For the attention of Crabman

bazster

Frankly you could write this for your grounds of appeal: "This is not an appeal because it's all a scam anyway". It matters not so long as the PPC gets to cough up its £27+VAT.

taffy056

Remember that the small time clamper turned ticketer will likely not be in the AOS, so they will have no ability to get RK details, well allegedly . So if the RK starts getting threatograms the question to ask the dvla is how and who gave the details out. It's certainly going to be a lot more complex to give advice now, my signature will have to change the same as the simple advice.

RENEGADE_2

Slight change of topic now we're all agreed on how to handle post-October postal invoices. Clamping: I've read the posts here and on the other forums which hint that the cowboys may continue to try their luck and Plod might just turn a blind eye as though it were a civil affair.

My position on this is that I expect all clamping mobs to give the game up by that day and now that the action is criminalised, I really don't think Old Bill will merely walk away from it. CRIMINAL actions invoke a mandatory requirement to arrest the culprit suspected of committing the crime. Empounding the vehicle will be an unequivocal case of theft and if the first cop car isn't interested, we can go higher and higher among their ranks.

taffy056

Well clamping is something else, I do think they will give it up as they face jail and a fine if they are caught. We will have to see what will happen

LincolnshireYokel

RENEGADE wrote: »

Slight change of topic now we're all agreed on how to handle post-October postal invoices. Clamping: I've read the posts here and on the other forums which hint that the cowboys may continue to try their luck and Plod might just turn a blind eye as though it were a civil affair.

My position on this is that I expect all clamping mobs to give the game up by that day and now that the action is criminalised, I really don't think Old Bill will merely walk away from it. CRIMINAL actions invoke a mandatory requirement to arrest the culprit suspected of committing the crime. Empounding the vehicle will be an unequivocal case of theft and if the first cop car isn't interested, we can go higher and higher among their ranks.

It also makes it unlikely any action will be taken if you cut the clamp off, since you can show its illegal and the principle of self help absolutely applies.

RENEGADE_2

LincolnshireYokel wrote: »

It also makes it unlikely any action will be taken if you cut the clamp off, since you can show its illegal and the principle of self help absolutely applies.

Removal of the clamp by dismantling was above board in the first place. The sticky point was damaging the contents: alleged "criminal damage". I'm aware that Criminal Law trumps Contract Law but I feel certain that if the accused defended his case astutely and chose his words carefully (ie. rather than "setting the car free" he emphasised the clamp was deliberately positioned in such a way that he couldn't move his car and all because of an alleged debt not proven in court), he'd probably have come out better. The irritating problem with criminal proceedings is that you face magistrates who in turn are not versed in nor are they interested in the constraints of Contract Law which in turn governs every other aspect of the scenario. Furthermore, your opponent is the police in such a case and they from the outset will only concern themselves with the fact that you have damaged private property.

So yes you can come out on top but not without a battle on your hands vs the state. On that note, I recommend NOT touching the clamp for the time being if you don't know what you're doing. You know how the police resolve matters: he clamps you, you smash the device - you both get arrested. No victory for our morally chosen party in the feud.

RENEGADE_2

Mind you, depending on the dimension of their junk kit, if you can get to the nuts with your wheel brace in position, you may be able to remove the whole wheel replete with the clamp as you might if you had a flat. The spare wheel at 50 MPH max. will get you home atleast. It all depends however on the nature of the wheel clamp, such as this:


There won't be the same success trying to remove this muck which covers the bolts:

HO87

Clamping on private land will be criminalised and as intellectually challenged as some clampers appear to be I doubt we will see any great incidence of it continuing.

As for the police not being briefed I'd suggest that there is sufficient within the the act that impinges on what the police do - day-to-day - to ensure that briefings and training papers will have circulated some while ago. We shouldn't underestimate quite how disliked clampers were and are within the police.

Getting back to the topic of PPC's and what the overall strategy should be we should keep in mind that one of the strongest arguments the BPA advanced in its programme to obtain legislative relief (and in particular in support of RK liability) was the previous approach we applied of advising that invoices recipients ignore all communication. This is what was used to explain away the 30% shortfall of unpaid tickets and the government took the bait.

POFA places a number of procedural responsibilities on PPC's that did not exist before. They will be obliged to shift staff away from potentially revenue generating "collection" activities and focus them on dealing with and documenting their tickets for initial appeals and then in fuller appeals to POPLA.

These changes have brought with them a revised code of practice from the BPA that provides a number of opportunities for complaints that will have to be investigated and have the threat of the withdrawal of DVLA access.

In short, the change of law (and everything that has flowed from it) has set up a variety of pitfalls for the unwary PPC and into which a number are destined to stumble, and for those that don't a set of procedures that will increase their costs. We could indeed maintain the standard advice of "ignore" but that will prevent us from ensuring that the law is enforced with as much rigour as possible.

Above all else the underlying law (with the minor exception of the loss of privity in respect of registered keepers) has not in any way changed but a PPC now has many more hoops (and increased costs) to jump through before they can consider court proceedings and they will still face the difficulties of current case law. Were we to stick to "ignore" route we would simply be playing into the hand of the PPC's.

RENEGADE_2

All right. For a plethora of reasons, we are all agreed that our course of action shall be to advise a two-step communication procedure, first to the PPC and then to POPLA. Naturally some may choose to ignore from the onset as previously but we shall urge each new victim to write to the antagonist.

taffy056

If someone ignores the whole process from the start and there will be some, the only recourse for the ppc will be court by the looks of things. So if that is the case could refusal to enter into anything be equally as a persuasive way of dealing with these invoices ? The ppc won't take every person who ignores one to court, like they don't now even with keeper liability coming in.