Railway Byelaw 14 NTK

Coupon-mad

Photobucket or tinypic are free photo hosting sites that you will find most other new posters have used, to show pics. Then you just show us the URL but 'broken' to remove the http:// as you are still a newbie here and cannot post full working links yet.

Coupon-mad

ParkingPhil wrote: »

I'm really grateful for all your replies.

Just so you are aware, I am particularly miffed because I did not recieve an original PCN which offered me the opportunity to deal with Meteor. I bought and (as far as I am aware) correctly displayed a ticket and the first I knew of a contravention was when I got this NTK. I no longer have the ticket because there was no reason I knew of to keep it. I now doubt myself in case it fell on the floor or I put something on top of it or something. If they can demonstrate that in court then I'm up for a serious loss of money.

I don't know how to put show quotes here so I'll just pick out some points you guys have made and hopefully you know what I am referring to.

It took me a while to work out the liability argument. I think what one of you is saying is that if I don't reveal who the driver is, as the owner I still owe the TOC the debt, but the byelaw does not specifically say I am guilty of the legal offence, for which the court can also impose a penalty (which the TOC would't get). Keeping a secret of the fact that I was the driver does not help me in regard to the TOC's charge, only the penalty the court could impose on me. I couldn't say whether that is correct or not but it is moot. Since the charge increases in about a week, it seems to me more sensible to settle.

Regarding the display of the charge, there is no signage that specifically indicates the level of the charge. It only says there will be a charge, the amount of which will be displayed on the PCN (which I did not get). It does not say £50 at this point, £90 at this point, £165 at this point, which my NTK explains. Does that mean they fall foul of 14 (4) (i)? The wording is slightly ambiguous. I'm sure they would argue the charge is as stated on the sign, i.e. the exact amount will be stated on the PCN.

Incidentally, if I have understood the byelaw correctly, there is no limit to the charge the TOC could impose, only the penalty the court can impose for breaking the byelaw. Is that right? I see nothing in the byelaw that would make a charge of £100k unenforceable. The only thing that would stop them (because I doubt common decency would get in the way of making huge amounts of cash) would be the backlash they would get when the media got hold of it.

That's the sort of complaint I would now be putting to the TOC and to Passenger Focus (Google them if you haven't involved them yet in this dispute). Copy in both to a robust complaint and string this out (beyond six months!) as a complaint about the whole procedure and lack of information and not following 'due process'.

Certainly I would demand a copy of the original 'Penalty Charge Notice' as you believe that no such compliant document was ever issued by Meteor, who appear to be the operative on site. Really, really push for a copy because (don't tip them off) it won't have been a PENALTY Charge Notice at all. I would be willing to bet it will have been a bog-standard Meteor 'Parking Charge Notice' which is a completely different animal offering POPLA etc.

jkdd77

Southeastern/ Meteor are notorious for threatening prosecution under byelaw 14 in order to frighten victims into paying their ransom demands; however, it appears from FoI statistics that they have never actually brought any such prosecution.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/167465/response/440318/attach/html/4/720%2013%20FoI%2085533%20table.xls.html

In short, I would ignore it, both since the chances of actually being prosecuted are virtually zero, and in order to avoid admitting being the driver. (It appears that Meteor and Southeastern refuse to accept appeals to POPLA, so that avenue is not open- since the land is technically governed by byelaws, it follows that RK liability does not apply).

There are numerous cases on Pepipoo where OPs have successfully ignored Southeastern/ Meteor's invoices, and never been prosecuted, a selection of which is listed on:
http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=85087

Even if they did prosecute, it would, at least in theory, be for the prosecution to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the OP was personally driving in the case of a byelaw 14(1), (2), or (3) offence. There are so many holes in byelaw 14(4)(i) it can safely be discounted altogether- for one thing, they would to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the OP is the owner (don't answer that on this forum!)

Coupon-mad

That's true - if it was Northern Rail it would be more worrying but there's nowt to stop the OP complaining to Passenger Focus.