Hi, folks, I'm new
I recently visited a popular car accessory shop local to the town I work at (in England). I've been here on at least one previous occasion. Just this week I went into the town to pick some oil up for my car but whilst there met my girlfriend's son to help him out with something in town. I arrived at the store met him and went off into town for about 20 minutes. I then returned bought my oil and on returning to the car noticed a parking invoice attached to the driver's side window.
I noticed a TPS garmented parking officer (we'll call him that) and I asked him what the invoice was for. His reply was that I had left the premises with my car parked in the car park. I was genuinely not aware of this. I do accept you should have to buy something and not just use the free car park to go into town. Had I known I would have parked in the high street about 50 yards away which is free for a half hour (which I was) or 20p for 45 minutes.

I must be honest I smiled at the TPS guy and walked to my car and went with my GF's son. I opened the invoice back in the office, it's a standard looking piece of paper uncannily similar to a council parking ticket. I immediately noticed the attendant had written one letter of my registration wrong on the ticket. At that point I had decided to just ignore. They do not have any CCTV or ANPR, not from what I see and if they did then I doubt there would be the TPS'd attendent.
However, I've since learned they do take a digital picture of the car and I guess also the registration so they will be able to find my address through the DVLA.

As the original issue ticket has this one digit wrong I still feel I should ignore it but because of the photo they took I'm not sure if I should just appeal. The thing is, in entering into an appeal does that not confirm it was my car? Does that even matter? I say this because technically I have used the shop on at least one previous occasion and I could easily have been photographed at that time.
The oil I purchased was only a few quid short of the invoice . I don't want to pay the stupid thing on principle but paying it is not an issue. I'd rather like to present the original incorrect ticket in court, but I don't want to end up looking foolish if I then have to pay it and further court costs.

My question is should I go down the appeal route?

TPS are a BPA member so look at the completed cases on here and MSE.
Soft appeal to TPS will be rejected and get POPLA win at POPLA with correctly worded non-mitigating circumstances appeal Don't name driver (unless leased car) .

Get pictures of signage and await NTK (29- 56 days)then come back with redacted images.

Look up other walk away cases (Staples car parks from memory) on here and MSE

Is it a lease, hire or company car ?

If Yes, appeal now
If No, wait for a Notice to Keeper letter to arrive

The NtK must arrive between 28 and 56 days after the alleged incident
TPS has a habit of failing to send these and the first letter comes instead from a company called TNC Collections

They're rather proud of their ISO 9001 quality approval
I mentioned their postal problems when I met their certifying authority, the British Standards Institute, on Tuesday

If /when an NtK arrives, complain to the accessory shop and find out who has the authority to cancel
Challenge the parking notice with one of our short but effective models

You won't have to pay this

Have you gone back to Halfords and complained to the manager about this treatment of a paying customer?

So the TPS operative failed to mitigate any losses by telling you not to leave the site, despite seeing you do so, so any loss is of their own making, make that an appeal point alongside the big 3.

Ask to see the evidence of you leaving site. Video etc. I bet it's just his word.

a word with the manager of halfrauds , failure to get the ticket cancelled = his lovely sale of oil being returned

...after emptying it from the engine...

You will need to understand the term 'mitigating losses'.

Here's how one judge famously put one parking company firmly in their place - and threatened to jail their solicitor. Easy reading, amusing, but also educational. Do give it a read.

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=at...t&id=16231)

all over there lovely car park

Halfords are usually quite good at cancelling PPC tickets.

The NTK has to have the same information as the NTD for keeper liability to apply. Therefore, the keeper should wait for the NTK and then appeal on the grounds this is not POFA compliant so as keeper they are not liable. Go to POPLA is necessary. Never say who the driver was.

What relevance is that at all? His word is more than enough as the OP can't deny it, google 'balance of probabilities'.

First of all, thankyou for all the replies



Appeal straight away? See below.



Thankyou, the car that I was driving is my own personal car.



No this is on my list, today in fact as I'm going back into the town at lunch. Not parking in Halfrauds mind




Yes indeed, very disappointing as I did see him before I walked off site. He definitely never said a word. In fact (not sure if I mentioned in the original post but my GF's son went back into town (how I found about them using a digital camera) and he actually asked the attendant, whom replied with "It's not my job"



There probably is not any evidence, but I think a poster below answered that. Thanks




I never thought of that - Thankyou.

I will read that, thanks

"his lovely sale of oil being returned"
"...after emptying it from the engine... "
"all over there lovely car park"

Oil not yet deployed in the car



That sounds good I shall try today.



Only my third parking incident (the other two were proer council fines) in 34 years, what does NTK and NTD mean?



I guess that is why they justify an employee over CCTV/ANPR.

NTD : Notice to Driver (Windscreen ticket)
NTK : Notice to Keeper (Follow up letter if NTD not paid or appealed)

As you will see when you read the toothbrush case, that judge was dismissive of the parking weasel's evidence because the weasel didn't turn up in court to testify

Interesting indeed. I particularly like this part..
JUDGE: Where is it in this contract set out that you have the right when there is a
trespass or a breach of contract by Mr * with W***** or a trespass on W***** property, where
have they assigned you the right to issue proceedings in your own name for a breach of contract
against Mr *?

.....
JUDGE: That is the point, is it not? You offer a service to your customer and
our service to your customer is, "We enforce parking". That is very well, but then the enforcement
that you do is a matter for you and your customer until you issue proceedings and then, once those
proceedings are issued, then I must ask where is your right to issue proceedings in your own name for
a breach of contract or a trespass upon land which is not owned by you or, indeed, as I can see here,
assigned to your specific control?

Of course, I'm guessing this may well have changed to allow that control. How old is this case do you know?

Just one last thing.

No one has replied to the point that the original document attached to the car actually had the wrong registration. Only by one digit and possibly down the attendants poor handwriting, but nonetheless incorrect?

Again I am overwhelmed at the response. Thank you all very much indeed.

Even more reason to wait for the NtK. They have to wait 28 days before accessing the DVLA and deliver with 56 days. Of course, the attendant won't know who the RK is.


2012. Things may have moved on a little since then. The charge was previously 'damages' under alleged breach of contract but things have moved forward since Beavis. (That the amount doesn't have to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss)

This is the part I particularly liked:

NtK = Note to Keeper and RK = Registered Keeper.
I am going to speak to the manager of the store today by phone first, see if I can nip it in the bud right now. However, this info here seems the best solution. I won't react until I receive official correct notice (if at all) from them. They may well spot the error in the original invoice and choose to proceed no further.
The registration on the invoice does not appear to exist on any vehicle in the UK at all.

If the store manager will do nothing then I may just return the oil to him , however I still need oil!

And if he had?

He would have told lies, or corroborated the failure to mitigate. And if the judge was ready to lock up the solicitor, who'd be a lying weasel

I'm sure there's other stores...

And you can beat Halford's prices (even their own brand) if you shop online.



It's never happened to my knowledge, I doubt it ever will.

Not needed anyway, if they allege the keeper was the driver and the defendant doesn't deny it, then the judge can draw his own conclusion on a balance of probabilities, its not at all certain they would decide in those circumstances that the RK wasn't driving.

I'm not convinced that the judge is entitled to draw his own conclusion. It's up to the claimant to prove his case so if the PPC alleges the keeper was the driver he needs to have some evidence. The balance of probabilities can't simply be a guess, it has to be based on something - and the defendant not saying something is not evidence of anything.

People on the forums often say "well if the judge asks directly if you were the driver then you are stuffed", but I don't think the judge can legitimately ask that. It's not the judge's place to interrogate witnesses or elicit evidence.

Although, of course, as we know, the small-claims track is the Wild West of the court system where the judges make it up as they go along.

The Judge can draw his own conclusion, the claimant proves his case on balance of probabilities and no more and there can be a reasonable assumption the RK was driving.

I presume you have heard of Elliot V Loake?

Yes, it's not relevant. I quote:

"In my view there was ample evidence which justified the magistrates in this case arriving at the conclusion that this man was driving his blue sports car on the night when it collided with the stationary BMW."

