Driver pays thousands to beat Kent’s £100 parking fine in a 22-hour layover that lasted half an hour

A furious driver says he is willing to pay thousands to fight a £100 parking fee he was slapped with after spending “just half an hour” in a shopping centre.

Lawrence Carnie, 58, has been on a crusade for nine months after he was handed a “22-hour” parking fine in a car park in Dartford, Kent, in June last year.

Mr Carnie said he visited the retail park for half an hour on two consecutive days but was fined for faulty CCTV license plate recognition.

The car park is free for three hours but it claims it was never logged out the first time so it was fined for overstaying, as far as the system goes it looks like it was around June 10th Arrived 3.20pm and left 1.30pm next day.

He appealed to parking regulators Group Nexus and independent judge Parking On Private Land Appeals (POPLA), but was denied both times.

Lawrence Carnie (pictured), 58, has been on a nine-month crusade after being handed a 22-hour parking fine in a car park in Dartford, Kent, in June last year

The Tower Retail Park car park (pictured) is free for three hours but Mr Carnie claims he was never checked out the first time so he was fined for overstaying as the system appears to be on Arrived at 3.20pm on June 10th and left at 1.30pm the next day

Mr Carnie from Dartford contacted the British Parking Association, which represents Nexus, about the alleged problems but they denied any problems with the system.

Undeterred, he continues his fight and has sought legal help to fight the fine for being in the Tower Retail Park car park.

He said: “If I met you on the street and said ‘Give me £100’ you wouldn’t do it.

“That’s what happened here, they’re charging £100 for not being there. It’s just so wrong what this company is doing.’

Motorists are advised by CCJ Removals Services, which help people remove court judgments from their credit reports.

Paralegal Luke Memory specializes in parking fine appeals and is overseeing the case.

He said: “Cases like this don’t usually end up in court as the legal costs are much higher than the fine, but Mr Carnie is an exception to the rule.

“Once a claim is brought against Mr Carnie we would hire a solicitor to write a statement of defense which would cost £500 and this would lead to a court hearing where Mr Carnie would hire a solicitor and this would cost around £1000 .

“It’s off-putting to the common man, but Mr. Carnie is happy to fight it in court.”

He added: “These companies are very smart as the cost of defending a case is much higher than the fine that people would normally just pay.

“My thoughts are that he has a good case. What they claim is that he stayed in the parking lot too long, but their own evidence does not prove this and is littered with omissions and errors and clearly shows that their records are inaccurate and unreliable.’

Mr Carnie added: “I’m only doing this because the data they provided was so bad.

“You would have to show that it’s impeccable, but as I’ve found, it doesn’t show that.”

Mr. Carnie plans to recover all his expenses from Group Nexus if he wins his case.

After an appeal of the sentence by independent judges POPLA, Group Nexus released a 356-page document showing all activity in the parking lot over that 24-hour period.

Mr. Carnie used his analytical knowledge and placed all the logs in a spreadsheet.

From this he concluded that a number of entries appeared to be missing from the Group Nexus data.

According to the document, Mr Carnie was seen entering the mall car park at 3.20pm on June 10.

He was then seen the next day at 1:30 p.m. driving away without further data entry for his car.

After going through all 9,920 entries, he claims there are more anomalies.

Mr Carnie noted that 135 cars entered or exited the car park twice and while 67 entered twice, 68 exited twice.

There was also a single entrance where a car exited the lot three times without even entering.

At the same time, Mr. Carnie discovered that 96 cars entered on June 10 but did not leave that day.

On June 11, 100 different cars that had not arrived that day were seen leaving. This means that a maximum of 196 people could have been fined that day.

“They charge £100 for not being there. It’s just so wrong what this company is doing,” said Mr Carnie (pictured).

Mr Carnie said: “That night they had left 196 cars unchecked which means the car park should be half full at 3am.

“How can they impose fines for that? Your dates are so bad. What I really want is for Group Nexus to void all parking fines in this lot.”

Mr Carnie added: “I know they have lost two of my photos which I know I cannot prove in isolation but there are so many entries that cannot be explained or have not been explained.

“They use this bad data to impose fines. There are people out there who can’t afford the fine let alone the legal process to do so, so it’s wrong to fine this data.

“There are some entries that start with 1322, which is essentially the Dartford area code.

“I think the ANPR system could capture phone numbers from the back of vans.

“Data provided by Group Nexus shows cars arriving and departing unnoticed by their ANPR cameras, which can and will result in tickets being issued in error.”

Despite this, their website acknowledges this issue on their website.

The website states: “Returning users of a parking lot within 24 hours sometimes find that their first entry is coupled with their last exit, resulting in an ‘overrun’.”

Mr Carnie has urged anyone appealing a fine to properly analyze the evidence presented.

He said: “If a person disputes their parking fee with POPLA, Nexus can provide evidence in the form of a PDF document showing all arrivals and departures. This is especially true for these long “overstays”.

“People should have the data analyzed properly because it’s probably very bad.”

Group Nexus previously said of the case: “The PCN was confirmed on the grounds that the motorist exceeded the allotted time off.

“Problems with the cameras are extremely rare. If there is one, we almost always find references to it in the system.

“In this case, we investigated the claim and could not find any evidence that this vehicle had visited the site twice.”

The British Parking Association said an investigation had been carried out but the ticket was correctly issued.

A spokesman said: “The motorist appealed the charges against his vehicle to POPLA, which was denied as they believed the charges were correctly made.

“The BPA has thoroughly investigated the motorist’s complaint about the management of the car park by one of its members and found that there was no breach of their code of conduct.”

Group Nexus also reiterated their claim that there was nothing wrong with their cameras.

A spokesman said: “The original challenge was dismissed and the PCN upheld on the grounds that the motorist exceeded the allotted time off.

“Problems with the cameras are extremely rare. In this case, we investigated the claim and could not find any evidence that this vehicle had visited the site twice.

“The motorist then referred his complaint to POPLA, the independent arbitrator led by Ombudsmen Services, who also denied the appeal.”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk