Is tailgating out of a car park illegal???

screwbiedooo

In this actual instance, the corporation, MAG, is a public one which makes some kind of refreshing change. Still, if I were making £51m passive profit for essentially, nothing, I'd be downright embarrassed to be making an issue out of this.

mikey72

screwbiedooo wrote: »

............. if I were making £51m passive profit for essentially, nothing.......

It's not profit, it's revenue. Did the car park just fall from the car park tree? All the roads, the markings, shuttle buses, shelters, security, are free as well? How much do you think they spend on building and maintaining car parks there? It's not 6 spaces by the chippy! Says it all about some people’s views on parking.

Oopsadaisy

So, we're still not sure if it's theft or fraud or purely civil.

mikey72

It seems the posters on here are sure it's criminal, whether theft or fraud. What it needs is a good test case.

esmerobbo

It would be interesting to see what Parking Eye are sending out. If it is just a £60 invoice and you had parked for a fortnight it would be worth paying it. It would then be an end of the matter criminal or civil.
If its the fee owing plus £60 for Parking Eye then it would be interesting to see what way it would go if you ignored them?

Has anybody seen or heard of a Parking Eye ticket at Manchester airport?

jkdd77

I stress that I in no way condone or advocate parking and driving away without paying the legitimate parking charge due, and suspect that it is very likely to be an offence (assuming the signs were indeed seen and that a mechanism for making payment at the time was available).

That said, any offence would be committed by the driver (who may not be the registered keeper), and proving the identity of the driver to the criminal standard (i.e. beyond reasonable doubt) could be very difficult; indeed almost impossible without the active involvement of the police at the time of the incident*.

As others have stated, I strongly suspect that the police would insist "it's a civil matter" regardless, just as they invariably do where a vehicle is clamped over alleged past debts/ despite displaying a disabled badge/ without an SIA licence/ without the authority of any landowner etc.

*Unless the police believe the 'tailgating' amounted to careless driving, in which case they could serve a section 172 demand on the RK to name the driver; even then, whilst a failure to provide the information would be a criminal offence in itself, and not to be condoned or recommended, it is likely that any such failure to name the driver would still leave the identity of the driver unproven.

mikey72

Works for speed cameras. Lets hope a nice new law can be drafted in future to include scumbags that theive from car park owners. One click, and another crime is solved.

Oopsadaisy

mikey72 wrote: »

Works for speed cameras. Lets hope a nice new law can be drafted in future to include scumbags that theive from car park owners. One click, and another crime is solved.

Speed cameras rely on self-incrimination by the RK, [or identification of the driver by the RK and then subsequent self-incrimination by the named driver].

The courts are never, ever going to apply this process to 'civil' cameras.

mikey72

Oopsadaisy wrote: »

Speed cameras rely on self-incrimination by the RK, [or identification of the driver by the RK and then subsequent self-incrimination by the named driver].

The courts are never, ever going to apply this process to 'civil' cameras.

We've already decided it's a crime. I'm old enough to remember the "never ever" with regard to self incrimination with speed cameras as well, for what it's worth.

jkdd77

Oopsadaisy wrote: »

Speed cameras rely on self-incrimination by the RK, [or identification of the driver by the RK and then subsequent self-incrimination by the named driver].

The courts are never, ever going to apply this process to 'civil' cameras.

I tend to agree, since the Government have already, when drafting the Protection of Freedoms Act, rejected the suggestion that failure by the RK to pay PPC invoices should be a criminal offence.

Also, using criminal law to force the RK to incriminate the driver would be a human rights interference. The ECHR ruled that such interference could be justified in relation to camera-detected road traffic offences such as speeding due to the public health and safety implications of dangerous driving. I doubt that the ECHR would consider this interference justified in relation to failure to pay PPC charges, whether such charges are lawful or not, and whether or not failure to pay constitutes an criminal offence.