Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi folks, my elderly father parked on a single yellow line on 6th August and displayed his blue badge. However, he received a PCN since he parked during restricted hours as suggested by nearby signage. He was issued a yellow ticket by an officer and was displayed on the car window. My father duly obliged and paid the PCN.

Some weeks later on 5th September he received a Notice to Owner letter from Redbridge council saying he has not paid the PCN and full payment was due. We saw that the PCN no. on the letter (AF10903686) does not seem match the one which issued by the civil enforcement officer (AF10903675). Unfortunately my dad discarded the yellow ticket once paid so cannot fully confirm this but I know you cannot pay a fine on the Redbridge website if you don't get the details correct - you cannot pay for an invalid PCN no. My father appealed with the payment screenshots but the council rejected this saying payment was made but for a different PCN. This is not the case however, it seems the council have made a mistake on their end.

So they have given him the option to either appeal to London Tribunals or pay the 'outstanding' amount of £80 within 14 days after which the 'full' amount of £80 will become due! So they seem to validate the initial payment towards this PCN but if he paid on time this doesn't make sense.

To make matters even more complicated they mention another random and different PCN no. in the letter.."As no payment has been received for PCN AF10804083, it remains outstanding and valid".

Any suggestions/recommendations on how to proceed? Thinking to help my father appeal to London Tribunals.

Google Street View link - click here.

The signage details are not clear on the link but you can see in these photos taken by the officer there are parking restrictions between 8am-6:30pm and he parked there around 1pm. No signs of dashed yellow lines on the kerb just the single yellow line on the road so he's fallen foul of the signage restrictions but aren't the council wrong in asking for full payment when he has already paid?

I suggest you ask them to provide evidence on the PCN he paid. Either there are two against his car, or he paid for somebody else's PCN by mistake.

And also ask for full details of the third PCN AF10804083,  which they say was not paid and is still outstanding.

PCNs AF10804083 and AF101903675 (the PCN the payment was applied to) currently cannot be found on the Redbridge PCN portal.

AF10903686 is found but it says it's beyond the 28 day limit to submit representations. There doesn't seem to be any accessible photos. How did you get them?

However the elephant in the room is the Blue Badge. By virtue of display of the BB father is entitled to a three hour exemption from any yellow line restrictions, providing that there were no loading restrictions in-force at the time of parking. The photos don't seem to show any yellow kerb dashes so that means no loading restrictions applied. You say father parked around 1pm and the first photo is timed at 13:06:42. So the three hours has barely started.

Is the sign in the photos on the same side of the road as where father parked?
Was the car parked to the right or the left of the sign?

Why didn't you, or rather your father, mention the BB in the formal representation against the Notice to Owner? Or did you?

Was the time on the BB clock set correctly? From the photos I can just about make out that there is a clock but not the time that's set. Do you have any clearer photos of the BB and clock as displayed?

And yes the letter does seem to imply that £80 has been applied against the PCN referenced in the NTO and at the top of the Notice of Rejection. The amounts due if you lose at Adjudication or if a Charge Certificate is issued are incorrect. They can only be reconciled if a part payment of £80 has been applied.

I suggest you ask them to provide evidence on the PCN he paid. Either there are two against his car, or he paid for somebody else's PCN by mistake.

Thanks, will ask them.

And also ask for full details of the third PCN AF10804083,  which they say was not paid and is still outstanding.

Sure, I'll request PCN details for the one I paid for and the third one they randomly mentioned (AF108040830).

PCNs AF10804083 and AF101903675 (the PCN the payment was applied to) currently cannot be found on the Redbridge PCN portal.

Yes exactly, I couldn't find anything related to the paid one so I feel they issued a PCN and it's linked to a PCN number different to the issued one.

AF10903686 is found but it says it's beyond the 28 day limit to submit representations. There doesn't seem to be any accessible photos. How did you get them?

When you go to Pay for the PCN it shows photos.

However the elephant in the room is the Blue Badge. By virtue of display of the BB father is entitled to a three hour exemption from any yellow line restrictions, providing that there were no loading restrictions in-force at the time of parking. The photos don't seem to show any yellow kerb dashes so that means no loading restrictions applied. You say father parked around 1pm and the first photo is timed at 13:06:42. So the three hours has barely started.

Is the sign in the photos on the same side of the road as where father parked?
Was the car parked to the right or the left of the sign?

Yes he hadn't parked there anywhere close to 3 hours, think he received the ticket soon after he parked there. He was parked right next to the sign so where you see the photos, the pole is located in the middle part of the car so he was in between:


The signage does say No Loading so would he be done for that?

Why didn't you, or rather your father, mention the BB in the formal representation against the Notice to Owner? Or did you?

No the BB wasn't mentioned, my father paid the penalty initially so this was considered a done matter, this representation was made to challenge that he had already paid. The appeal just mentioned that the PCN was already paid and screenshots were provided of the bank transaction as proof. The council though responded that he paid for another PCN and is unrelated 

Was the time on the BB clock set correctly? From the photos I can just about make out that there is a clock but not the time that's set. Do you have any clearer photos of the BB and clock as displayed?

Don't have any clearer photos but he is sure it was done correctly and hadn't parked longer than 3 hours.

And yes the letter does seem to imply that £80 has been applied against the PCN referenced in the NTO and at the top of the Notice of Rejection. The amounts due if you lose at Adjudication or if a Charge Certificate is issued are incorrect. They can only be reconciled if a part payment of £80 has been applied.

Strangely when you go to pay for this they request £160 on the portal but the letter states £80!

The contravention on the PCN is incorrect. At least for PCN AF10903686 and assuming the photos are applicable to that PCN. That's why I asked where he was parked relative to the sign.

If father has encroached into the loading restriction then the contravention should be 02 Parked or loading/unloading in a restricted street where waiting and loading/unloading restrictions are in force.
His Blue Badge wouldn't have provided any exemption.

However the above contravention is not alleged. It's 01a Parked in a restricted street during prescribed hours.
Father is entitled to a 3 hour exemption for parking on a yellow line where no loading restrictions are in force. So this contravention did not occur.

I would challenge and appeal on the basis that the alleged contravention is incorrect.

Incidentally the suffix "a" in the contravention is for a temporary traffic order which does not seem to be correct either.

However I still think it would be useful to find out the contravention, location and photos for PCN AF10903675, the PCN that father's payment has been applied to according to the receipt.

And likewise AF10804083 which the Council says hasn't been paid. Judging by the serial number this might be an earlier PCN.

I think you're on your way to the London Tribunals to sort out this mess.

None of the photos on the Redbridge site show a PCN stuck to the windscreen. Which is unusual unless this was a driveway before the PCN could be served.

And in case it becomes relevant my understanding is the the last character of a PCN number is a checksum and can be a numeric or the letter A. This suggests to me that AF10903686 is the PCN immediately following AF10903675.

At a guess it seems that AF10903675 was attached to the car window at some point. Father found it and paid it.
However a second PCN AF10903686 had been issued, maybe because the first had a mistake. The second PCN wasn't attached to the car. At the moment there is no proof of any of that, other than father paid a PCN.

So I suggest you ask for copies of all three PCNs or failing that full details of all three PCNs, the dates, times and locations of issue, the alleged contraventions, the CEOs badge numbers, copies of the CEOs contemporaneous notes and all photos associated with the PCNs. Not just the few that are on the website.

I think this is simple ( in theory ). Your father was not served with the unpaid pcn otherwise he would have paid i and that is a complete defence. If he had received both, he would have queried it. I am happy to be your tribunal representative. Email mrmustard@zoho.com. Free save for a charity donation. The same happened to a client in Barnet except he didn't pay, consecutive pcn refs, the last digit is a check digit so ignore it and then the numbers are sequential.