3. Messages

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - MincePie57

Pages: [1]
1
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 07, 2025, 10:55:39 pm »
Quote from: NewJudge on January 06, 2025, 04:41:35 pm
No, I don't think so.

Assuming a charge is raised under bylaw 14.4 ("the owner of any motor vehicle, bicycle or other conveyance used, left or placed in breach of Byelaw 14(1) to 14(3) may be liable to pay a penalty as displayed in that area") I see no reason why the prosecution should succeed if they asked the court to make that assumption.

The prosecution has to prove who committed the offence with which the defendant has been charged. The "mischief" is the parking contravention under bylaw 14.3 and that can only be committed by the “person in charge of the vehicle.”

What they would be expecting in those circumstances would be firstly the transfer of a criminal charge from the alleged perpetrator to A N Other and then to expect the court to assume that because A N Other was the RK of the car, he was necessarily the owner (and so somehow was responsible for the original mischief).

I believe any one of those two steps would be a step too far to support a criminal conviction.

I think the conventions provided for the convenience of parking companies and adjudicators to make it easier for them to recover their penalty charges do not transfer very satisfactorily to the criminal justice system.

Okay, thank you! I'll keep this thread updated with how it goes.

2
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 06, 2025, 02:08:51 pm »
Quote from: Southpaw82 on January 05, 2025, 02:30:06 pm
Quote from: NewJudge on January 05, 2025, 01:13:13 pm
Section 172 is not available to TOCs (unless they can persuade the BTP to issue them on their behalf) but that’s scarcely the defendant’s fault. Or am I really missing something fundamental?

Section 172 isn’t available at all, because the offence in question doesn’t fall within section 172(1).

People seem to be overcomplicating what is a simple question of evidence. Does the prosecution have sufficient evidence so that the court can be sure that the defendant was the person in charge of the vehicle (etc.)? Yes or no. If the only evidence the prosecution has is that the defendant is the registered keeper and the defendant elects not to give evidence then the answer is likely to be “no”.

Good to know! So we don't think that they can assume that the relative is the owner and charge them based off of that?

3
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 06, 2025, 02:06:16 pm »
Quote from: NewJudge on January 05, 2025, 03:05:53 pm
Quote

I believe if the OP's relative does face a trial it should fall at half time because the prosecution will be unable to prove who committed the offence. If the court does find there is a case to answer it should hopefully not be too difficult for him to prove he was not in charge of the vehicle. But it should not really be for him to prove his innocence.

I hope this is what happens! I'll keep you all updated.

4
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 06, 2025, 02:01:44 pm »
Quote from: Foxy01 on January 05, 2025, 02:54:20 pm
Northern Rail disappeared in 2016. Is there a company number on the ticket? Or is it Northern Railway?

Also how did they obtain the registered keeper details? (I'm sure there was a thread on Pepipoo regarding TOC's, probably related to Southern, there was issues with keeper details)

It's northern railway, and I guess they retrieved the details from the DVLA. It only took about a month.

5
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 04, 2025, 06:08:55 pm »
Quote from: NewJudge on January 04, 2025, 01:37:52 pm

Before you advise him to do that, could you find out if there was a “statement of facts” provided with the SJPN and if so, what it said.

The statement of facts is below:

"On x date, at x hours, vehicle number XXX was parked in an area where charges are made for parking by the operator without paying the appropriate charge at the appropriate time via the RingGo system, this is in contravention of the appropriate instructions, notices and markings displayed in the car park. A Penalty Parking Notice was therefore issued and placed on the vehicle showing that it had failed to pay the appropriate charge and a penalty was now outstanding, full instructions of where to send payment or dispute the matter are clearly printed on the notice. Payment was not received, therefore enquiries were made to the DVLA as to the rightful keeper. It was verified that the defendant was the registered keeper. Two letters were sent to the defendant requesting the outstanding payment. However to dispute or payment has been received."

6
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 04, 2025, 06:06:03 pm »
Quote from: Southpaw82 on January 04, 2025, 05:32:05 pm
Quote from: MincePie57 on January 04, 2025, 01:01:33 am
I am so shocked that a court even thinks this is worth pursuing.

It’s not up to the court. Whether a charge is worth pursuing is up to the prosecutor.

Do you have much experience with these things?

