Smart parking ticket asda NI

tea_pot

Hi,
I've read a lot of the advice on the other threads, its been very helpful!
I got a ticket from 'smart parking' in an asda carpark in dundonald in northern ireland for staying too long. I'm a student and it was my first day of placement in a hospital near by which had no parking spaces, so this was a last resort!
I went to pay the ticket (before I realised it was a scam!) and it didn't recognise the ticket number, so I googled it and came across this forum.
I understand as its NI you can just ignore it, however I am from England, so my car is registered in England to my home address.
Can I still ignore it? I don't know how I can appeal if I did technically break the 2-hour rule? and if I can't ignore it or appeal, then how the frig do they expect to scam you into giving them your money if they don't have a system that works and allows you to pay?
Any advice would be great!!
Thanks

Hot_Bring

a. ( Not so ) Smart Parking are one of the tame PPCs and have never done court.

b. Read the Newbies sticky to get the best advice.

As you're GB based you should await the NtK and then appeal.

Coupon-mad

As it's NI I would ignore it anyway.

bod1467

I can understand the OP's concern ... RK details will show an England address.

Whilst an "offence" in NI wouldn't be covered by POFA2012, so no keeper liability, it wouldn't hurt to wait for the NtK and follow the normal appeals process. One of your appeal points would be about NI and POFA2012 not applying so no keeper liability.

Iceweasel

NI is the same as Scotland - ignore, ignore, and then ignore some more.

The legal system in both NI & Scotland does not allow for this rubbish to be the responsibility of the Registered Keeper - only the driver - and the RK has no liability to divulge who the driver who parked the car was.

Have fun with them if you really want to.

Wait for NtK - Appeal to Smart Parking - be rejected - get POPLA code - then write to POPLA and say out of jurisdiction - end of.

Is it possible they go for a court case in England? Again out of jurisdiction and any English court papers will die a death when the English court is made fully aware that the 'incident took place in NI

A court case in NI? - Not possible unless the RK is foolish enough to communicate with Smart Parking and give them info as to who the driver was - even then the NI court is highly unlikely to process a case against someone domiciled in a 'foreign' country such as Scotland or England.

But it's much easier to just ignore them and they stop writing after about 5 or 6 letters, threatening all sorts of things which cannot take place. Baillifs, debt-collectors, court orders, bad credit ratings - you name and they'll try threatening it.

Start communicating and they keep on at you bit longer - perhaps up to a year.

bod1467

If the RK had a NI address the answer would be very simple - IGNORE. Even if the event was in England with an RK in NI then IGNORE would still be the response.

The fact the RK has an England address (even though the event was in NI) muddies the waters somewhat. (IMO) So following the normal appeals process is probably the "safer" option to adopt.

Coupon-mad

Actually it could be fun at POPLA - 'not relevant land' - not even the relevant Country!

macwah97

Might I just point out that a driving offence committed in Northern Ireland involving a person or persons from anywhere in the United Kingdom can be acted upon within the courts in Northern Ireland and vice versa as Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

Even driving offences committed by residents of Southern Ireland can be pursued in either direction.

Therefore I suggest that you seek independent advice on whether to pursue this matter or not.

SevenTowers

macwah97 wrote: »

Might I just point out that a driving offence committed in Northern Ireland involving a person or persons from anywhere in the United Kingdom can be acted upon within the courts in Northern Ireland and vice versa as Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

Even driving offences committed by residents of Southern Ireland can be pursued in either direction.

That is not entirely true, an NI court can act on an offence by a GB licence holder, and can issue a fine, but cannot allocate license penalty points to a GB license holder. The way they get around this is by making the GB license holder get an NI paper equivalent, and they put the points on there instead. This effectively means that a driver could have 11 points on their GB licence, 11 points on their NI license and still be driving legally. This arrangement is meaningless unless you hit 12 points in either jurisdiction, in which case you would loose both licences.

Works the same for NI licence holders guilty of driving offences in GB.

macwah97 wrote: »

Therefore I suggest that you seek independent advice on whether to pursue this matter or not.

Sorry, but this is nonsense, there is no offence, it's a scam invoice from a Mickey Mouse parking company for goodness sake! You have already got the best advice possible in this thread. Hell will freeze over before Smart Parking try taking this to court, you can either ignore with impunity, or have some fun as previously mentioned.

da_rule

macwah97 wrote: »

Might I just point out that a driving offence committed in Northern Ireland involving a person or persons from anywhere in the United Kingdom can be acted upon within the courts in Northern Ireland and vice versa as Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.

Even driving offences committed by residents of Southern Ireland can be pursued in either direction.

Therefore I suggest that you seek independent advice on whether to pursue this matter or not.

There is also the fact that there is a distinction in civil and criminal jurisdiction. It is much more difficult for someone living outside of England/Wales to be brought before the civil courts than it is for criminal matters.

HO87

da_rule wrote: »

There is also the fact that there is a distinction in civil and criminal jurisdiction. It is much more difficult for someone living outside of England/Wales to be brought before the civil courts than it is for criminal matters.

Correct.

However, the OP has indicated that he is temporarily resident within the NI jurisdiction which is where any civil wrong that might be pursued occurred. There is no requirement that service of proceedings can only be effected at the address at which he is domiciled i.e. in England.

The difficulty that potential parties to proceedings have is the requirement to apply to the courts (in NI) for authority to make an out-of-jurisdiction service, the additional costs this would present and the substantial costs they would incur were they to then seek the assistance of the English court in enforcing any judgment. For the sums involved no PPC is going to run it and, frankly, I suspect that most judges would laugh out any application.