Court

mentalmungo

Not wanting to take over any other threads, but i'm curious.

Has anyone on here, or does anyone on here actually know anyone who has been to court over a parking charge?

Has UKPC or any other parking gestapo numpty taken anyone to court? And if so, what was the outcome?

ManxRed

A few PPCs have tried it and most lose.

Of the ones that win, they are either badly defended, or in one case the defendant turned out to be a relative of the owner of the parking company (so, a patsy basically). There are a few cases recorded in Bournemouth where a PPC has won, where the judge in question allegedly (and I emphasise this word 'allegedly') had some relationship to the PPC in question.

There are a few interesting cases of PPC losses out there, type 'Excel Lose' into Google. Observices v Thirlow is another interesting one.

Trethowans have also lost many cases on behalf of NHS trusts, blowing thousands of pounds of taxpayers money in the process.

The number of cases though, in ratio against the number of ignored tickets is minute to the point of imperceptible.

give_them_FA

Yes, it does happen. I wouldn't deny it. But the chances are so microscopic that we advise people not to consider it. It literally is about the same chance as of winning a Lottery jackpot.

Figures are understandably, hard to come by. But one estimate is that some 500,000 motorists refuse to pay private parking tickets. At the most, no more than one in 10,000 is taken to Court.

Those cases then divide into: Set-ups, where the parking company takes a stooge to court who will throw a case; just so they can list it as a success even though they make nothing on it; cases which are kicked out of court by the judge because of a variety of reasons (no evidence who the driver was, signage inadequate, but most tellingly because the "fine" is an unlawful penalty); these constitute the majority of the cases! and quite literally a handful where the parking company do win either because the defendant did not defend properly or the judge perhaps was misdirected.

Sometimes the Parking Company can lose spectacularly; as in the case Parking Eye brought last year, where the Judge kicked out their claim for charges as unlawful, only awarded them £15 for the pay and display charges the guy admitted he hadn't paid... (fair enough)... and P.E. ended up having to foot a legal bill of well over £4,000. Haven't been back to Court since.

Some companies- and generally the larger ones- NEVER get involved with court. Why should they take a chance on it with the odds stacked heavily against them, when they can do very nicely thank you out of the people (mugs) who just pay them.. it is only a very few who still try it after all the cases that have been lost.

Properly defended a parking company should never win. Their charges ARE unlawful penalties.

Yes bottom line there is a TINY chance you could be taken to Court- though not if you don't tell them who was driving!

The most likely outcome is that if it goes to trial the judge will kick it out.

But to put it into perspective and I hope not to sound too gruesome, if you take a car on the road the chances of you never returning are greater. There are 3,000 fatalities on the road each year compared to an estimated 10 or so who get killed in Court by a parking company. We did have a Parking Company troll posting not long ago about the dangers of Court (to try and get people to pay up!) and all he could come up with was two cases in six weeks, one of which was a set-up.

So, no real danger. And if it happens there is a good team here who will win it for you.

ManxRed

Good point by Give Them FA, if the larger companies took more people to court, they know they would lose far far more than they would win which would equal bad publicity and a bigger risk that more people would get to learn that these charges are unenforceable.

This would result in less people who simply cave in and pay.

They are happy with what they have got so they leave it at that.

If the rules regarding these tickets were so rock solid, why isn't EVERYONE who ignores them being pursued by a court action? Why is it a tiny tiny number?

Stephen_Leak

They do like taking people to court, who they have had returned mail from. They then can then take them to court, safe in the knowledge that they won't see the court papers either, won't turn up and defend their case, and will lose by default. The English legal system doesn't do draws. The PPC may not get any money, but it's worth it for the "PR victory".

We've seen a list of cases, that turned out to not only have been all won by default but also weren't for parking charges. Evidently, they do work for other people.

PS. Because of the relatively low amounts involved, these cases are all dealt with at the county court level. Decisions down here don't set legal precedents, although they can be quoted in subsequent cases.

mentalmungo

Thanks chaps. I was more curious than anything else.

I notice how, on some parking company websites they proudly disply an example (from the dim and distant past....) of a case they've won.

Also, any thoughts on what the administration of justice act 1970 is?

ManxRed

mentalmungo wrote: »

I notice how, on some parking company websites they proudly disply an example (from the dim and distant past....) of a case they've won.

There's often lists of these on Debt Collector websites which have been shown to be actual judgements received in respect of unpaid utility bills, for which the debt collectors also work. Of course, they tend to neglect mentioning that.

Most PPCs tend to quote the Stephen Thomas case, which was very poorly defended, he'd run up dozens of tickets and his only defence was that he was not the driver, although he'd admitted he was on an internet forum. The judge found him to be unreliable and on the balance of probabilities he was the driver. He lost. If only he'd included in his defence that the charges were contractual penalties he'd have probably fared better.

The PPCs tend not to quote the many cases they've lost though!! Funny that.

Stephen_Leak

There is a suspicion that Stephen Thomas was a PPC "stooge".

Stephen Thomas is the name of a football player. A list of people, whom a PPC claimed to have successfully taken to court, were all football players. The owner of a PPC is involved with a football club. A PPC troll on here recently used Colin Bell as a username.

I rest my case, m'lud.

give_them_FA

The Administration of Justice Act 1970, as its name suggests, covers a lot of ground. However Section 40 is the one that concerns us most here. It makes illegal certain actions which debt collecting companies sometimes resort to. Sometimes those companies seek to try and forestall the issue by pretending they comply with the Act, but it really is part of the mumbo-jumbo that they use to try and baffle those who don't know the law. A bit like Roxburghe and their quoting of Civil Procedure Rules which actually have no bearing at all on the matters in issue.

Coupon-mad

mentalmungo wrote: »

Not wanting to take over any other threads, but i'm curious.

Has anyone on here, or does anyone on here actually know anyone who has been to court over a parking charge?

Has UKPC or any other parking gestapo numpty taken anyone to court? And if so, what was the outcome?

Other parking gestapo numpties have had a rare punt. Not UKPC though. They only went to Court last year when they were taken there by Trading Standards after complaints:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=63597

'Administration of Justice' cited by PPCs, and how in fact it protects you against PPCs, is often mentioned on these parking forums here and on the other good one at pepipoo:

LetMeGoogleThatForYou (let the results load on their own):

MSE result

pepipoo result

HTH

LindaandNicole

Hiya - just to let you know, Aspect Parking Solutions took me to court but didn't show up. I had prepared and submitted a defence, the key point of which was that they had no right to attempt to impose a penalty or fine upon me. After serving the initial court papers which included a bullsh*t letter attempting to look like legal jargon with lots of 'whereupons' and "trespass or in the alternative unlawful parking" (and paying the £20/25 fee to lodge the case) they then did not either submit any 'case' papers to support the idea that they might have a legal case against me; and they didn't turn up. Shame, I was looking forward to the show really. It's all extortion, really - trying to get 'normal' people; who are afraid of the idea of court, to pay completely illegal charges in order to avoid going to court. NEVER NEVER NEVER PAY!!!!