A fine day for drivers (From Times Series)

A fine day for drivers

9:20am Thursday 2nd October 2008

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Tens of thousands of motorists penalised for driving in bus lanes earlier this year could have appealed against their fines.

Barnet Council issued 33,817 penalty charge notices (PCNs) which failed to use the correct wording and one of these was quashed in an appeal last week.

Robert Southgate, a 47-year-old police constable from Hendon, was fined £120 for driving in a bus lane in The Hyde on December 28 last year.

He successfully appealed on the grounds that the wording on the penalty charge notice (PCN) did not comply with the law.

But a Barnet Council spokesman said: “Appeals considered by the parking appeals adjudicator are done on a case by case basis. The decision made in Mr Southgate’s case does not affect any penalty charge notices issued to other motorists.”

A ruling by an adjudicator does not set a precedent, nor can the 24,593 similar notices that have been paid already be appealed retrospectively.

Mr Southgate’s notice was declared invalid because it stated he had to pay the charge within 28 days “beginning with the date that this notice was delivered”, rather than with-in 28 days “beginning with the date of this notice”, as the law stipulates.

The constable, who is an IT trainer, from Welwyn Garden City, said: “You would have thought they would have got their paperwork right by now, but evidently not.

“This will hopefully teach them a lesson. They are absolutely strict with the letter of the law if you are in a bus lane for only a few seconds, so this will show them that it works both ways.”

The council said the wording was the result of a “computer error” and it adopted the phrase “beginning with the date on which this penalty charge notice was served”, on March 31.

The council spokesman added the alteration did not mean the council agreed with the adjudicator’s decision in Mr Southgate’s case.

“Barnet Council feels its interpretation of the Act was fairer on the motorist as it gave a longer period to either pay or lodge an appeal,”

he said.

The ruling last Thursday came two years after Barnet lost its case against Hugh Moses at the High Court for failing to put both the date of contravention and date of issue on parking tickets — a verdict that led to thousands of overturned tickets in Barnet and other local authorities throughout the country.

Parking expert Barry Segal, who argued Hugh Moses’ case in the High Court, said the new wording could be equally at fault because the date a notice is “served” is five days later than the original date of the notice.”

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