It is believable that something like this could push someone over the edge but it cannot be taken in isolation.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/...e-jerome-rogers

Courier Jerome Rogers killed himself after his bike was seized. A BBC drama tells his story and examines wider issues about debt

It started with two £65 traffic fines, one for being in a bus lane a few minutes before the restrictions ended, the other for making a prohibited right turn. Within a matter of months, those two penalties had spiralled into a debt of more than £1,000 – and then the bailiffs swooped, clamping the motorbike that was essential to Jerome Rogers’ work as a courier delivering blood and other medical items to hospitals.

It ended with the 20-year-old taking his own life.

The case prompted calls for tougher regulation of the debt-collection industry, and is now the basis of a one-hour factual drama for BBC Three available from Tuesday (29 May) on BBC iPlayer.

Penalties (PCN), as in this case, go to the council, not the treasury. Court fines and Police fixed penalties go to the Treasury.

Just watched it on Catch up TV.

IMO a poorly informed young 'ostrich' that did not seek help from family and spent too much time watching 'losers' on reddit etc contemplating suicide as a answer for their problems. Debt can be a downward spiral, unless you break free.
If you want to blame anything blame the self-employed, zero hours, gig economy.
What hope would a Creditor have, without recourse to the Courts and Bailiff enforcement?

Read about it on the BBC website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/How_debt_kills

For those self righteous people who post on here, maybe they'd like to tell us how this young chap could have possible paid even the initial penalties never mind the £1000. The councils are Shylocks and accept no staged payments at all they just want their pound of flesh, or in this case about a hundredweight. True wickedness is found in councils

This post has been edited by Incandescent: Thu, 31 May 2018 - 08:26

Perhaps explain how the regulations would allow them to collect staged payments? AIUI there is no concept of it in the regs, so if someone reneged on a staged payments deal the council would have great difficulty enforcing at all?

For starters he could have asked the council to exercise discretion to cancel, it probably would have been refused but they would have extended the discount window. Secondly, he should have prioritised paying the PCNs over all other expenditure, including the bike repayments (Mum's boyfriend would have understood). Thirdly, if he'd gone to the tribunal, even if he'd eventually lost, he would have had the better part of half a year to save up the money. For two PCNs totalling £260 that's £10 a week for 26 weeks, and that's assuming he couldn't get at least one of the PCNs cancelled or withdrawn along the way.

The real issue is, he could have done a number of things, but chose to do nothing, which resulted in the debt escalating to unsustainable levels.

Indeed, that is the point !

The system takes no account of circumstances unlike the criminal law. When I was 20 I was pretty naive and ignorant, but as I aged I got wiser. What is needed is an intermediate stage of the process that comes in when a PCN and subsequent documents have been ignored, (no payment or appeal). This would involve a visit by the enforcing body to the address of the PCN recipient. From this a report would be produced of the circumstances of the registered keeper and inform subsequent action. Part of this might be to recognise ability to pay and a possible offer of staged payments. Obviously where a PCN reipient was cynically trying to "get away scot-free", then the report would be able to recommend registering the debt. Nowhere is it recognised that people do not live bureaucratically tidy lives and not all are able to judge what consequences there might be. The introduction of a pre-debt registration meeting could go a long way to reducing the use of bailiffs, and also get the money in, albeit at a staged rate.

The costs involved would be very high, councils are stretch already and this could be financed only by increasing the cost of PCNs enough to ensure the measure remained cost-neutral for councils. Sad as any death might be, a single case does not warrant such a radical policy overhaul.

I don't really believe that a debt of £1000 caused him to take his own life to be honest. I'm sure it may have been a contributing factor if the debt felt like a burdon, but I believe there may have been other influences, whether they be mental health, relation/friendships or otherwise. I'm sympathetic to him and his relatives but ultimately, the system isn't to blame.

If he had taken his own life over £1,000 of credit card debt, would everyone be blaming Visa?

Most of us have debts, generally into 6 figures for mortgages and 4 figures for cars. Most people just get on with it.

