Lamorna Premier Park ANPR

A friend of mine popped round for a coffee today and I told him about my BWL claim. It turns out his son has just received a PCN from Premier Park related to Lamorna Cove car park (well known scammers). To my surprise they have given up aggressively harassing little old ladies and now have ANPR. Wow, they really are going up in the world!! He and his wife are in a bit of a state worrying about their son's 'ticket'. I want to help if I can.

1. His son has some very serious health problems, life changing stuff. These problems develop each year into new and baffling symptoms. He has seen all the experts in the country and had no end of tests etc, but still they are unable to properly diagnose his exact condition(s), he has many diagnosed ones as well as an undiagnosed one which causes him to lose all feeling in his legs without any warning. He literally collapses in the street when it happens, and has been into A&E several times with it. He went to Lamorna to drop off a friend who was walking along the coast path. (That's actually a point in itself, byelaws?!).

So he planned to drive in, drop them and leave. However as he stopped his car he felt an attack coming on and this developed into the worst episode he has had to date. He tried to get a signal to call someone but no signal at the location. He sat in his car for around 1hr to 1hr and a quarter (I can't remember exactly) when the symptoms began to subside and he regained feeling in (and use of) his legs, at which point he hurriedly started his car and left to get straight home in case it happened again. He has medical files coming out of his ears about these problems, and due to medicos not knowing exactly what the problem is, he basically isn't sure whether his entire body might just shut down when it happens. He really isn't in a good way and being only early twenties, life is pretty rotten for him and all his family due to these problems.

2. I asked my friend if his son is registered disabled (blue badge) and he says not as xxxxx "doesn't want to do that, but he is unquestionably physically disabled, he crawls up the stairs quite regularly at home and often needs help bathing in case something happens".

3. He got a Premier Park PCN through the post a week later. The wording is different to mine, but I can still find some failures re POFA.

So if anyone could suggest what advice I could give him, I would be very grateful. The advice I gave him (rightly or wrongly) at this point is DO NOT PAY, no matter what, if they are going after keeper than POFA restricts them to the NTK amount, so that's the worst outcome here (plus a bit for court costs). He is happy to do that, he doesn't want to give them a penny. However he really isn't good with stuff like this (registering on the forum would be a bit of a challenge, he is quite old and from farming background so doesn't do internet beyond a few apps on his phone). Therefore I will offer to write letters for him and even go to court if that was allowed. I know many people who have been scammed by Lamorna owner, an utter lowlife who has often broken the law, and he has a big reputation locally for his past behaviour to motorists, usually unsuspecting tourists.

I am unsure whether to advise him to appeal (I have never done an appeal). I just read the Newbies thread relating to this, and it doesn't say when the appeal must be done by. I think it's 28 days IIRC? If so, he is over that by a few days now so it's probably too late.

Biggest issue I am not sure about is whether he should defend as driver or keeper. I know the usual advice is to defend as keeper for various reasons, POFA mainly and the limitation of sum recoverable. However, since I think he has SUCH a strong argument regarding the actual circumstances/EA2010 etc, I wonder if he should actually admit driving in order to write and argue (or do so in court later) the powerful mitigating circumstances. Does anyone have a view on this please?

His family have had two terrible tragedies in the past year on top of his son's pretty horrific medical problems (years of it now), so I really want to help them with this extra stress they really don't need. But I obviously don't want to give the wrong advice. The main questions are: A) Should they appeal or is it too late? Should they stick to defending as keeper or admit driving and tell the story of what happened?

Thanks for any comments, if anyone would be so kind

P.S. The 2019 Google Earth images show signs which still mention "Penalty" and "Clamp removal fee".