Author Topic: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.  (Read 4884 times)

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Nigel W

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Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« on: 02 June, 2011, 04:12:39 PM »
It has transpired that PaTAS and Richmond have forgotten about my Adjudication!

Mail just sent to my friend Terry Powell Richmond's Head of Parking:
Dear Mr Powell,
Will your department never cease to continue with its hell-bent pursuit of unlawful activities? When will you realise that there is absolutely no excuse for this type of activity by your department?

It has come to my attention that over three weeks after my PaTAS adjudication Richmond Parking Department, that you are in charge of, failed to Do Not Contest another PaTAS Appeal. This appeal was refused.

At this time it was well known by your department that all PCNs issued by your department via the use of Mobile CCTV vehicles were unenforceable and unlawfully issued. In case you need reminding you had no certification at any time for the use of the equipment deployed by these vehicles.

By the time of this latest appeal, this situation was an established certainty. This fact had also been accepted by your Head of Parking Enforcement at my PaTAS hearing. The threatened application for a review of the decision by Richmond had not been made as obviously it couldn't be. There was no basis for any review. You also knew this when the false statement was given regarding your falsely purported intention to pursue a review.

Your department was also responsible for the issuing of the Press Release containing this false information after my appeal. This Press Release contained not one grain of truth. All of the information contained in this document was false.

It was disseminated by Councillor Clare Head who is now The Mayor at Richmond. Clare Head must have been hopping mad after your department had made her seem foolish by giving out these lies. She subsequently refused to propagate any further information from your department. It was left to a Council Spokesperson who apparently refused to be named to announce any further statements over this debacle.

You had also removed your 'current' un-certificated vehicles from the road two weeks earlier. You had not even bothered to apply for any certification for the deployment of these vehicles. Just as you did not bother to DNC this recent PaTAS appeal case and probably others. Your Department no doubt also failed to cancel all other PCNs that were in progress.

These new vehicles had been deployed by you on a willy-nilly basis. They had been issuing unlawful penalties under your watch for months without any VCA certification or even an application for certification being made. This was another unmittigated abandonment of duty by you.

The non certification ought to have apparent to you before you started enforcement in this way years earlier. You failed miserably to confirm that the certification received by you covered the use of these vehicles. This was a failure of a basic and necessary task that ought to have been carried out but was not. This was yet another gross dereliction of your duty.

Why was this appeal resisted and contested by your department? How many other PCNs were similarly stonewalled by your department? How many other PCNs in progress did you fail to cancel?

How do you justify the pursuit of this appeal by your department? This amounts to nothing less than an attempt to obtain money by deception or by false pretenses.

When will you learn that the unlawful issuing of PCNs and the subsequent pursuit of unlawfully demanded penalties has no place within a supposedly democratically run local government department?

As you already know your department has been responsible for issuing tens of thousands of these unlawful PCNs. This goes back to 2005 when you began aggressively enforcing a loading bay to the tune of £1400 a day by the use of a fixed CCTV camera that was used virtually exclusively for this purpose.

You were left with no alternative by me but to accept that this bay was unlawful and therefore unenforceable. You took three weeks to agree and reluctantly accept these facts that were given to you on a plate by me. A schoolboy had taken 15 mins. to reach the same conclusion.

What did you do after you agreed with me that this was the case? You decided to continue to issue more unlawful PCNs at this location before the bay was correctly remarked. The issuing of further PCNs after your agreement that the bay was unenforceable was established at PaTAS, by an appeal that I conducted, to be yet another unlawful exercise. It was subsequently also decided by an external investigator appointed by Richmond that your decision to continue with this enforcement was wrong.

In fact the camera at this location is still being used by your department in this way. It is permanently focused on this bay. There has been no attempt whatsoever by your department to gain any compliance as is your duty. Instead your department prefers to use the location as a honey pot. This activity is inhumane and is against all of the requirements of correctly conducted CPE. Correctly operated CPE is for the purpose of ensuring Public Safety and Free Traffic Flow. It is not intended as a revenue gathering exercise that allows profitable offences to be committed.

The foregoing examples relate only to the unlawfully issued PCNs that I have brought to your attention. There are many many more that I am aware of. These unlawful penalties have then been followed up with unlawful demands for payment that have been taken to the ends of the earth by your department.

Your Department has demonstrated an unlawful, undemocratic, inhumane, and downright immoral attitude towards this unlawfully obtained income by seeking legal advice regarding the retention of these illegitimately derived penalties.

It is clear that the advice sought will be: Can you please advise us how we can excuse ourselves when we keep this money? This type of advice should not be required. It is obvious to any decent right minded person what should be done with these ill-gotten gains.

Why are you still continuing with your employment at Richmond? Why have you not resigned your position? Why were you not seen hanging your head in shame outside York House recently alongside the protesters who were there in the aftermath of your recently exposed unlawful activities?

Why do you allow yourself to be hidden behind other Officers at Richmond? You were only too happy to meet with one of these protesters on an earlier occasion. This protester was issued with 6 unlawfully issued PCNs that had been effectively saved up and issued en-bloc by your department. This practice also is not in accordance with your obligation of gaining compliance.

Had this protester been issued with one PCN by a CEO he would have paid it and then complied. This would have possibly saved the lives of schoolchildren. Instead of doing this your department saw fit to maximise revenue and disregard any attempt at gaining compliance by allowing this motorist to continue to put children's lives at risk 5 more times. Your department chose this course as it would derive more income at the expense of the safety of children. This proves conclusively that your main falsely purported reason for the use of these vehicles is wholly without merit. The CEOs in the vehicle ought to have been dismissed immediately for this disgusting conduct.

