PCM-UK - you've been Gladstoned...twice for the same car park

Pepipoo reported another two court cases have been lost by incompetent charlatans, Gladstones Solicitors.

The cases concerned a Sainsburys car park in Morden which has some adjacent spaces not part of the car park. The signage is poor and does not clearly explain which spaces are part of the car park and which are not. As a result shoppers think they are parking at Sainsburys, but are not.

Your Local Guardian has run a report on the car park, noting the confusion.

The first case was held on October 10th. The judge dismissed the claim, noting the inadequate signage, and awarded £108 in costs.

The second case was held on October 18th. In this hearing, the court had not received a copy of the PCM-UK witness statement. PCM-UK sent a local solicitor to defend them and the judge allowed the copy of the solicitors witness statement from Gladstones. He ruled that even he would have parked there with the signage confusion, and dismissed the claim, awarding costs to the defendant.

He also went on to say that there was so much information in the PCM signs and it wasn't clear enough. He instructed the solicitor to go back to his clients to actually say this site was completely mis-leading.

Prankster Note

The Prankster considers that there is a clear conflict of interest here. The IPC validates all signage, so Will Hurley and John Davies, (or their employees) will have signed off this signage as sufficient, despite the clear confusion caused. Will Hurley and John Davies, wearing their other hats as Gladstones Solicitors, will have advised PCM-UK they had a case, and will have gleefully taken their money and filed claims.

However, right-minded clear thinkers will of course realise, as the judges did, that the signage is defective.

Having lost the first case Gladstones would have had a duty of care to explain to their client the fast-receding chance of winning the second case.

Sadly this is a repeating pattern and Will Hurley and John Davies repeatedly condone signage which is not fit for purpose and which is designed not to provide a fair parking system, but to maximise parking revenue by allowing as many parking charges to be issued as possible.

This attitude does not fit well with an Associated Trade Association allowed access to keeper data. The Prankster calls on the government to either removed ATA access from the IPC, or to take away the ability from the IPC to regulate signage, since they are clearly either not competent or institutionally biased.

Motorists who were confused by the signage but were bullied into paying PCM-UK have up to 6 years to file a claim against PCM-UK for their monies back.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster