Case 212017577A
1) Mr. Evans attended the tribunal with her husband, Mr. Kylfon Evans, the driver of the car on this occasion.
2) Mr. Evans readily acknowledged that he had committed a parking contravention by leaving his car in Redclyffe Road at 09:25 on Saturday 10 December 2011. He however disagrees with the civil enforcement officer's (CEO) account that he had affixed the penalty charge notice (PCN) to the windscreen of his car.
3) The CEO's account in his notebook is that he observed the contravention and took five photographs. He records that he affixed the PCN to the windscreen, but that he could not take a photograph of that as the driver returned and drove away. He gives a generally accurate description of Mr. Evans, who acknowledges that he was driving the car and carrying shopping.
4) Mr. Evans' account is that he saw the CEO leaving his car and was relieved to find no PCN on it. He drove away.
5) Having had the opportunity to hear Mr. Evans give his account, I found him to be a compelling witness. I am unclear about the CEO's account. His evidence suggests that he took photographs after affixing the PCN to the windscreen, yet it is not visible in any of the photographs. I also note that Newham council's account of the incident has not been consistent, in that when rejecting Mr. Evans' representations against the notice to owner form, they wrote that the PCN had been handed to Mr. Evans. The CEO's notes had not asserted that. On balance, I prefer and accept Mr. Evans' account. As I therefore find that the PCN had not been served, I allow this appeal.
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This same thing happened to the window cleaner who does my shop windows every 2 weeks. A month or so back he said that he nearly got a ticket that morning as after he had hurried back to his van after a job, realising his time was about to- had just run out he got to the van and there was a warden sitting on the wall next to the van, relieved not to see a ticket on the windscreen he had a couple of friendly words with the ceo- thanks for not ticketing 'good bloke lah lah', and went on his way thinking the warden was a nice bloke. He came to do my windows a bit later and we where chatting about parking ect; as you do and he mentioned the experience and felt good about it as you would if you just escaped a legal mugging.
A week or two later and a NTO comes through the post!, slimey b*stard.
He sent reps which were ignored and paid up on the second chance. I will ask him about the evidence next time I see him but it sounds very much like what is happening a lot, the warden hangs around waits for the owner to get a description and uses it in evidence.
This must be stopped.
