ParkingEye v Mr H C7FC6J8D 28/3/17
Mr H purchased a ticket for what he thought was the correct amount at the Royal Free Hospital. ParkingEye disagreed. He appealed to POPLA. POPLA did not uphold his appeal.
ParkingEye therefore took Mr H to court.
The hearing
Mr H had very little to do. The judge started off by saying that it was up to the claimant not the defendant to prove their case. He said that as Mr H was saying that he had tried to pay, but either the payment machine was faulty or that the signage was in error, it was up to the claimant to prove that this was not the case.
Because the Parking Eye witness didn’t appear in person it was left to their solicitor to argue their case. She could only rely on the papers in front of her and as these didn’t contain any information to show that the machine was working properly, the judge found in Mr H's favour.
The judge wasn’t interested in anything else (Beavis, Cargius etc) and said that Parking Eye’s evidence was ‘just a lot of white noise’. It all seemed a little random. Perhaps a different judge would have come to a different conclusion.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
Putting the fun back into parking
Click for guide to fighting ParkingEye court claims
Click for help with low-cost appeals and court defences
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😍
ReplyDelete😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😍
ReplyDeleteThis is the lottery that the county court system is :)
ReplyDeleteI think the Judge was spot on here, all to often Judges seem to accept that merely sending out an invoice (PCN) is sufficient and leaves the defendant to counter this, this Judge seems to have taken a more aggressive stance and required PE to justify the issuance and for that is to be applauded. I wonder if the judge or a family member is a previous PE 'customer'!
ReplyDeleteDPA breach?
ReplyDelete..it does raise the interesting question as to what evidence would be accepted that a machine was in order at the exact time payment was attempted. That could presumably only be an attendant who was prepared to swear that it was in order for the customer immediately prior to the defendant and the customer immediately after.
ReplyDeleteThe machine was working as he managed to purchase a ticket , bit of a strange one this ?
ReplyDeleteI think the defendant fell victim to the real 'free' hospital scam where when you go to pay yo have to guess what time you arrived and therefor how much you owe without the perfectly reasonable assistance of them telling you (seeing as how the ANPR system knows).
ReplyDeleteDoes PE even have authority to operate at this site?
ReplyDeleteA thorough search of the local planning authority
(LPA) registers has failed to show any evidence of planning permission (cameras) or, more importantly,
advert consent for the signage - unless of course
anyone knows otherwise? Under s.30 of the T & C Planning (Control of Adverts)(England) Regs 2007 it is a legal requirement to obtain consent for certain adverts, and almost invariably LPAs require ANPR signs to have consent. Camden Council, along with at least 100 other local planning authorities (LPAs), say that advert consent applies only from the date of a consent
(here lacking).
PE, as a member of BPA, must abide by its Code, which
requires members to operate according to the law,
and the Supreme Court has said that Code adherence is
a condition for obtaining keeper details from DVLA.
The contract with the landowner was signed in July 2013. Even a retrospective application for advert
consent would leave all those historical tickets
issued over the last several years unauthorised. In evidence submitted to the courts PE has stated that
it is a prerequisite (for the landowner) to obtain
any necessary permission before PE are asked to supply the services.
Following FOI and other requests we have now seen a
dozen or so PE / landowner contracts, and all but one
state that PE has authority to install the signs,
insofar as they have all necessary consents. The contract for Royal Free, however, has these clauses
mysteriously redacted - why? Meanwhile, all the NHS
contracts seen so far categorically require the PPC
to operate within the law / operate according to best
industry guidance / observe the code of practice.
So can anyone explain how PE have any authority to
enforce parking control on this site?