Hospital Car Parking fines Help Help!!

taffy056 · 14 October 2012 at 10:08PM

Aretnap wrote: »

<Shrugs> A minister's opinion isn't particularly relevant. Ministers don't get to decide what the law is - parliament makes it and judges interpret it. Which is just as well given that the minister also obviously thought that it was OK for private companies to issue penalties - the stated aim of the PFA was to strengthen the private ticketing model and to make it harder for motorists to avoid paying paying them.

But if you fancy an argument from authority here's a legal textbook (full chapter online here) which considers whether non-payment in a private car park is a criminal offence. Specifically it considers what constitutes the required element of dishonesty; it seems to take it for granted that if dishonesty is present then the offence would apply.

If only it were that simple. The offence would be complete when someone makes off with the intention of not paying. Subsequently changing one's mind and offering to pay wouldn't retrospectively negate the offence, though it might mitigate it. It would be a similar situation to that of a thief who offers to pay for the goods he's stolen - after he gets caught.

You're confusing "an offence under the Theft Act" with "theft". The offence in question is not theft, but making off without payment and/or dishonestly acquiring services. They apply to services as well as goods, so the question is not "did the OP steal something?" but "did the OP make use of a service which he had obtained dishonestly, with the intention of avoiding payment?"

I'm not sure what the OP's best move is from here. Probably it is in his best interests to make some sort of reasonable offer to make the matter go away. Precisely what that reasonable offer might have to be I'm not sure. Speaking to a union rep and/or solicitor is doubtless a good idea.

Any reasonable offer would be the cost of what normally would be the cost of parking there , anything more would be a penalty for this. Also the landowner has the facility for arbitration it's called the small claims, as I said previously if they feel they have a case there is where it should go. I would think letting it get to the stage of having 63 notices would look like that there was no reasonable actions taken to resolve this. As suggested the OP needs further advice apart from here.

freemason_2 · 18 April 2013 at 7:43PM

Hi guys,

I got my lawyer to write some letters to the fraud department Nd they have now decided not pursue the fraud charge.

I suspect the entire allegation was ruse to convince me to pay up.

Now they are threatening a civil county court case to claim the £5000 of parking tickets.

As the cost of parking was £1/day. For the 76 tickets I have offered £76. They have refused to accept this amount.

Whats my next step?

Your help will be much appreciated

Thanks