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Chislehurst carer pays parking fine in pennies (From News Shopper)
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Chislehurst carer pays parking fine in pennies
9:54am Wednesday 3rd December 2008
A CARER decided to pay an £80 parking fine in pennies after failing in her attempts to get the penalty overturned.
Maggie Gebbett, 63, was handed a parking fine after failing to pay and display in South Street, Bromley, in May.
The mother-of-two claims the hot weather made her £2.20 ticket peel off the car window.
She immediately appealed against the decision but despite months of wrangling with Bromley Council she was told in November that her £80 fine would increase to £120 if she didn’t pay.
So Mrs Gebbett, of Yester Road, Chislehurst, visited the civic offices in Bromley with her husband Martin yesterday (December 2) to pay the entire fine with a wheelbarrow filled with pennies.
She says that even after an adjudicating lawyer found her to be “an honest, credible and convincing witness” and said the fine should be cancelled, the council would not reconsider its decision.
The member of Chislehurst Rotary Club said: “I had to wait three quarters of an hour for staff to count all the money, I thought I was going to have another parking fine waiting for me!
“I am furious about the whole business and most upset about being criminalised when I have not broken the law.
“In fact, I did all I could to comply with the law - I paid and I displayed.
“If the gum on the parking ticket is not up to the job, that is not my fault.”
She added: “Going after innocent motorists is extortion.
“The qualified lawyer in London recommends that Bromley Council drop the charge against me. Why are they not doing so?”
It was revealed by News Shopper last month that Bromley Council made £1.1million profit from penalty charge notices in the last financial year.
A spokesman for the council said: "The adjudicator concluded that the contravention did occur and the penalty charge notice was issued correctly.
"Motorists need to ensure that they display their pay and display ticket correctly.
"As the appeal process has finished, the motorist needed to pay the £80 penalty charge, which she has done."
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Your Say YourShopper
Sunny Girl, London says...
12:21pm Wed 3 Dec 08
What a system, what a country - what a load of b*u*l*l
Sunny
Sunny Girl, London says...
12:21pm Wed 3 Dec 08
What a system, what a country - what a load of b*u*l*l
Sunny
porkpie, SE London says...
12:33pm Wed 3 Dec 08
Lukeyboy wrote:Just what I was thinking. Also she " “I had to wait three quarters of an hour for staff to count all the money, I thought I was going to have another parking fine waiting for me! " That would have served you right . What have the staff at the office done to you ? "Mrs Gebbett, of Yester Road, Chislehurst" - Not a cheap road on some estate then. " most upset about being criminalised when I have not broken the law" It's not the law and your not going to end up with a record dear. Calm down it's just a parking ticket. I do find it funny that they have gone off & got a lawyer how much did that cost ?
Where is the ticket. Surely if you have one for that date and time and you show that it wont stick to a window they will have to listen?
Orp23, Orpington says...
1:24pm Wed 3 Dec 08
porkpie wrote:Ha Ha - Couldnt have said it better myself.....
Lukeyboy wrote: Where is the ticket. Surely if you have one for that date and time and you show that it wont stick to a window they will have to listen?Just what I was thinking. Also she " “I had to wait three quarters of an hour for staff to count all the money, I thought I was going to have another parking fine waiting for me! " That would have served you right . What have the staff at the office done to you ? "Mrs Gebbett, of Yester Road, Chislehurst" - Not a cheap road on some estate then. " most upset about being criminalised when I have not broken the law" It's not the law and your not going to end up with a record dear. Calm down it's just a parking ticket. I do find it funny that they have gone off & got a lawyer how much did that cost ?
Ben88, says...
2:21pm Wed 3 Dec 08
madras, petts wood says...
4:09pm Wed 3 Dec 08
rich27, Lewisham says...
4:51pm Wed 3 Dec 08
Ben88 wrote:People like you make me laugh. Your moaning that the charge is going up and that the ticket wasnt on your windscreen, just pay it!! Pay the first penalty fare as soon as the letter come through your door whether its £30/£60 and even if you believe that you didnt get the ticket. Pay it by credit card and this is when you start to dispute it with the Council because the fine has been paid and it will not go up. If you win your case then it is down to the credit card company to get the money back and they have more power behind them to get it back then you will. Any legal representation that the credit card company use will not be passed to you either.
I too am having a dispute with Bromley Council over a parking ticket as they say a Penalty notice was put on the windscreen of my car but when I’ve returned to my car there wasn't anything there. The first I heard about this penalty was when they wrote to me demanding £60 for not paying within the allocated time. Since disputing the fact that the penalty was never on my car in the first place and asking whether I can just pay £30 my charge has now increased to £90 because the whole time I'm appealing the cost keeps going up!! I can only assume that someone thought it'd be funny to remove the penalty charge before I got back to my car! This has turned out to be a very expensive joke for me!
René Schneider, Münster (Germany) says...
9:43pm Wed 3 Dec 08
Here is the first part of a never ending story: A man in Wuppertal decided to protest legal fines by paying with 29,292 one-cent coins into the county court mail box, the "Westdeutsche Zeitung" reported, ...
URL: http://www.thelocal.
de/society/20080916-
14333.html
URL: http://www.justizkri
tik.de/#80
René Schneider, Münster (Germany) says...
10:01pm Wed 3 Dec 08
MJB, Bexleyheath says...
11:04am Thu 4 Dec 08
She then approached the Parking And Traffic Appeals Service (PATAS) - which use independent lawyers as their adjudicators (hence, the lawyer in the story above). Anyone who gets a fine in London can go to PATAS to appeal their case.
Usually, authorities accept the judgments of PATAS (although they're not obliged to) and, in this case, it seems PATAS suggested the fine be cancelled. LB Bromley refused.
As much as I agree that people shouldn't try to wriggle out of parking fines if they have deliberately not paid, it does seem like she's a bit hard done by in this case. She had the ticket to prove she paid, had a PATAS judgment in her favour but LB Bromley have dug their heels in and still demanding their money.
No wonder she's annoyed.
René Schneider, Münster (Germany) says...
2:07pm Thu 4 Dec 08
Angry about the loss of money and the wish to strike back has kept this way of paying a fine popuplar for centuries. Not under Stalin, Idi Amin or Kim Il Jung, to be sure. But how childish and pointless a cartload of coins may appear: when well-off people in their fifties and sixties take resort to it, there must to be more behind it than the pubescent joy of getting on the nerves of authorities. May it not be a cry of despair deep in a bureaucratic jungle of which there is often no way out for Mr and Mrs Average?
A cry of citizens who are fed up with watching their tax billions being blown up in all kinds of economic mismanagement and who at the same time see themselves hunted down for the slightest parking offence - to provide fresh money? Thus, paying fines with copper should be regarded as an honourable and recommendable means of fighting administrative complacency.
http://www.wdr.de/me
diathek/html/regiona
l/2008/09/16/aks_04.
xml
Sincerely,
René Schneider
jca111, Bromley says...
11:48am Fri 5 Dec 08
madras wrote:In pennies and 2ps its only 20p, so they did not have to accept it. 5 & 10p are £5 max, 20 & 50p is £10 and above that is unlimited.
Not sure what the figure is, but legal tender for small coins is a relatively small sum and so I guess the council would have been within their rights to refuse payment in pennies and sent her and her wheelbarrow away - what an un-original 'protest'
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Maggie and Martin Gebbett paid an £80 parking fine in pennies in protest at the fine
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Lukeyboy, Over here! says...
11:34am Wed 3 Dec 08