One motorist’s war against a private car park fine could ‘bring down the system’ and pave the way for drivers to challenge every ticket issued by an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera.
Lawrence Carnie, 58, was slapped with a £100 ticket for a ’22-hour’ stay at a car park in Dartford, Kent in June last year – but he claims his overnight stay was actually two half-hour stays on two consecutive days.
So determined to prove his case, the retired bank manager said he was willing to pay thousands of pounds to fight the parking ticket – not just to avoid paying the charge but to call into question the very reliability of automated ticketing systems used across Britain.
But after MailOnline contacted previously bullish private parking firm GroupNexus, they performed a u-turn, and offered to cancel the charge ‘as a gesture of good will’.
But the father-of-two is not satisfied with the response as he wants to ensure unsuspecting motorists don’t get caught out like he did.
The driver, from Dartford, says the ANPR data from Group Nexus – previously called CP Plus – is so poor that ‘it would not hold up in court’, and he wants drivers to know this so they too can challenge unfair parking charge notices (PCNs).
‘I want to bring down the system,’ Mr Carnie told MailOnline. ‘I want ANPR in car parks to be scrapped until the data is of a standard that would hold up in court, but I don’t think that is possible.’