There was evidence, it was not merely an assumption.

One last comment (for now).
The store manager, whom I never actually spoke to direct has tried to deal with such requests in the past, I was told, and without success. He was not in the store when I phoned because there had been some traffic on his way to work.
I'm not pursuing this avenue any further.

There is a comment regarding contesting the parking notice on the back of the invoice slip they attached to the car window. It reads:-

Part 2 Contesting the Parking charge
Representation concerning this parking charge should be made in writing to the address shown below within 28 days (beginning with the day after this notice is served) All correspondence should include your name, address, the parking charge reference number and the vehicle registration number...
......

It goes on to say provide evidence, details to support your appeal etc etc.
Then goes on to say upon being unsuccessful (I'm paraphrasing now ) you can then write to POPLA blah blah blah.

My points are is this notice effectively serving me the 28 days from Monday, and as such I should not be waiting for a NtK and dealing with it straight away?

Also technically it's meaningless in that the registration number is not relevant to me? However, eventually I may need to submit this information to an appeal and as such what do I do about the registration? I mean I personally have more than one car, so what if any registration do I use? Maybe the incorrect one on the Parking Charge Notice?

He can draw his own conclusion from the evidence, not from the defendant's silence on the question.

What if the defendant produces an insurance policy for the vehicle showing five named drivers? Would you say this weakens the claimant's case? Because, if so, you have improperly shifted the burden of proof from the claimant to the defendant.

No, you wait for them... (This costs them £2.50 and gives them the chance to horse it up)

Excellent. Thank you all once again. I shall be back from time to time to read. I'm a bit of a forum junkie, though mostly car based (where I heard about pepipoo) forums but will certainly complete the thread and add any feedback as and when or if it arrives.

It's now been 7 weeks since the parking incident and I have heard nothing as of yet. Not sure if I mentioned where but it was Halfords in Oldham town centre.

If the defendant is in the stand and refuses to answer the simple question I think it is very likely that the Judge will decide, on balance of probabilities they were driving, after all if a simple 'no' would kill the case stone dead then the logical answer is yes, the Judge is quite within his rights to decide like that.

Be aware if the timescales involved with the NTK but if they've got the wrong reg number and not realised then they'll have paid their £2.50 to get someone else's details and written to them instead. Have you looked up the other reg so see if it really exists?

This is the second wrong reg story I've seen in the last few days. I wonder how many people get these (wrong) NtK's, have the bejaysus scared out of them and pay up rather than fight? Going by the stats I've seen probably 90% of hem - so the scammers win anyway.

If the defendant isn't a witness and is there simply to represent himself then the defendant never would be "in the stand".

Still nothing. I'll keep the invoice they attached for 18 months just in case.


The registration on the form I am reasonably confident (using all the available online vehicle checks) is not a valid one.
I believe they take a photograph of the car. Now maybe they could not tie the two together or maybe because it was one digit wrong they decided it was not worth it.
The digit that was wrong may have just been down to bad hand writing. I think you could take a guess at what else it might have been. However knowing which digit...


The fine was £40 if I had paid within 2 weeks. I nearly did. I won't go hungry for £40 but I thought it seemed unfair and was willing to take a chance. After two weeks it would have been £70.
I guess many just pay it, that's what they work to I'm sure. In fact I'd wager those that can afford it (easily) are more likely to take a chance, those that will struggle to pay are the ones that probably pay up in most cases for fear of escalating costs.

Most people also think these things are fines as well

Give halfords customer service a ring

Yes, I should have said invoice



I never tried that I only rang the store as noted. Not a matter now.

The registration on the form I am reasonably confident (using all the available online vehicle checks) is not a valid one.
I believe they take a photograph of the car. Now maybe they could not tie the two together or maybe because it was one digit wrong they decided it was not worth it.
The digit that was wrong may have just been down to bad hand writing. I think you could take a guess at what else it might have been. However knowing which digit...
That implies that someone in their office is able to read. An expectation too many methinks.

^^^ ^^^ The parking attendant was not the brightest bulb on the tree.