Whilst I wait for further advice over #daftarrest, a few words about my challenge to the parking ticket kindly administered by Carmarthenshire Council after they had been so instrumental in my wrongful detention at Llanelli police station on June 8th. As I have said, my initial challenge was rejected. Carmarthenshire Council will have to admit to being at fault over the entire episode to allow my parking challenge to succeed and it doesn't look like that is going to happen without a fight. Anyway, I have now sent the Notice to Owner form back to the Council with my repeated challenge - the second 'stage' in these parking matters. I can't imagine Carmarthenshire Council quashing this penalty notice unless it is over dead bodies - and I will not give up either so I can see this eventually ending up in court, or wherever these things usually go.
I have ticked the box marked 'other grounds' and stated;
"As it has been admitted by Dyfed Powys Police that they acted on false information given to them by Carmarthenshire County Council on 8th June 2011 which resulted in my unlawful detention, I am therefore not guilty of the parking offence. It was due to circumstances beyond my control that I was unable to renew my ticket"I should imagine this would be one of the more interesting lines of defence they have heard for sometime. It also happen to be true.
I have also sent in two Subject Access Requests under the Data Protection Act 1998 for information held about myself. One is to Carmarthenshire County Council for obvious reasons and the other is to Dyfed Powys Police. The information held by the police only relates to 2011, but the data held by the council will go back a bit further. I suspect however, that neither request will be straightforward for a variety of undoubtably spurious reasons and I will be intrigued to see what the Council comes up with, or doesn't, as the case may be. As the recognised author of this blog I have also asked that anything relating to that should be included in the response. Barring any initial validation hiccups, both authorities have 40 working days to fully respond.
Talking of waiting, there has still been no response (or acknowledgement) to my questions about the filming undertaking sent to the legal department last Wednesday. I agree it is early days but you would have thought that as it (and the other strict public access measures) were brought in with such desperate and undemocratic haste then the information would be readily to hand. Particularly as these measures are now affecting public access to EVERY meeting. Perhaps they find themselves in a similar situation to Dyfed Powys Police who took a week to answer questions from about my arrest. In fact I haven't seen the council give a straight nor truthful answer over any of this (or anything else, as it happens). I sent a polite reminder yesterday and copied in the Chief Executive this time - after all, he is the only person, according to the assistant CEO, who has the authority to control access to the public gallery (that can't be right). Hopefully I'll have a few answers before the entire legal department jumps ship or perhaps they're ignoring me and hoping I'll go away.
I have ticked the box marked 'other grounds' and stated;
"As it has been admitted by Dyfed Powys Police that they acted on false information given to them by Carmarthenshire County Council on 8th June 2011 which resulted in my unlawful detention, I am therefore not guilty of the parking offence. It was due to circumstances beyond my control that I was unable to renew my ticket"I should imagine this would be one of the more interesting lines of defence they have heard for sometime. It also happen to be true.
I have also sent in two Subject Access Requests under the Data Protection Act 1998 for information held about myself. One is to Carmarthenshire County Council for obvious reasons and the other is to Dyfed Powys Police. The information held by the police only relates to 2011, but the data held by the council will go back a bit further. I suspect however, that neither request will be straightforward for a variety of undoubtably spurious reasons and I will be intrigued to see what the Council comes up with, or doesn't, as the case may be. As the recognised author of this blog I have also asked that anything relating to that should be included in the response. Barring any initial validation hiccups, both authorities have 40 working days to fully respond.
Talking of waiting, there has still been no response (or acknowledgement) to my questions about the filming undertaking sent to the legal department last Wednesday. I agree it is early days but you would have thought that as it (and the other strict public access measures) were brought in with such desperate and undemocratic haste then the information would be readily to hand. Particularly as these measures are now affecting public access to EVERY meeting. Perhaps they find themselves in a similar situation to Dyfed Powys Police who took a week to answer questions from about my arrest. In fact I haven't seen the council give a straight nor truthful answer over any of this (or anything else, as it happens). I sent a polite reminder yesterday and copied in the Chief Executive this time - after all, he is the only person, according to the assistant CEO, who has the authority to control access to the public gallery (that can't be right). Hopefully I'll have a few answers before the entire legal department jumps ship or perhaps they're ignoring me and hoping I'll go away.
5 comments:
do you have any technical grounds on which to defend the ticket. lines, signs and cpz entry signs ate often wrong
@Mr Mustard
Not as far as I know - this case will be dependent on proving that the authority that issued the ticket intentionally and wrongly (along with the police) deprived me of my liberty in being able to return to my car in time to renew my ticket.
Incidentally, I cannot find another similar case, if anyone knows of one please let me know.
As a carmarthenshire councillor I do feel that my council should drop the parking penalty in your case. I did not notice you causing a disturbance and the decision to call the police was not put to the meeting but made in something of a panic. As a council we were responsible for calling the police and unfortunately by taking you to Llanelli and detaining you so you could not renew your parking fee the police have put you in this situation. I believe it would be reasonable for my council to accept that your circumstances were exceptional and it was not physically possible for you to move your car in Carmarthen while being detained in Llanelli.
I will make a formal request that my council stops action to force you to pay this ticket. I am sure all reasonable councillors would support this.
Cllr Sian Caiach
Ha ha! Go on then, Carms Council. Take it to court and see how a judge carpets litigants who waste court time.
And how much council tax are they really prepared to spend on abortively enforcing a ticket issue when the person's liberty had been removed as a direct consequence of the council's own actions?
Remember: the reason for detention isn't the issue; it's the fact of the detention. Sitting there saying 'well, if she didn't want a tickets, she shouldn't have disrupted the meeting' isn't going to cut it, boyos.
The only example that would be set by pursuing this would be that defining a monumentally stupid, petty and malicious organisation. Oh, but they've already achieved that. Sorry.
As human beings, we all make mistakes. Mark James also, as a human being, sometimes makes mistakes. You would be forgiven if you were to believe he didn't. Unfortunately for the people of Carmarthenshire, he in fact believes he is incapable of possessing such human deficiencies. I for one am still awaiting his apology for the years of being called a liar by himself, after a Public Inquiry exposed that it was indeed he and his officers who lied. I would say rather than stupid, the man is woodenheaded!! Not exactly the quality nor the calibre, for a Chief Executive of ones local authority. Good Luck!!
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