My row with Clacton parking office continues.

A while back I posted the letter I sent to Clacton parking office. I then got back the reply on the right.

I have now responded to this letter and here is my reply in full.

Dear Mrs Davies

Thank you for your letter dated 23rd July 2008

Firstly I must point out that I have already made you a reasonable offer of £10 per month, an offer that you accepted when you cashed the first cheque.

As you have already accepted my offer of £10 a month I fail to understand why I should provide you with personal financial details. Should these details prove necessary I will of course provide them, once I receive the correct form with the data protection statement required by law when requesting this sort of private and personal information.

I haven’t enclosed a cheque for the next payment because nowhere in your previous letters does it state who I make the cheque payable to. I left the last one blank but have since been advised that it is not safe to send a cheque through the post like this as anybody could cash it. Once you have notified me as to who I make the cheque payable to, or given me details so I can set up a direct debit through the bank, I will make the next and subsequent payment.

I should also point out that as somebody with a terminal illness I value my time very highly and don’t feel I should have to waste it pointing out legal requirements and requesting information that somebody in your position should know and supply automatically.

Therefore if I have to engage in anymore correspondence, other than making the £10 a month payment you accepted, then I will have no alternative but to charge you for my time and efforts.

Yours sincerely.

Peter McClarnon

My letter to the parking office in Clacton

Penalty Charge number TG50403735

Dear Sir/Madam

It seems that I am guilty of the heinous crime of being disabled 24 hours a day seven days week instead of at the convenience of Tendering council and I did indeed park in a disabled bay 15 minutes before the permitted time.

Could you please extend my apologies to any of the hundreds of lorry drivers who were trying to deliver at 15.45 on Good Friday and whom I may have delayed by parking in the deserted road. Please assure them I have asked my doctors if they have a magic pill to make my cancer disappear at will and they are working on it so I won’t hold them up again in future.

The fine of £60, which strangely enough is exactly the same as somebody in full time employment, able bodied and parking in a disabled bay without a badge would get, is almost two thirds of my total weekly income and I quite obviously cannot afford to pay it all in one go. So please find enclosed six post dated cheques for £10 each.

Of course my illness is terminal so I may actually die before the last couple are honoured but that is a chance you will just have to take. Think of it as a free entry into a lottery!

When I get depressed about dying I think of people like you whose only purpose in life is to make as many people as miserable as possible and suddenly a terminal illness doesn’t seem such a bad thing anymore.

Thanks for your understanding.

Peter McClarnon

Justice or just another tax?

Fixed penalties, or “on the spot fines” were originally introduced as a way of reducing the amount of offences dealt with by the courts, freeing up court time and allowing them to deal with more serious matters. They were mainly used for minor motoring offences and usually carried an incentive for the motorist in that if they just paid up promptly then the fine was lower.

However fixed penalties are now used for a whole range of different offences. Are they really an effective way of dealing with minor crime or have they become just another tax?

Police now use fixed penalties for many different crimes, littering, smoking in public, shop lifting, drunkenness and anti social behaviour to name just a few. Transport police use them if you don’t buy a ticket and councils use them for parking offences. When parking tickets, speeding tickets and other minor motoring offences are taking into consideration over a million fixed penalties are issued every week in this country making it a very lucrative industry.

These fixed penalties have a number of advantages for the people issuing them. They are quick and easy to issue. They are cheap and don’t tie up people in court. Most offenders just pay up, even if they are not guilty. But are they fair and just and do they work? Let’s look at some examples.

Since fixed penalty speeding fines were introduced around two million people have been fined for speeding. Surely if they worked and were acting as a deterrent, as a fine is supposed to, then speeding would no longer be a problem. Judging by the amount of new speed cameras appearing on our roads every week that is not the case.

A few weeks back Chelsea footballer John Terry parked for two hours in a disabled bay in Esher and received a fixed penalty, just as you or I would. Fair enough you might say. Except that this man earns £70,000 a week! A fine is supposed to be a financial penalty that acts as a deterrent and whilst a £60 fine might make you or I think twice about doing it again it is meaningless to somebody who earns that amount of money. Is that fair?

A couple of years back Madonna was attending a gym in London. Instead of her chauffer parking legally he parked outside on the double yellow lines every day for a fortnight and got a ticket every day. Because Madonna could afford the fines it meant she didn’t have to obey the law.

The proliferation of fixed penalties for a whole range of offences now means that in many cases it is only the poor who have to obey the law. If you can afford it and find a law inconvenient all you have to do is ignore it. Is that just? Is the law not supposed to apply to everybody?

Fixed penalties do not work. They do not prevent crime. They do not reduce crime. They are clearly not fair and most certainly not just. The only thing they are good for is raising large amounts of money with the minimum of effort. In my mind that makes them just another tax. Which is why New Labour are so fond of them.