- Oct 17, 2008
- 14,501
This isn’t my battle but thank you for this all the same, the best of NSC.Good post above. As are most of the replies.
Some of you know and it's no secret that I'm Coupon-mad on MSE (author of the MSE NEWBIES sticky thread and the Template court defence thread there).
I've never lost a case when speaking as a lay rep for Defendants in court v private parking companies (PPCs).
A bit of background:
I'm also on the Government Steering Group that has been shaping the Private Parking statutory Code of Practice since 2020. That work (unpaid but eye-opening hours of virtual meetings with the parking industry and others) was completed in 2022. But then it was cynically blocked by the moneymen - PPCs & their pet debt crawlers - via Judicial Reviews. The JRs were basically funded by tens of thousands of clueless victims who pay, thinking they have a fine (sigh...it is just an unsolicited invoice).
The statutory Code is not dead; just waiting on Angela Rayner's MHCLG now to finalise it. The 'joint Code' trumpeted last month on BBC news is NOT it! That's a cleverly timed but IMHO cynical smoke & mirrors attempt by the two rival Trade Bodies, who colluded to create a watered down version. I suspect in the hope of hoodwinking Labour Ministers in the MHCLG to just run with that version.
Errr. No. Won't happen on my watch.
Anyhoo...
My take on this one:
- ParkingEye have clearly set one camera clock an hour out when doing some maintenance that day. Unusual but I've seen this error before - from NCP - and I kicked up a stink to the British Parking Association: all PCNs on the date affected were quashed. The explanation was exactly as some have guessed: one ANPR camera is synched to BST and the other to -1 hour. A maintenance issue at this site, soon spotted. I reckon ParkingEye already know about this.
- complaining to Asda is the right first step. With any private PCN, landowner complaint is always 'PLAN A' before even thinking about the farce the industry call 'appeal'.
- getting this in the Argus is a great idea. Jody Doherty-Cove has written articles about PPCs before. Mainly about One Parking Solution due to them being local. He might still be at the Argus? They might well print a piece about this. It would be good to expose it because some saps (and Lease firms or Fleet Managers) will have stupidly just paid, like it's a fine. Daft but true.
- Many PPCs do sue people. Don't shred the letters. DO IGNORE PPC DEBT CRAWLERS - A COMPLETE WASTE OF SPACE. But open all letters to check for a court claim form. Tell them if you move house, of course, and always update your V5C address, not just your driving licence.
- Both ParkingEye and One Parking Solution (they are different companies) are known to litigate - as many PPCs now do - but as long as you defend, you are not risking a CCJ even if you lose, which almost nobody on MSE does. Very easy to defend. I wrote the Template Defence used on MSE and it works. I do these cases every day on MSE and I occasionally rock up in person at Brighton, Worthing or Lewes courts.
But this one will be easy to cancel.
I would love to see this story in the Argus though. The PPC industry is considered by MPs, Motoring groups and those in the know to be rotten to the core.
IMHO and based on my 15 years or so of fighting PPCs, they deserve all the bad press they get. Especially firms that use ANPR without bothering to do sufficient checks.
This issue should have been spotted BEFORE harvesting hundreds of Asda shoppers' DVLA data that day. The sheer numbers will have been huge.
They had no reasonable cause to get your data.
Go for it, OP!