Mr K appeared for himself. Miss Upoku from LPC Law represented ParkingEye.
Mr K based his argument on signage. The entrance sign met the BPA standard for size, font etc. but was out of view from the driver’s seat when entering the car park because it is located 2 meters up and facing perpendicular from the direction you travel in to enter, instead of straight ahead. The first sign you come across is one that contains the contract (lots of small print) and if you park in the first available spaces the next sign was hidden by a tree branch. Mr K argued that the other 18 or 19 signs throughout the car park were inconsequential because he didn’t pass them before he parked up. He supplied a video for evidence.
The Judge ruled that it wasn’t reasonable to expect the driver to know that there was a fee for overstaying based on this. He questioned Mr K who had visited the car park twice before due to the fact that you have to pass a number of signs before leaving the car park so he might have known it was a controlled park. Mr K argued that you wouldn’t be looking for signs when leaving and that driving through the car park can be avoided if the space in front is empty. If the space in front is empty you can pass through it and miss out the rest of the car park.
The claim was dismissed and Mr K was awarded costs. Leave to appeal was refused as the decision was made on a finding of fact, not a point of law.
On the court finding that the def. did not know and that the visibility of the signs was such that he could not have been reasonably aware of their existence
1) Claim dismissed
2) By 3/5/16 Cl pay £95 costs
3) Permission to appeal refued because the court finds as a fact that the 1(b) sign was not visible from a car, the sign near where D parked was obscured by foilage and that whilst D could have seen the 1(a) sign near the entrance he had to absorb other information on entering the car park and that sign alone was not sufficiently prominent to establish that it was unreasonable that he missed it.
Prankster Note
Signs 1(a) and 1(b) were from ParkingEye's evidence pack.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
Fan-bloody-tastic.
ReplyDeleteAnother judge with some common-sense.
How many more court cases will Parking Eye have to lose before the shareholders in Capita-already down £57 million-wise up to the fact they've bought a company(controlled by not very clever or smart people) that still tries to scam drivers and thinks the legalities surrounding signage and ANPR cameras does not apply to them?
ReplyDeleteAs long as the 60% or so of the 1.2 million motorists they penalised last year pay up at the going rate of £60 and £100 without a squeak, shareholders ain't going to be bothered one jot about the occasional court loss. For them and ParkingEye, it's all about the wonga!
DeleteControlled by 'not very clever or smart people' (that's a tautology by the way) who are absolutely coining it in. I think they're smarter than you think.
DeleteA smart person works for what is best for everyone while a clever person would work only for their own interests.
DeleteI didn't go to a crappy school.
We are in the ethical zone:You not only have to do what is right you have to be seen to be doing what is right.
You could argue-I certainly would-PE are not an ethical company. They have a history of flouting planning regulations, paying large sums of money to operate in a particular location and losing cases in courts and at POPLA when presented with valid defences.
Not so smart IMV.
What a load of bollocks, clever and smart are synonyms - clever is a word that can apply to people of high intelligence regardless of whose interests they work in.
DeleteEthics is an issue of morality not intelligence.
"Ethics is an issue of morality not intelligence."
DeleteI did not suggest otherwise.
Why is it so difficult for you to accept another person's point of view?
You don't have the monopoly on Truth and Wisdom.
I don't have an issue with accepting another person's point of view, but you haven't offered an opinion, you've made a statement that clever and smart mean two different things, which is objectively incorrect, and conflated morality with intelligence.
DeleteAn opinion would be that you think PE are morally bankrupt, which you would have found I would not have been so argumentative about!
Deletehttps://www.duedil.com/company/05134454/parkingeye-limited
ReplyDeleteTurnover £24.6 Million : £8.74M net assets : 41% return on capital employed.
Sounds smart to me.
Unethical it may be but it won't worry the shareholders. I wonder if any of them ever get parking tickets cancelled or do they just pay as they get the benefits.
My mate contacted one of the directors on facebook, and got let off.
Delete