OPC Guilty and Fined

peter_the_piper

trisontana wrote: »

Don't you mean "loser"?

Maybe he's thinking of his bowels.

AlexisV

NeverAgain wrote: »

...Why don't you join in...

Because the message this case sends out to a Wolverhampton motorist is: "The signs, and therefore the tickets, were dodgy. The company was prosecuted and they have since put the signs right.
"If I get a ticket now, it must be legal, so I have to pay."

Put another way, if I were the parking company, I would hand out copies of the newspaper report to parkers and tell them: "You can see we were fined for incorrect signs, but they are correct now, so you have to pay the ticket."

Bear in mind one man - and occasionally his dog - reads this thread.

The newspaper report, and probably local telly coverage, will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

Most of whom, I reckon, will be left with the impression these tickets are now legal.

The case was never about the enforceability or otherwise of parking invoices, just the methods of obtaining money.

As for the media, journalists write stories and don't issue legal advice.

torontoboy45

trisontana wrote: »

Don't you mean "loser"?

no. mucky was making some oblique reference to firebird's bowels.

torontoboy45

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Maybe he's thinking of his bowels.

***must learn to read all posts***

HO87

NeverAgain wrote: »

Oh dear, it would be backfoot who tries to over analyse my post.

You have the point, but I will repeat it anyway.

Yes, it's great the scam parking company has been fined, but the outcome will legitimise their activities in the eyes of some.

As regards a suitable criminal charge, how about obtaining property (in this case money) by deception?

The offence is described simply here as 'tricking someone into handing over their money':

http://www.law-glossary.com/definition/obtaining-by-deception.html

Described more fully here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception_offences

I accept a couple of websites, particularly Wiki, cannot be relied upon.

But on the face of it obtaining could be a goer.

I reckon a jury could be convinced that a parking scam man 'knew or ought to have known' his £100+ demand was no more than an attempt to trick the recipient into parting with their money.

I'd vote guilty, so if the scammer was acquitted, it would only be via a majority and not unanimously.

There are a number of points I would take issue with.

Firstly, whilst there may, on the face of it, be an "obtaining", within the terms of the Fraud Act, but for such an offence to be complete there must be clear evidence that the alleged offender acted "dishonestly". Without going into the niceties of it proving dishonesty would be difficult.

Secondly, for a prosecution to be mounted upon which a jury could sit the CPS will need to apply their standard criteria and one of these (despite the fact that the case may be in the public interest) is that there is a greater than 50% chance of a conviction. For the reason outlined above I believe that the chances of this are slim, at best.

Thirdly, an acquittal is an acquittal whether unanimous or by a majority. The fact that the decision was by 10-2 or 11-1 is neither here nor there.

Lastly, I suspect that the approach that has been and is being applied elsewhere (amongst those TS departments that understand the real situation) is the same as has been applied in other, more notorious cases in the past. That is let's get them for something rather than leaving them alone because we can't get them for what we'd really like to.

Besides, there are other companies who have been pulling the same stunts for years and this will put the block on their activities - unless they too are prepared to run the gauntlet and risk a criminal conviction. The fact that this prosecution was not brought by the Police or the CPS does not mean that it is any the less of a criminal conviction.

backfoot

Top class HO87. :T

Thank you.

Paul_Varjak

When I successfully challenged a parking ticket about 15 years ago, the local Council had to go through their records and pay back fines to others who had wrongly been issued with fines over several preceding years.

It is a pity the Magistrate could not make a similar order in this case. But can people who were 'invoiced' by this company now seek repayment of their 'fines' in the civil court, based on this decision in the Magistrate's Court?

Coblcris

Each case turns on it own facts.

GuidoT

DVLA not happy with OPC.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?293400-OPC-Wolverhampton&p=3363306&viewfull=1#post3363306