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Someone else’s mistake, but my daughter had to fork out
• MY daughter was diagnosed with MS when she was 24 and her eldest daughter was just a month old.
Last month, a neighbour called to say that my daughter’s car had been clamped. She called the clampers, and was told the badge was out of date. Having never received a letter to go and collect a new one, she phoned the permit office to be told that, due to someone’s mistake in the office, she had been taken off the list.
Despite admitting it was their mistake, she was told she would have to pay the £147 charge. This she was unable to do, so I gave her my credit card info. But they refused to take it.
So, at nearly 88 years, and not being able to walk very far, I took three buses to Holloway to pay. Perhaps you can understand why I am so angry?
Name and address supplied
• NICHOLAS de Jongh is probably perfectly right to oppose his £80 penalty fine (Playwright says parking wardens have lost the plot, October 30).
I had a very similar case, albeit in Hackney, where a friend parked such that her wheel was on or over the white line of some bays which had formerly been metered. An officious traffic warden gave her a ticket on each of three days of a bank holiday weekend.
I obtained the relevant order under which the parking regulations were made (Hackney Council kindly provided a copy). It was soon apparent that, although the white lines remained on the road, they were not within the definition of parking bays because the meters had been removed, so the tickets were void.
I found that lower-level Hackney staff could not grasp this legal point, but when (a day before we were due to go before the Parking Commissioner for London) I spoke to the head of parking enforcement on the telephone he immediately conceded (with good grace).
Mr de Jongh should stick to his guns and see if he can succeed in the same way I did.
Peter Williams
Solicitor, City Road, EC1 |
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