Camden

Got home tonight to judgment on the Camden Penalty Charge Notice. I got off (hurray!) but only on the basis that a week before the hearing, Camden had written to me and the tribunal indicating that the video evidence had been ‘misplaced’. The adjudicator rejects my legal arguments as to why a hypothetical turn out of Boswell Street, around the traffic island and into Procter Street would not amount to “failure to drive in the direction shown on a blue sign” anyway, but states that since this is a question of ‘fact and degree’ he cannot be satisfied from just the still photograph on the PCN that I could not have turned left as directed, so has to let me off. So the decision preserves Camden’s ability to continue to shaft people for this so–called contravention, but they’ve thrown me back on this occasion due to lack of evidence.

It is as one might have expected. I suppose that the adjudicator was never going to topple the status quo regarding whether or not this is legally a contravention. You would probably need a legal challenge in the High Court to do that, with the inherent risk that you would lose and face the attendant liability for Camden’s costs. But if the adjudicator had found against me on the facts on the material before him, for a “moving violation” without any moving pictures or witness evidence, a judicial review application would not have seemed out of the question. Everyone’s a winner, I guess. It occurs to me that if the Evening Standard article was right about this camera making £12,000 per day for Camden, it would be well worth Camden spending £1m fighting all the way to the House of Lords to maintain their right to fine people for this manouevre. I remain of the opinion that this sort of thing is an example of how this country is going to the dogs, with London in the vanguard.

A win is still a win though. Yippee!!!!!!!

Labels: driving, london