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Your legal guide to motoring |
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Driver
wins £20,000 for stress over parking tickets and sends bailiffs to collect his
money
A
motorist sued a council for £20,000 over the stress of receiving four parking
tickets.
Zun Noon, who refused to pay the four £50 fines, claimed he suffered emotional
distress after bailiffs were sent round to reclaim the money. |
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After a court found in his favour, Mr Noon gave the council a taste
of its own medicine and sent his own bailiffs to its offices to collect his damages.
Mr Noon's battle against Newham Council in East London started in October 2007
when he was apparently captured by a council CCTV camera committing the parking
offences.
Two more fines arrived the following month, as well as a fourth penalty which
was a duplicate of a previous one and was later dropped.
Mr Noon, from Tower Hamlets, was so incensed he launched a counterclaim for emotional
distress at Bow County court.
After Newham Council failed to attend the hearing the judge awarded him £20,000
- £5,000 for each ticket.
Bailiffs went to Newham's 'Parking Shop' in East Ham last November to present
a 'notice of seizure' and began taking computers and putting them in a van. The
council took 30 minutes before paying up.
Si-Ling Pang, a spokeswoman for Newham Council said: 'They were unplugging computers
and taking them away. If they'd unplugged the server it would have cost us thousands
of pounds worth of damage so we had to pay to stop it.'
The cost to taxpayers has since risen to £27,566.83 including a service charge
and costs resulting from the time taken to settle the case.
The council, which says it never received a summons, has since taken the case
back to Bow County Court, which ruled in its favour and ordered Mr Noon to repay
the money. .
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