The Extent Of Bad Advice
We are constantly amazed at the lengths people will goto to avoid paying correctly issued parking charges. In many cases the amount of time and effort they put into trying to avoid payment far outweighs the original charge when time, effort, stress and the eventual court hearing is taken into account - We are not stating a parking charge should be paid if it has been wrongly issued but if a person genuinely feels the ticket is wrong they should appeal and state the reasons why without delay so it can be investigated and cancelled where appropriate.
We experienced an individual "David Keates" from Telford, Shropshire who parked on private land belonging to a client - In order to try and avoid paying the charge he stated that he was a police officer on official business.
It actually transpired he was a civilian employee working for the police and definitely not on any type of police business at all, he then posted on various internet forums that are setup to assist people to avoid paying parking charges or other types or tickets/parking penalties using his computer within the police headquarters where he worked.
Mr Keates was so vocal in one of these forums he called his colleagues employed as "PCSOs" sloppy and even advised one person to sue colleagues of a neighbouring police force.
A formal complaint was made to the professional standards of the relevant police force who immediately suspended Mr Keates and due to the seriousness of Mr Keates actions they were considering disciplinary action that could have resulted in his dismissal from a well paid, professional job within the Police Service - Mr Keates decided to resign.... All for a £60 parking charge correctly applied to his vehicle.
Mr David Keates still gives advice on various internet forums under the guise of leegomery16 and Southpaw82 (however like many of these armchair lawyers he may have many identities from which he gives bad advice).
UPDATE: (July 2008) Mr Keates is such an amazing lawyer - he has contacted a solicitor to ask us to remove the story above (surely, if he was that knowledgeable of the law he would have taken legal action himself) ... We have refused as everything in the above statement is CORRECT ...
We recently had a person who refused to take responsibility for a parking charge, stating he knew nothing about it, he lent his car to various people and he could not state who was driving or in fact if it was even his vehicle - We produced a witness (the ticket issuer who described and then identified the defendant) and CCTV at the court.
The defendant was ordered to pay over £200 for the original ticket and costs, he was also reported and charged by the police for a criminal offence of lying in court - this case is now progressing through the court system but again it shows that a person trying to avoid a correctly issued parking charge resulted in the ticket costing more than 3 times the original amount and he will probably receive a criminal record.