'Illegal' Devon County Council parking fines investigated

'Illegal' Devon County Council parking fines investigated

www.bbc.co.uk

Police are investigating whether Devon County Council has illegally issued thousands of pounds in parking fine notices, the BBC has learnt.

Officers are looking into whether fines were collected from motorists without correct traffic orders from the council being in place to regulate highways in some areas.

Devon and Cornwall Police said fraud squad officers were investigating.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, there's not actually a lot to report on this.. there's only about the same amount of text again on the BBC site that adds just a little bit more info..
It seems someone wants this kept as quiet as possible..

I reckon it goes beyond Devon.. and may possibly cover the entire country.. Every council may be up to the same tricks.

I received a parking ticket a year ago.. But I did not pay up. Firslty there was a sticker placed by someone over the no parking/loading only sign,. secondly the road markings are so badly worn that you cannot clearly read the "loading only" words or see a clear definition of the white lines.

All of the above MUST be in good order, clear and precise (fir for the job) as required by law.
I took photos of the road markings and based them as my sole claim to not pay the ticket.. A few months later the council wrote back and told me my ticket was cancelled due to a sticker on the sign.. At the time, I had no idea about any sticker..
The road markings are still in very poor condition.. but I have not seen any traffic wardens around here since..

I can only wonder as to how many people just pay up, without knowing the legal side of things ,they could get away with it. It's then the councils fault for not maintaining the highways as they are required to do.

I'm not too sure as to what they are saying in the news report as to the 'fraud' claims, I hope someone will make it more clear soon.

either way, it's a slap in the face for the council.. Was once the police forces job, handed over to the council and then wham bam... fraud claims..

lol.. you gotta like 'em for trying..
Politicians and public servants.. As if the police don't have enough to do.. I mean have enough officers... um...

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Devon hey.....well i can tell you that this has been happening in areas of london since 1997.....

internal fraud is rife....its an epidemic....clampers doing what they want....keeping the fines for the pub.....they tried it with me once....sorry but you have to get gritty and street on them.....as the police wont back them...just know that

peace

For anyone with any motoring ticket issued they should definetly have look at THIS SITE which has loads of information about how to get off with tickets.

The forum is well worth a read to see the sort of things that go on.

The site has helped me on several occasions

People, always appeal. Even when they have got you bang to rights appeal. This Devon story explain why should always appeal. By paying up without appealing, you admit liability. By appealing you refuse this liability even if the decision goes against you.

When you get a parking fine, you can be sure the local authority have got it wrong somewhere. The lines could be drawn badly, signs could be facing the wrong way or you had to pull over to go to the toilet.

Even when the council use a belt and braces approach and double up on the signage, appeal on the grounds that the clutter was confusing. Photograph all the signs, the different times displayed, anything and everything and compare it to the Highway Codes and Regulations and inundate the magistrate once you go through the local authority appeal process.

They don't play fair and now want to issue tickets via cctv so they don't have to pay the wages of the parking wardens.


APPEAL, APPEAL, APPEAL,

Originally posted by Ml5edtoDeath

APPEAL, APPEAL, APPEAL,

Don't forget to point out the risks of appealing fines, especially if all the procedures have been followed. You can run up quite a costs order if it doesn't go in your favour.

reply to post by EvillerBob


I don't think that is correct.

If you get a ticket and the fine is set at say £60, if you pay right away sometimes you get let off with paying half, that would be £30.

If you don't pay right away and appeal the most you can pay is the full amount, which in this case would be £60. You cant be made to pay any more than that.

Originally posted by bigyin

If you don't pay right away and appeal the most you can pay is the full amount, which in this case would be £60. You cant be made to pay any more than that.

The CPS can (and often do) ask the court to award costs to cover an unsuccesful appeal. Fine + mandatory victim surchage + costs soon adds up and your £60 fine can potentially cost you an awful lot more. I've seen a speeding ticket (defendant was offered a speed awareness course instead of points or a fine but refused) end up costing just under £2k after a de novo hearing, though that was a rather unique case. The moral of that story was (i) don't trust websites that guarantee ways to beat any speeding ticket and (ii) if you're still going to fight, hire a lawyer. Another moral was "don't seek to rely on expert witness evidence if you refuse to pay the expert witness to attend" but that's all part and parcel of "hire a lawyer"

Just to clarify, when I say appeal I don't mean writing in and contesting the fine, I mean actually going to court and fighting it there. It may well be that contesting the fine initially wouldn't attract any further costs.

I've been scowering the local news, both online, tv and papers, but am not able to find any further info about this.

I'm not surprised in the least to be honest. It seems from the very small write up that was originally issued that someone, somewhere is trying to keep this quiet.

I've sent a message to someone I know who works for the local paper but am yet to get a reply.

I seriously think they trying to hush this up..

This happened in my town too. I got an £80 parking fine reimbursed a week ago. They basically changed all the parking meters overnight, making them extremely difficult to operate and had new restrictions, as a blue badge holder, they fined me for parking in a disabled spot that now had to be paid for.

It's town councils trying to rake in some money any way they can. They will have made a load of money by people who did not challenge their fines.