7
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 04, 2025, 06:05:35 pm »
Quote from: DWMB2 on January 04, 2025, 03:53:23 pm
I note there was previously mention of APCOA. OP, can you share the original ticket with us (or send it to me via direct message if you prefer) - if APCOA cases are now being prosecuted we may need to change our advice for future cases on the private forum, although I suspect this case may not actually involve APCOA, as Northern generally manage their own car parks.

It says Northern Rail on the ticket, not APCOA. When this happened, I went to the Money Saving Expert master post on parking fines, and the only bit about railway parking mentioned APCOA or Saba. I found out that Northern Rail uses APCOA parking services at all of their car parks, so I (wrongly) assumed that this was an APCOA fine. There is very little online about being ticketed by the actual TOC itself - hopefully this post can help the next person.

8
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 04, 2025, 01:01:33 am »
Thank you! I am going to advise my relative to tick not guilty and then provide proof in the court of where they were that day (not with the car). I am hopeful that this is enough. Will they then start pursuing further or is that it? I am so shocked that a court even thinks this is worth pursuing. At any point should it be pointed out that their dumb app doesn't work? The trouble is, we all know if I had appealed by saying that the app didn't work, the train company would just pretend that it was working fine, be happy they had my information, and then pursue us instead. It's an unwinnable situation. We had a very important appointment that we needed to go to this day and this car park had been completely free my entire life!

9
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 03, 2025, 09:31:27 pm »
Hi, thank you for your response! I have read through those - my partner says I have spent probably too much time reading about this situation aha!  There is a charge sheet, a witness statement from the person who put the windscreen ticket there, a statement from the "investigator" of Northern Trains, and exhibits of photos of the car in the car park. There is also a HM Courts and Tribunal Service MC100 printout.

I do agree that they will have difficulty proving who the driver was. In this case, the driver was not the keeper of the car, so any video evidence they have will clearly show that. I have seen that other rail companies have been successful in their SJPs before, but I am not sure what will happen in this case as the owner was not in charge of the car at all in this instance.

10
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 03, 2025, 07:04:25 pm »
The charge is:

"Whilst in charge of a motor vehicle, registration number XXX was parked on a part of the railway where charges were made for parking by an operator or authorised person and failed to pay the appropriate charge at the appropriate time in accordance with instructions given by the perator or an authorised person at that place. Contrary to byelaw 14(3) and 24 of the Railway Byelaws made under Section 219 of the Transport Act 2000 by the Strategic Railway Authority and confirmed under schedule 20 of the Transport Act 2000, as amneded by Section 46 of the Railways Act 2005."

11
Speeding and other criminal offences / Re: Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 03, 2025, 07:02:06 pm »
The offense is "failure to pay appropriate charge."

I am not sure if it is best to go along the lines of explaining that it was actually us parking and that we were not able to pay due to their useless app, or if it is best for her to just say it wasn't her driving.

12
Speeding and other criminal offences / Single Justice Procedure for Railway Parking Fine
« on: January 03, 2025, 06:12:01 pm »
Hello,

My husband and I parked using a relatives car in a train station car park. I tried to pay for parking, but there was no way to pay on site, you had to download an app instead (RingGo). The app would simply not let me pay or even make an account, because it is done by phone number. I tried to create a new account to pay, and it sent me a text message saying that I already had one with this phone number. It let me request a passcode to log in. I used the passcode, and it told me that there was no account with that number, and to create a new account. I tried to create a new account, and it sent me another text telling me that I already had an account. I was stuck in this loop for ages. I tried for 30 minutes to pay but ultimately gave up.

There was a windscreen notice on the car when we came back. I did my best to research how these typically go and found out that this was APCOA and would time out after 6 months. You try to appeal but never say who the driver is, etc. My relative then recieved a few menacing letters about how it was a criminal offense etc. Unfortunately I missed the date to appeal, but I had read online that these time out after 6 months and that they never try to pursue criminal action.

Well apparently they are pursing criminal action as my relative has now recieved a single justice procedure notice. How should we respond to this? Obviously we were the ones driving, not my relative. Do we need a lawyer?

Truly insane! I guess they really enjoy ruining people's lives so that they can make more money. If I explain what happened to a court would they see the railway company as the big bully that they are? Or should the onus be on proving that it was my relative driving, which wasn't the case??

Pages: [1]