High Court Parking Ticket Victory for Motorists

High Court Parking Ticket Victory for Motorists
AppealNow.com’s claim that Barnet and other council’s parking tickets are invalid upheld by the High Court.
“I expect to uncover more illegal parking tickets – Millions of pounds are involved” says AppealNow.com’s founder, Barrie Segal.

Barnet Council’s parking tickets were judged to be invalid in a landmark case decided in the High Court today.

Mr. Justice Jackson ruled that Barnet’s parking tickets were invalid as they did not have two dates on them, one a date of contravention and the other a date of issue.

In the case of Hugh Moses – v - Barnet, Barrie Segal the founder of www.AppealNow.com™, represented Mr. Moses at the Parking Adjudicator and challenged the validity of Barnet Council’s parking tickets on the grounds that they did not have a date of issue. Two separate Parking Adjudicators upheld Mr. Segal’s argument and agreed that Barnet Council’s parking tickets were invalid.

Barnet Council took the matter to the High Court and challenged the decisions.

Today’s test case decision by Mr. Justice Jackson ruled that Barnet’s parking tickets were invalid as they did not have two dates on them, one a date of contravention and the other a date of issue. He also said that any parking ticket needs those two dates to be valid.

Barrie of www.AppealNow.com™, who has also successfully challenged the validity of parking tickets of Lambeth and Tower Hamlets says “This is a stunning victory for motorists who have had to put for years with arrogant councils whose parking tickets were invalid. Barnet Council is the worst council - they have even sent bailiffs in to repossess and sell the car of a blue badge driver, all based on these illegally issued parking tickets.

This legal precedent also in my view opens up a huge problems for Councils all over the UK”

Says Barrie “Parking tickets have to comply with a strict legal requirement. Under the Road Traffic Act 1991 the date of issue, amongst other things, must be shown on the parking ticket. In the Barnet and other cases it was not.

I have previously told the Chief Parking Adjudicator in London, the National Parking Appeals Service and the Scottish Appeals Service that in the interests of justice all adjudicators must consider the validity of the parking ticket when the make their decision. The fact that Parking Adjudicators have not done this as a matter of course is unacceptable.. Following this decision they will have no choice.


END

Notes for Editors
Technical information.
The Parking Tickets (technically called a Penalty Charge Notice or PCN) do not comply with Section 66 of the Road Traffic Act 1991(“RTA 1991”)
Section 66 (3) states
(3) A penalty charge notice must state [my emphasis and underlining]—
(a) the grounds on which the parking attendant believes that a penalty charge is payable with respect to the vehicle;
(b) the amount of the penalty charge which is payable;
(c) that the penalty charge must be paid before the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the date of the notice;
(d) that if the penalty charge is paid before the end of the period of 14 days beginning with the date of the notice, the amount of the penalty charge will be reduced by the specified proportion;
(e) that, if the penalty charge is not paid before the end of the 28 day period, a notice to owner may be served by the London authority on the person appearing to them to be the owner of the vehicle;
(f) the address to which payment of the penalty charge must be sent.

Information about Barrie Segal and www.AppealNow.com™,

Barrie Segal, the founder of APPEALNOW.com™, has been described by Richard Hammond of “Top Gear” Fame as the “UK’s leading Parking Ticket expert”. He has reviewed in excess of 6,000 parking tickets.
The Barnet case is the latest in a long line of cases where successfully challenged the legality of three London councils’ parking tickets and had 455,000 annual parking tickets, generating £17 million, declared illegal and unenforceable. He has reviewed approximately 10,000 parking tickets and is currently challenging more local authorities where the annual figures involved are in excess of £60 million. In particular he believes that all of Scotland’s councils have been issuing illegal parking tickets.
He has a regular phone-in programme on TalkSport Radio and is a regular contributor to numerous TV shows and radio programmes, including BBC TV’s BBC London News, Real Story, BBC TV’s Breakfast News, BBC3 TV News, Radio 5.and LBC Radio
Barrie assisted Which? Magazine’s latest report on parking tickets which received the largest number of letters on any subject the magazine has ever received.
He has also given technical advice to many TV programmes on parking tickets, including the BBC’s Whistleblowers series. He has now been asked to give after dinner speeches about the humorous, annoying and downright wicked sides of the parking ticket system.
In 2003, he founded the Crazy Parking Ticket Awards to highlight the absurd way our parking ticket laws are enforced by local authorities. The first year’s winner was a rabbit which had a parking ticket slapped on its hutch.
He has also been in the forefront of viral advertising on the Internet, having commissioned three viral adverts for his AppealNow.com website. Two of those adverts won Gold Awards at the Cannes International Advertising Awards Festival late last year and one of his viral adverts, Kicking, has been seen by an estimated 5 million people on the Internet.
Barrie has submitted evidence on parking matters to both the London Assembly and the Parliamentary Transport Committee on Parking. He also regularly represents clients before the Parking Adjudicator
He believes that one way to help people fight incorrect parking tickets is to use humour to highlight the lengths to which councils go to issue parking tickets. His files contain thousands of stories and anecdotes on parking tickets, clamping and tow-aways, as well as the congestion charge. He has found that the subject of parking tickets is of universal interest to motorists in Britain, few of whom have been lucky enough to escape the scourge of the parking attendant.
In his “other” life, Barrie is a Chartered Accountant who specialises in company turnarounds, financial advice and IT systems for business. In the mid-80s he was Managing Director in charge of U.S. Operations for an internationally famous restaurant chain and for many years was Senior Tax Partner at a well-known firm of Chartered Accountants. He has also lectured extensively on international tax.