Driver will pay thousands to beat £100 Kent car park fine over '22-hour' stay ... trends now
A furious driver says he is prepared to pay thousands to fight a £100 parking charge he was slapped with after staying in a retail park for 'just half an hour'.
Lawrence Carnie, 58, has been on a nine-month crusade after he was handed the fine for a '22-hour' stay at a car park in Dartford, Kent in June last year.
Mr Carnie said he visited the retail park for half an hour stints over two consecutive days but was punished due to malfunctioning CCTV number plate recognition.
The car park is free for three hours but he claims he was never logged leaving the first time so was hit with the charge for overstaying, as to the system it look as if he arrived at 3.20pm on June 10 and left at 1.30pm the next day.
He appealed the parking enforcers, Group Nexus, and the independent adjudicator, Parking On Private Land Appeals (POPLA), but was rejected both times.
Lawrence Carnie (pictured), 58, has been on a nine-month crusade after he was handed a parking fine for a '22-hour' stay in June last year at a car park in Dartford, Kent
The Tower Retail Park car park (pictured) is free for three hours but Mr Carnie claims he was never logged leaving the first time so was hit with a fine for overstaying, as to the system it look as if arrived at 3.20pm on June 10 and left at 1.30pm the next day
Mr Carnie, from Dartford, contacted the British Parking Association, who represent Nexus, about the alleged issues, but they denied any problems with the system.
Undeterred, he is carrying on his battle and has sought legal help to fight the fine over his stay at the Tower Retail Park car park.
He said: 'If I bumped into you in the street and said "give me £100" you wouldn't do it.
'That's what's happened here, they're asking for £100 for not being there. It's just so wrong what this company is doing.'
The motorist is being advised by CCJ Removals Services, who help people remove court judgments from their credit reports.
Paralegal Luke Memory specialises in challenging parking fines and is overseeing the case.
He said: 'Cases like this do not usually make it to court as the legal costs are much higher than the fine but Mr Carnie is an exception to the rule.
'Once a claim is made against Mr Carnie we would instruct a barrister to draft a defence statement which costs £500 and this would lead to a court hearing at which Mr Carnie would instruct a barrister and this would cost approximately £1000.
'It's off-putting for the common man but Mr Carnie is happy to fight it in court.'
He added: 'They are very clever these companies as the costs to defend a case is much higher than the fine so people would usually just pay.
'My thoughts are he has a good case. What they are alleging is he stayed too long in the car park but their own evidence does not prove this and is littered with omissions and errors and clearly demonstrates that their records are inaccurate and unreliable.'
Mr Carnie added: 'I am doing this purely because the data they provided was so bad.
'They would have to show it to be impeccable but as I have found it doesn't show that.'
Mr Carnie plans to request all his costs be paid for by Group Nexus if he wins his case.
After appealing the penalty through the independent adjudicators, POPLA, Group Nexus released a 356-page document showing all activity across that 24-hour period at the car park.
Mr Carnie used his knowledge of analytics and placed