I also don't think this country is too bad for fines. I was in Berlin less than 2 hours a month ago and managed to pick up a fine for not validating my train ticket (I did try but in my rush for the train the machine didn't stamp it). And in Venice I've seen signs threatening fines for simply sitting down in St Mark's Square. Both worse than most things we see in the UK tbh.

Try walking around without a shirt in Marbella, or committing some other undefined fashion faux pas - €750.





TBH, I quite like that one. Just a shame that they don't see the crass displays of wealth in Puerto Banus in a similarly dim light.

Councils are stretched on the finances of their parking and traffic enforcement departments ??? Are you kidding ? They are making shedloads of money and the London councils in particular are generating huge surpluses, so there is no case at all of claiming unaffordability bearing in mind cases of no response to PCN and subsequent documents are not a large percentage.
A radical policy overhaul is needed, nay, urgently needed

No I'm not kidding. For example South Gloucestershire subcontracted enforcement to APCOA because their in-house enforcement was losing them over 100k a year. London councils might do very well out of it, but that is not universally the case.

As were and did many.
But the law says you are an adult at 18.
Totally responsible for your actions.

Unfortunately, many parents and schools seem to fail to teach kids that they are responsible, that actions (or inactions) have consequences.
That oversight can steamroller a young adult and has overwhelmed many older ones.
It is a shock to find out that you and you alone have to sort out the mess you are in.

Struck me as strange that his family could stump up 500 notes to initially get rid of bailiffs but couldn't/didn't/wouldn't help him out with the PCNs.

I think the issue was that he never told anyone about the PCNs, it's obvious that if he'd told mum/mum's boyfriend about the PCNs when they first arrived, they would have helped him out, he just never told them.

I'm also inclined to agree that £1,000 in debt is not the only reason he took his own life, there must have been other factors at play. I've heard of people taking their own lives over debts of 6-7 figures or more, but not for £1,000. I might well be labelled as a horrible human being for saying this, but I fear that if it hadn't happened over the £1,000 PCN debts, it would have probably happened at a later date over something else.

I still think change is needed to stop the immediate rush to instruct bailiffs. Certainly an option to pay in stages for a PCN debt over £100 based on proof of income. London PCNs are now £180, although I'm not sure what PCNs this new sum covers. Also councils to be made to be proactive when a PCN and subsequent documents is seemingly ignored. A report to council (the politicians), before bailiff action is taken must be made mandatory.

OK, this won't solve all the problems like this but a bit more grit in the system is needed to stop bailiff action being the first resort.

Bailiffs are not the first resort, the debtor would have received several Stat Notices from the Council & poss Court papers.
He panicked after 1 PCN but still went Clubbing with his mates. 18 should be the age of Responsablity.

£1000 does seem a bit steep for a couple of trivial offences, although obviously it wouldn't have been anywhere near that if he hadn't ignored them.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-...-bailiffs-fees/
Looks like they were charging the full whack per PCN, whether that is correct or not I don’t know, but that soon gets to £1k.

Here's a novel idea, how about striking out some of these stupid inane laws altogther? After all, many of the current restrictions imposed by LAs are specific 'honey-traps'. Certain road jucntions in London for instace, cannot be used wihout contraveneing certain restrictions, simply because of the routing and traffic flow, not that the LAs mind, because their caneras 'fine' everyone who enters ans leaves.

Trivia like bus lanes, no waiting etc. If these laws truly worked in the deterrent sense, then no one would break them, thus no revenue from the esuing fines would be forthcoming, which begs the question why they were enacted in the 1st place.
Some cynic may well be led to belive that these instruments were enacted to solely to raise revenue..............?

This post has been edited by whjohnson: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 - 00:47

Most restrictions are designed to keep traffic flowing and should be enforced by lawful means.
This Forum often highlights Authorities and unscroupulous restrictions.

Without enforcement everybody would drive in the bus lanes, park wherever they wanted etc...