Penalty Parking Ticket in Merseyrail car park

TeaForOne

Hi all - hope someone can advise.

I got a "Penalty Parking Ticket" of £60, reduced to £30 if I pay in 14 days in a Merseyrail car park. The ticket is headed Merseyrail, and the address & account details for payment are Merseyrail Electrics (so not a parking company).

There's a tick list of "offences" and they have ticked "Parked Outside Marked Bays." I did indeed park on a bit of grass, but I wasn't obstructing anyone or anything. Byelaw 14 and the signs in the car park say nothing about parking outside bays, although there is a notice on the station door (across the road, and which stands open most of the time) saying "Park in Marked Bays"


The rest of the ticket says

"Failure to pay by the above date may result in the keeper's details being requested from the DVLA and could result in legal proceedings being brought against you. If you wish to dispute your liability to pay a parking penalty, a statement giving an explanation must be made to Merseyrail electrics...."

It then says Penalty for Non Payment: Byelaw 14 Made under s 129 of Railways Act Max penalty £1000"

The back of the form just says to send £60/£30 or pay by card by phoning the prosecution team.


I can't work out what type of ticket this is and whether I can safely ignore it.


I don't have the technology to upload an image at the moment but will try to find a way to do it if necessary.

Thanks in advance.

peter_the_piper

Whilst some ppc's blithely go on about byelaw 14 etc there are some car parks which do run under rail byelaws. Whether the car parks can legally charge someone under byelaw 14 has yet to be tested in a real court as you would need deep pockets to do so. Please repost this in pepipoo.com as well. Unless anyone says to do otherwise, it hurts me to say this, but it might be wise to consider paying as the final stage may well be magistrates court.

TeaForOne

Thanks Peter. I was kind of thinking this because although I hate to be fleeced, I really don't need the stress.

This is clearly a message to me to get up earlier and walk the mile or so to the station rather than being lazy.

Coupon-mad

Sounds like a real Railway Byelaws ticket, so appeal and/or pay.

I think I would try a very polite and honest appeal, asking if they could possibly consider cancelling the ticket on this occasion. 'Never got one before, did not see any sign, will never make that mistake again', etc. If you are a regular commuter then mention that fact.

On pepipoo forums we have seen a couple of very polite appeals accepted by Train Operators, they certainly do read & consider them from what I have seen. Nothing to lose if you send it very quickly and say that if they are not able to cancel it on this occasion you will pay the £30 by return.

vax2002

The Answer is nobody can safely say about Byelaw 14, they had two cases listed for Leeds mags under bylaw 14 but failed to show.
The general opinion is they use it as a bluffing stick.

give_them_FA

I agree withabove, bear in mind that quite often as with the parking companies, there is a large element of bluff involved and a company may not actually want to go to the trouble and expense of pursuing this over what is to them a trifling amount. Also it may be that they don't really have a case. Or, like the parking companies, they won't want to go to a court like the maggies (bit different from small claims) only to be told they are in the wrong and will have to repay all the fines that have been paid in similar circumstances.

See what the bods say on pepipoo. Meantime could hardly be wrong to write and ask them in what way they contend your action was in breach of railway byelaws.

esmerobbo

Seen one on Pepipoo over a Northern Rail genuine Byelaw 14 ignored it and it cost the OP nearly £400 in fines and costs.

Merseyrail are very keen on prosecutions especially for feet on seats!

However I always thought a genuine Byelaw 14 was £50.

vax2002

If we could find ONE, just ONE example of a train company acting as a PPC but taking the Bylaw route to conclusion, we might have a clue, searches of court cases dont throw up any completed cases, so in short we dont know.
They have been bluff links on line but nobody has ever put up a case number so we can get the notes and have a look, the two at Leeds, nobody turned up, the defendant or the train company so it was thrown out whilst still in the corridor ?
All we do know is they issue thousands of PPC's with byelaw 14 bluff on, but never appear to have taken it up.

As said above, the pepipoo ones refused to give out court case numbers or times, just stories...

esmerobbo

Pepipoo thread!

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=61659&st=160

Just back from the Magistrate's Court.

The discussion I'd been told I could have with the Clerk of the court did not take place and I had to face the magistrates and plead guilty.

They couldn't give a rat's @ss about the statement of mitigation, and didn't even question for a second the £100 costs Northern Rail were claiming. They also seemed incredulous at the suggestion that the law might not be applicable. The whole thing was an utter waste of time. Thank God I didn't plead not guilty and try and fight it. I had all the arguments typed up ready for the clerk to look at but he wasn't the slightest bit interested in the aforementioned pre-meeting to stop it going to trial, nor did they question Northern Rail why they didn't respond to my letter intended to keep the case from going to court.

Total damage - £265 fine plus £100 costs, total £365.

So be warned, despite everything that's been said in the 9 pages this thread has grown to, they DO prosecute under this bye-law and if today's experience was anything to go by, an easy win for the TOC.

BLZ

Think its the only one I have ever seen though

Stigy

Sounds genuine to me, and if it is, it'll be bread and butter stuff for Merseyrail's Prosecutions Department should they wish to go to court. It'll be the same as any other Mags Court case in the possible fine and costs etc, I guess the only difference being that some Magistrates might not entertain such tickets, being lay people etc. Still a strict liability offence though, so shouldn't matter. Bear in mind also that Byelaw 14 makes the owner liable which may not be the driver.

Coupon-mad

Stigy wrote: »

Sounds genuine to me, and if it is, it'll be bread and butter stuff for Merseyrail's Prosecutions Department should they wish to go to court. It'll be the same as any other Mags Court case in the possible fine and costs etc, I guess the only difference being that some Magistrates might not entertain such tickets, being lay people etc. Still a strict liability offence though, so shouldn't matter. Bear in mind also that Byelaw 14 makes the owner liable and not the driver.

But that doesn't mean it's not worth a polite grovelly appeal first, especially if the OP is a regular commuter. On pepipoo such appeals have been accepted but not sure which TOC in those cases.