1 December - Parking fines. Exposing Bexley’s dishonesty. (Episode 9)
I
had better bring you another installment of the parking saga before everyone begins to forget.
A disabled ex-policeman had won an admission from
Bexley council that they take no notice of any evidence supplied at the first
appeal stage preferring to rely on a report by their own staff, which in this
case was an outright lie.
The retired policeman didn’t think eventually dropping
his fine and allowing Bexley council to carry on inflicting their injustices on
more motorists was a satisfactory outcome. Neither did he think that making the parking
contractor pay the fine instead of him could be morally justified. Why should
Bexley council profit from the unjustified misery it inflicts on innocent motorists?
Another hand written letter was sent to Bexley council, this time it was five pages
of A4 to Chief Executive Will Tuckley. It covered a number of examples of how Bexley council’s policy is unjust…
“An Authorised Officer has considered all evidence presented from both parties.
The officer has rejected your representation. This is a blatant and barefaced
lie. He has not considered any part of my evidence. Bexley Parking Services
(BPS) policy does not allow him to.
[Another] scenario [is] if I receive a
Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) and I believe I have reasonable grounds to contend, then I
send my representation to Bexley Parking Services, who reject my contention out
of hand, stating as they do, an Authorised Officer has considered all evidence
from both parties etc., then rejects my challenge. At the same time he
threatens me that if I continue to pursue this challenge and I lose, I will have
to pay the full amount of £120.
Although I feel my challenge is reasonable, against my better judgment I decide I
cannot afford £60, let alone £120, so I capitulate and pay £60.
What happens next? BPS add my £60 to their bulging coffers and close the case or
write to me and say sorry, we did not really take your evidence into account or
attempt to visit the site. The initial rejection is just a ploy to give us more
time. We are returning your £60.
The wronged motorist was in effect asking Mr. Tuckley; is BPS run by a bunch of
fraudsters or not? And given what they had already admitted to him he had a very
valid point. How would Tuckley wriggle out of that one? He passed the questions on to Mr.
Moore (Director of Public and Corporate Services) again. In a letter delivered by hand, Mr. Moore admitted that the PCN
should never have been issued and that BPS did not bother to take note of the
evidence supplied. Everyone had lied in an effort to extort money from the
disabled pensioner. CEO BL286 had lied on his report. The Authorised Officer
I.S. lied about considering the evidence.
The question of Bexley council profiting from inflicting unwarranted misery on
motorists was answered in a way I haven’t come across before. Mr. Moore took out
his own cheque book and gave the motorist a cheque for £60 drawn on his own
personal account payable to the motorist’s favoured charity. Mr. Moore appears
to be a generous man anxious to put right his employer’s misdeeds, however the
ex-policeman did not think it right that anyone but
Bexley council should pay, and returned it.
This story is reported in an indeterminate number of episodes.
A cumulative version is provided for convenience.