I refused to pay an unfair £300 parking ticket but hundreds of people have been caught out

A mum who refused to pay an ‘unfair’ £300 parking ticket says she knew she ‘could win’ in court.

47-year-old Jamie Rock thought she had bought a ticket to park near a hospital in Liverpool for a medical appointment - and received a text message confirmation. It turned out that the parking machine was broken and she later discovered her phone payment hadn't been fully processed - and she was hit with a £60 parking fine.

She said she was told her parking at the King Dock car park had not been ‘validated’ because she didn’t put in her number plate, but claims she wasn't asked to do this until 12 minutes after receiving a text telling her her parking had been accepted for two hours - and didn't notice until it was too late. Jamie said she called customer services but there was no option to speak to a person, and she ended up being put through to an automated system which ‘hung up’. A week later, she started receiving letters demanding she pay a £60 parking fine. Despite numerous letters from Civil Enforcement Limited demanding she pay the charge notice, the mum-of-two refused to pay for two years, causing the fine to rise to £300 due to non payment.

The mental health nurse from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, said: "I lost count of the letters I got. They did not entertain looking at my evidence. They just called me a liar. was annoyed because it was not my fault. It was their machine. How can they say I have not paid? I put it all through! I did everything I was supposed to do. I did everything correctly.”

She added: “It seemed a bit fishy. How many people did they catch out with this faulty system? Hundreds of people have paid this fine."

By August 2023, Jamie was told she had to pay the £300 fine - or go to court. Choosing the latter, she attended county court in Liverpool on March 13, where the judge struck out the claim in a matter of minutes - and ruled Civil Enforcement Limited pay her £26 travel expenses. The parking firm's lawyers failed to attend the hearing. In her witness statement, Jamie said she explained the situation to the debt collection firms but was ‘ignored’. She wrote: “I find this totally unacceptable that I should be held accountable for [the] King Dock car park's inadequate payment system.”

Speaking after the hearing, Jamie said: “I felt like I could win and that’s what happened.” She added that the case was over ‘within two minutes’.

Nearly three weeks on, Jamie is still waiting for the parking ticket company to pay her. Civil Enforcement Limited has been approached for comment.