London Parking Fine

[sharkymoran]

Received a parking fine the other day which landed on my windscreen a full 3 minutes after my ticket had expired! Furthermore the car registration number on the ticket is a letter out from my own registration.

Couple of questions for you all. Is there a grace period (say 5 mins) to allow for differences between the parking attendants time and my watch?

As the registration is different does this deem the ticket invalid? The attendant took photo's of the car including registration plate so I can't just ignore it, or can I? also I wouldn't like some other poor sod getting hassled for non payment.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, I'll also post this in the motoring section.

[dannydingbat]

Don't pay the fixed penalty, go for your day in court and listen to the evidence which the traffic warden gives. Either he will give your correct number which differs from the ticket which will allow you to question his general accuracy and discredit what he says. If he gives the incorrect number, he is not telling the truth, again, his credibility is blown. You are in a win win situation and will succeed.

[Law Man1856]

Just to add that the accuracy of parking meter timers are highly questionable and you can ask for evidence of the last time it was checked for accuracy.

No grace period is allowed but the difference between the ticket Reg No and the correct number must bring an element of dought.

If you write in they may cancel the ticket if you point out the differences.

[jennyp]

Have a look on http://www.pepipoo.com/ It does seem to be invalid. There are loads of things that have to be complied with on tickets - doesn't take much for them to be invalid.

[JudgeJ]

Unfortunately (some may say) you do not get your �day in court� to contest a parking penalty. The offences were decriminalised some time ago and you must appeal firstly to the issuing authority and, if this fails, to an independent parking adjudicator.

During this appeal you do not generally get the opportunity to cross-examine any witnesses on the accuracy or otherwise of their evidence. The adjudicator normally considers only written evidence.

If this appeal fails then the matter may well end up in court. However, this will be the County Court to which the issuing authority will refer the matter for recovery of what is a civil debt. There, you will not have the chance to make representations regarding the imposition of the penalty, or the evidence against you, or the conduct of the appeal. The County Court will only need to be satisfied that the appeals procedure was correctly undertaken and will not review the result or the evidence.

There is one advantage to this process in favour of the alleged miscreant and that is, unlike fines, you cannot be sent to prison for non-payment of civil debts.

[sharkymoran]

Thank you all for your sound and very helpful advice. I will go down the appeal route taking your advice on board and see how things pan out.

[cabnett]

If the registration number is wrong on the ticket it deems the ticket invalid, i had the same problem, never paid and was never contacted to pay the fine