'Metric martyr' launches High Court challenge against council parking fines
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'Metric martyr' launches High Court challenge against council parking fines
"Metric martyr" Neil Herron today launched a new legal campaign - this time to end the use of parking tickets as a "stealth tax".
As his team of lawyers lodged papers for the challenge at the High Court in London, Mr Herron said: "This is the case motorists have been demanding for the past 10 years."
The 45-year-old market trader from Sunderland is seeking permission to apply for a judicial review, arguing that drivers up and down the country are being unfairly and unlawfully penalised by the current parking regime.
Having re-mortgaged his home to launch his test case, he said: "Local authorities have not been closely following their legal requirements, and there are very serious questions to be asked about the independence of the adjudication service.
"We expect this to become the biggest motoring legal challenge the country has ever seen.
"We have support pledged from a number of aspects of the British motoring public, from taxi drivers, couriers and motorcyclists down to the individual motorist.
"We are all fed up with being stealth taxed by a system which does not appear to be properly accountable or regulated."
Mr Herron was at the centre of the battle to stop the prosecution of British shopkeepers who wanted to go on using imperial measurements.
He turned his attention to parking after being hit by a number of fines by his local council.
Michael Caplan QC, who is representing Mr Herron, today deposited documents at the High Court that form the basis of his challenge.
The papers will now go before a judge sitting in private who will decide whether there is an "arguable case" which should go to a full hearing.
Mr Herron believes his case, if successful, could lead to drivers demanding back hundreds of millions of pounds they should never have paid.
He says many of the tickets issued against him were invalid because the regulations which cover Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs) were wrongly applied.
His lawyers are seeking a test case ruling that parking restrictions cannot lawfully be enforced in CPZs when, as well as yellow lines, there are additional markings such as zig-zags, or those for pelican and zebra crossings or bus lanes.
They also argue Mr Herron's Article 6 right to a fair appeal hearing before an impartial tribunal under the European Convention on Human Rights was breached.
They say the Traffic Penalty Tribunal is funded by payments received from local authorities responsible for parking ticket operations.
The payments represent a percentage from each ticket issued, giving rise to the "appearance of possible bias" and lack of independence.
The lawyers will stress they are not suggesting there has been actual bias, but the appearance of bias is enough to make the system unlawful.
Mr Herron said people across the country had reached the point where they had had enough of an unjust parking ticket system used as a stealth tax.
Parking fines were coming as an even heavier blow as the economic climate worsened and the credit crunch hit.
He said: "The British people have reached tipping point.
"They want a proper, reasonable, fair and transparent system."
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