Driver wins £20,000 for stress over parking tickets and sends bailiffs to collect his money

Henry Irving

Not trying to start another thread on parking tickets/local councils/speeding etc bu I just thought this was funny.

Driver wins £20,000 for stress over parking tickets and sends bailiffs to collect his money

By Colin Fernandez

Last updated at 1:15 AM on 09th February 2009

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.

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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Mr Noon is now saying he's spent all the money so doesn't have to pay it back. The Council say he does.

Oggy Red

High Noon (1952) The Western genre was employed to tell an uncharacteristic social problem tale about
civic responsibility ........

Ledge

that is class

nth_london_addick

how can the court then overturn the decision tossers

but i tell you i may do the same if it happens to me

pickwick

Because if no defence is submitted then in a County Court all that you have to do is apply for the original decision to be struck out on the basis that you did not receive the original documents, and it will automatically happen, and an actual hearing called in front of a judge. Just as in the same way that as Newham originally failed to give a defence no consideration was given to the claim (ie whether it was reasonable or not) the claimant automatically won.

razil

surely the summons would have been served by an officer of the court ?