Westminster City Council are facing calls to repay over £9 million taken from motorists caught by the city’s CCTV cameras after campaigners won a landmark appeal case yesterday. (download PATAS appeal decision)
On the 13th October 2011 Mr Andrew Harman an Adjudicator with The Parking and Traffic Appeals Service (PATAS) heard evidence from Mr Nigel Wise a campaigner with the pressure group No To Mob. Westminster Council had issued a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) demanding £130 from an apprentice taxi driver known to most Londoners as a Knowledge Boy.
The Council had secretly videoed the motorist using one of its network of 175 fixed CCTV cameras in Prince Consort Road back in May 2011. Westminster Council posted a PCN to the motorist allegeding he had stopped on white zig-zag lines in May 2011. The motorist allowed members of the No To Mob to submit an appeal to PATAS on his behalf.
The No To Mob outside Westminster City Hall
The No To Mob had spent months researching the legality of Local Authority CCTV cameras which are supposed to be certificated by the Department for Transport’s agency known as the VCA based in Bristol. During the course of their investigation the No To Mob had discovered that a significantly large proportion of council CCTV equipment was incorrectly certificated, including Westminster City Council’s network of static parking enforcement cameras.
Westminster Council recently had to admit to Nutsville that its mobile CCTV spy cars had gone without the correct VCA certificates for 20 months. When we pressed the Council further we were told this was a deliberate policy decision and the council were not using the cars to issue PCN’s for parking. Later the Council refunded over 300 PCN’s issued by ‘mistake’ by their CCTV parking enforcement regime.
The recent win by the No To Mob at PATAS is a much larger and more serious case, due to the Councils large scale use of CCTV throughout the borough. It’s estimated that the uncertified CCTV cameras have earnt over £9 million since March 2010.
This is not the first time the Council’s fixed CCTV network had caused them embarrassment, as in March 2009 the Council were forced to switch off their newly installed parking enforcement cameras after it was found they had the wrong type of chip to meet higher resolution standards required in the DfT’s traffic Management Act. Estimates vary as to the exact cost of that bungle, but it’s thought to have cost at least £850,000 to have new higher resolution chips fitted to the cameras at the time.
This time the Council came unstuck at PATAS by not having the correct model of camera to match the certificates they had obtained from the VCA . Unusually in this case the Council had provided in their evidence pack a list of all 175 of their fixed CCTV enforcement cameras. (Download Westminster’s CCTV camera list here)The list revealed that the certification was incorrect for the whole CCTV network of static cameras the Council had been using for parking enforcement.
The No To Mob are demanding that Westminster City Council immediately suspend all of the 175 CCTV cameras used for parking enforcement, and to proactively contact victims who have received unlawful PCN’s, inviting them to apply for a full refund.
Earlier this year the No To Mob drew Westminster Council’s attention to a number of illegally issued tickets at Soho’s Lower James Street junction and following Richmond Council’s lead, Westminster’sparking department relented and pro-actively contacted those motorists who had been wrongly issued PCN’s by the Council’s CCTV mobile spy cars. The Richmond case is particularly significant not only for the large sum of money involved (expected to be over £1million) but just like Westminster Richmond Council had also neglected to ensure their CCTV cars were correctly VCA certified.
Westminster Council do have the option to appeal by seeking a Judicial Review, but experts from the No To Mob have stated this would be wasting more taxpayers money, as they are confident their case is water tight.
CCTV surveillance equipment plays an important role in crime control policy, social control theory and community consciousness’. Studies show that the use of CCTV systems reduces crime rates. Once burglars find that an area is under observation, they are less likely to indulge in criminal activities.
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CCTV is also used to bleed the public dry for the slightest infringement of rules! Has everyone forgot that to err is human? I personally think it an outrage that you can now be fined for making a genuine & small error. What happened to the days when it had to be proven that a person intended to knowingly break the law or was innocent & only a Magistrate or Judge was allowed to impose fines?
ReplyDeleteNow we've got this lot acting as Judge, Jury & Executioner!
frankie