APCOA Penalty Notice - Hackbridge Railway Station

Rhysrobin

Hi

FYI I have read most of the 'APCOA Railway Penalty Notice' threads, as well as the NEWBIES thread.

What I have, as the registered keeper, is a Penalty Notice for £100 quoting a breach of Railway Byelaws. I have yet to reply/appeal but I understand that APCOA has no legitimacy to issue this. In terms of response, I have seen comments saying it is not necessary to appeal/reply to the PN at all. On other threads, I have seen template appeals to POPLA.

So I just want to check: should I do the first/second stage appeals or just ignore entirely?

Thanks!

Gr1pr

My advice is to appeal as keeper based on a recent Apcoa railway template that mentions no keeper liability due to Pofa2012 schedule 4 not applying on railway land , especially ones Contesting a Penalty Notice 

Coupon-mad

Then appeal to POPLA including the first paragraph stating that APCOA do not have landowner authority to issue Penalty Notices, only Parking Charge Notices.

Rhysrobin

Thank you. So as first appeal, I propose sending this to APCOA (taken from a recent thread):

>>>

I am the registered keeper of the above vehicle and am in receipt of the Penalty Notice you issued. The land in question is subject to byelaws and as such it is not relevant land for the purpose of schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Therefore there can be no hirer/keeper liability. You will need to contact the driver, who I will not be naming and there is no legal requirement for me to do so.

I do not expect to hear from you again, or your debt collectors, except to confirm that no further action will be taken on this matter and my personal details have been removed from your records.

If you prefer you can issue me the POPLA code which I can use to have this cancelled.

>>>

Look ok?

Gr1pr

Yes, all OK, do it ( as keeper,  no blabbing about who was driving   )

doubledotcom

Doesn't matter. It will be rejected because they will say that it is the "owner" who is liable (utter testicles). I would advise you just say the following:

Subject: Re: Unlawful Penalty Notice Issued Under Railway Byelaws

To whom it may concern,

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. Your issuance of a “Penalty Notice” under railway byelaws is unlawful. As a private company, you have no statutory authority to issue or enforce penalties under these byelaws. Your notice is therefore a misrepresentation of legal power and, in my view, constitutes an instrument of fraud.

Specifically, your conduct appears to fall within the scope of Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006—Fraud by false representation. You have:

• Falsely represented that you are authorised to issue a criminal penalty under railway byelaws;

• Done so dishonestly, with the intent to secure payment directly to your company;

• And thereby sought to cause financial loss to the recipient through deception.

This is a criminal matter. I will be reporting your actions to the Economic Crime Unit of my local police force.

Should you now attempt to pursue this alleged charge as a civil debt, I will treat that as further evidence of attempted extortion. You are fully aware that railway byelaw offences are criminal matters, triable only before a magistrates’ court, and that any penalty—if lawfully imposed—would be payable to the public purse, not to a private entity such as yours.

You may issue as many POPLA codes as you wish. POPLA has no jurisdiction over Penalty Notices issued (or purportedly issued) under railway byelaws. If you genuinely believe an offence has been committed, the correct course of action is to lay information before a magistrate. I will welcome the opportunity to challenge any such summons—should you manage to persuade a magistrate that you have standing to bring one. I am confident you will not.

Accordingly, I suggest you pursue the driver, whom I am under no legal obligation to identify. As for the “owner,” I wish you luck—there is no statutory register for that.

Cease and desist from any further attempts to misrepresent your authority or to unlawfully extract money under the guise of a statutory penalty.

Yours faithfully,

After that, you can just ignore everything that comes your way. It will wither and die on the vine. Debt collector letters can be safely ignored as they are powerless to do anything except to try and persuade the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree to pay up out of ignorance and fear. If it is a real Penalty Notice, any alleged debt can only be collected after a fine has been imposed by the magistrates court.

I have yet to see a single Penalty Notice issued by APCOA that has EVER been prosecuted in the magistrates court.