I Quote:

"In May 2010, while the council was still under the control of the Lib Dem's, I was issued with six PCN's totaling £600.00 from a spy camera car which was parked for two weeks running in Cobbet Road, Whitton. My offence was dropping my children off outside their junior school. Not parking, just pausing for 7 seconds outside the school gates to ensure their safe arrival.

I paid the first fine within time (£50.00) and appealed the other five. These were sanctimoniously rejected by the head of parking services Mr. Terry Powell, a man who later told me to my face that every fine his department issued was considered a failure for his department! I ended up paying the remaining £250.00 following the council's bullying letters that threatened me with fines totaling thousands and all of the court costs and so forth.

Following this I demanded a meeting with Mr. Powell to investigate just how the council could justify these fines and to find out where our money was being spent. This was attended by Cllr. Head.

My argument was that I had been dropping my children off in the exact same place in front of the school gates for a year or more in direct view of these spy camera cars (which I might add had been targeting parents at the school for years) and had never been fined before. Therefore I wanted to know why had this particular 'offence' had only just been added to his departments arsenal.

Mr. Powell told me assuredly that the spy camera cars under his direct control had been fining motorists for this same offence in Cobbet Road for years and that I should consider myself lucky not to have been fined sooner.

This proved to be totally untrue because when he searched his database my name came up as the very first motorist to be fined for said offence"

More false statements by you? Why did you not come and meet this person again at the protest? Why did you prefer to shirk your responsibilities desert your post and hide instead?

I do not expect any answers from the questions posed to you in this mail. These questions are for yourself to answer.

Think about your position long and hard and then do the decent thing. This is something that you ought to have done long ago. The result, one way or another, is also an inevitable outcome of your employment.
                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                    Yours sincerely,
                                                               Nigel Wise.

P.S. My thanks to Esinem for his assistance with this.
« Last Edit: 02 June, 2011, 04:33:04 PM by Nigel W »

Nigel W

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Re: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« Reply #1 on: 11 June, 2011, 01:06:18 PM »
My mail to Councillor Harrison The Cabinet Member for Traffic & Transport

Dear Cllr. Harrison,

Here are the details of the PaTAS Parking Appeal that Richmond ought to have not contested. It relates to a contravention captured by a CCTV Car. The appeal was heard at PaTAS three weeks after my appeal where it was accepted by Richmond's Head of Parking Enforcement that there was no certification.

This PCN was therefore unenforceable and had been unlawfully issued. It ought to have been cancelled and not contested by Richmond. Instead of this they compounded their unlawful activities of conducting unlawful enforcement for over two years by pursuing this unlawfully issued PCN.

Case Reference: 2110069244
Appellant: Mr XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
Authority: Richmond Upon Thames
VRM: XXXXXXX
PCN: RT95583612
Contravention Date: 17 Nov 2010
Contravention Time: 14:17
Contravention Location: Red Lion St Richmond
Penalty Amount: £100.00
Contravention: Footway parking (one - four wheels on footway)
Decision Date: 12 May 2011
Adjudicator: John Lane
Appeal Decision: Refused

If you enter the details of this PCN into the new online facility you will see that this PCN relates to a CCTV Car. None of these vehicles had any certification for lawful use in Richmond at any time.

It is unlikely that this is the only PCN that has not been cancelled.
                                                                                                                  Yours sincerely,
                                                                                                                                             Nigel Wise.
Cllr. Harrison's reply to me:

Dear Mr Wise
 
Thank you for your email dated 3rd June 2011. As you will be aware I cannot discuss the details of individual cases with a third party unless the recipient of the notice has given written authority for this to take place therefore I am unable to make any direct comment on the standing of the particular case you have shown.
 
With regard to the matter of whether the certification was in place or not as you know Cllr Lord True, Leader of the Council, has requested that an investigation is held to confirm the situation both with the previous and current parking enforcement contractor. Until this is completed and the outcome assessed the Council is not in a position to make any other comment. Any penalty charge notice issued using the mobile CCTV cameras has been placed on hold with no further action to be taken at this stage. Unfortunately the case in question was already at PaTAS and was not withdrawn in time before the case was considered by PaTAS. Although the decision taken by the Adjudicator was in the Council’s favour at this moment, pending the outcome of the investigation into the certification, payment is not expected and a letter to this effect will be sent to the registered keeper.
 
A check has been carried out and I am assured by officers that all cases are now on hold and where necessary a letter has been sent advising of this action
 
Yours sincerely 
 
Chris Harrison
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Offline Pat Pending

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Re: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« Reply #2 on: 11 June, 2011, 06:14:34 PM »
Well done Nigel. It seems you have them on the ropes mate, how long do you think before Lord True reports?
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Nigel W

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Re: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« Reply #3 on: 11 June, 2011, 06:57:51 PM »
Pat,
No indication has been given. The MEV's remain off road.
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Offline The Bald Eagle

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Re: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« Reply #4 on: 13 June, 2011, 04:25:10 PM »
Quote from: "Nigel W"
The MEV's remain off road.

Why? They don't have to issue PCNs to be a deterrent. If they park where they are visible (as they are supposed to) they can still have the desired effect of enabling traffic flow and ensuring public safety, even though they may be unable to issue PCNs.
 
By taking them off the road entirely, Richmond seem to be indicating that they do not have the desired effect unless there are PCNs and cash involved.
 
Are they also indicating that they are prepared to compromise public safety because they cannot yet make a profit out of them?
 
Seems like a bit of a mixed message to me.
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Nigel W

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Re: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« Reply #5 on: 13 June, 2011, 04:37:09 PM »
Very good point.  The CEO's are now wearing their shoe leather out instead!!
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Offline Staps

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Re: Richmond and PaTAS have Short Memories.
« Reply #6 on: 14 June, 2011, 04:37:37 PM »
Ahhh so not looking for the deterrent effect but out to coin it in.
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