Great-granddad Berkeley Bathurst has refused to pay a £170 fine he received after he was unable to pay for parking due to a faulty meter in Hornchurch, East London
A fuming pensioner claims he was stung with a massive £170 parking fine after a broken machine prevented him from buying a £1 ticket.
Berkeley Bathurst, 75, said he was unable to pay the fee to park his car at a car park in Hornchurch, East London, as the machine had broken and he did not have his phone on him. The great-granddad was shocked to receive a £100 fine through the post just a few weeks later.
A second notice increasing the sum to £170 and threatening him with legal action arrived just three days before Christmas. He won’t pay the stonking sum, stating he had only left his car for just over 10 minutes to run an errand at a nearby post office before returning to the vehicle and driving home.
Mr Bathurst parked his car at the Elm Park car park to run a quick errand to the post office on October 16, and tried to pay the £1 per hour parking fee at the machine. But it was displaying a “Not in use” error at the time, and, without his phone, he had no alternative method for paying the sum.
After receiving the fine in the post three weeks later, he refused to pay, and the matter was escalated to debt collection agency ZZPS, which added a £70 administration fee to his charge and threatened him with legal action at the county court. The letter also threatened ‘additional charges’ if he didn’t pay the increased fine.
Mr Bathurst says he has suffered months of stress after receiving his increased fine in the lead-up to Christmas. He said: “They sent the [second] letter saying we owe them £170 three days before Christmas. I thought, ‘How disgraceful sending that letter to old age pensioners’.
“We had the worry of that all Christmas; worrying they would send bailiffs to our door.” But Mr Bathurst insists he will not give in and will fight his fine ‘until the end’, saying: “I am not paying it. End of story. We will fight it tooth and nail, until the end. It was a pound, that’s all it was. It’s all a con, in my opinion. They’re like the mafia: ‘Pay up, or else’.
“They’re gangsters, ripping people off and frightening the hell out of people like us. We will not pay a penny.” He said: “How could I pay if the machine wasn’t working? I tried to appeal but I was told it was rejected. I’m not paying it because I’m not going to be ripped off. This has caused me so much stress because that’s a flipping lot of money.
“Where am I going to get £170? It’s not my responsibility to maintain their machines. They said I should’ve found an alternative method of paying. They seemed to think it was my responsibility that the machine didn’t work. That’s absolute rubbish. We are not going to put up with this sort of thing. It’s absolutely disgraceful.”
Mr Bathurst’s wife, 73-year-old Angela, added that she thought the actions of parking company One Park Solution were “tyrannical” given how small the unpaid parking fee would have been. She said: “It seems to me that money is these parking people’s God and that’s it, they don’t care. He was barely there for ten minutes.”
The couple, who have lived in Hornchurch for the last 30 years, are warning other shoppers to be careful when using the car park to avoid receiving similar fines.
One Park Solution did not respond after being approached for comment about Mr Bathurst’s case.
