had been parked outside his house he being unable to move it because its battery was flat he submitting that there was a fault with the battery he maintaining his vehicle properly he stating that the whole of the incident had been filmed by a cctv camera installed in his premises he having put that footage on his iPhone he playing it to me at the hearing.

The footage showed the appellant pushing the vehicle from its parking space the attendant being at the location on a bike & not as he claimed serving the notice by handing it to the driver the appellant pushing his vehicle away from the location the attendant leaving it. It was clear on that footage that the attendant had been untruthful about that aspect of his evidence.

I was satisfied that the appellant had been prevented from moving his vehicle through circumstances beyond his control finding that the exemption in this regard applied and found that the penalty charge notice had not been served.

So there we have it. Proof from a member of the public that one Civil Enforcement Officer (on a scooter so that cuts it down a bit) or traffic warden as they are commonly known, is a lying toerag.

From the PATAS report you can see the PCN number, AG32027447, and from that the council can look up the badge number of the warden. Then Mr Mustard might suggest stripping him/her of his/her badge (actually Mr Mustard has only seen male scooter riders) and epaulettes and sending him/her on their way as we do not want dishonest traffic wardens in Barnet.

However, it probably isn't the traffic warden's fault. We are forever being told that there aren't targets for the issue of PCN but there almost certainly is pressure on CEOs to issue a certain number of tickets otherwise the budget for parking income will not be met (there is that small matter of a million pound shortfall) and NSL have been under pressure for their performance with KPI not being met in the year to March 13. Mr Mustard is more inclined to think that NSL put terrible pressure on the traffic wardens to dish out parking tickets and thus this sort of behaviour happens. Mr Mustard is sure wardens are not instructed to cheat but they are certainly issuing more marginal and/or questionable parking tickets and leaving the motorist to appeal their way out of the problem. Without cctv it is the motorist's word against the traffic warden's.

Luckily our honest hero motorist, who lives in Park Road (not sure which one, there are four Park Roads in Barnet?) provided incontrovertible evidence. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that this is the only case of cheating by a traffic warden.

If the motorist is reading this you have a perfect case for claiming costs as the council has been wholly unreasonable or vexatious in issuing and pursuing the PCN.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard