Baroness takes on C-charge bailiffs

A peer whose £10 congestion charge bill rocketed to £240 when she gave the wrong number plate has launched a High Court case which could cost Transport for London thousands of pounds.

Baroness Walmsley, a Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, told the court yesterday she had been threatened that bailiffs would remove her furniture if she did not pay. "One has felt that one is dealing with a blind and deaf Big Brother, who has neither heard what has been said nor read what one has written," the baroness, who is representing herself, said.

She had suffered sleepless nights and told the court she would have paid the fine but felt she had a duty to other members of the public caught in the same trap.

Mr Justice Stanley Burnton appealed to Mayor Ken Livingstone to offer an olive branch to the peer. "I would have expected Transport for London to exercise a discretion and let you off. You paid your £10 and made a mistake," he said.

The court heard that the peer tried to pay £10 over the internet for journeys in her silver Ford Puma through the congestion charge zone on 29 and 30 October 2003.

But when typing in the registration number she had mistakenly entered JBF, the last three letters from her previous car's plate, instead of OJC. The baroness, full name Joan Margaret Walmsley, said she remembered the plate as an acronym for "Joan's Best Friend".

She contested two resulting £40 penalty notices but had to wait until last August before an adjudicator rejected her appeal. By then the bill had hit £240.

The adjudicator accepted she had paid and had made a genuine error, but ruled that he had no discretion to allow her appeal.

He told her: "The registration recorded on the receipt must be for the vehicle used within the zone. The appellant did not pay for the vehicle's specified registration mark. I accept that this was a genuine error, but I have no alternative other than to refuse this appeal."

The baroness said this interpretation played no part in the law, which states: "A licence may be purchased only for a single vehicle having a specified registration mark."

She said: "It is accepted that I paid the £10 fee for the use of my car within the congestion zone on the two relevant days. It is accepted that I was not a freeloader. To require me to pay a penalty charge in addition to the payment I have already made is an absurdity, repugnant to common sense and manifestly unfair."

Fellow peer Lord Tordoff had been spared a fine when he sent a statement confirming a similar mistake to TfL rather than following the appeal procedure, she said.

Outside the court, Lady Walmsley said: "I am not against the congestion charge. I just want it to work properly."

John Hardy, representing the Parking and Traffic Appeal Service, said the adjudicator's decision was "unimpeachable" in law.

A ruling is expected next week. The baroness may have to pay TfL's legal costs if she loses the case.