Thousands of drivers 'wrongly penalised'

Tens of thousands of motorists fined for driving in bus lanes could have their penalties overturned after a council oversight.

Barnet issued 33,817 penalty charge notices which failed to use the correct wording - and one was quashed at appeal last week.

Robert Southgate, a 47-year-old police constable from Hendon, was fined £120 for driving in a bus lane in The Hyde on 28 December last year. He successfully appealed on the grounds that the wording on the penalty charge notice did not comply with the law.

Mr Southgate's notice was declared invalid because it stated that he had to pay the charge within 28 days " beginning with the date that this notice was delivered", rather than within 28 days "beginning with the date of this notice", as the law stipulates.

The constable, who is an IT trainer, from Welwyn Garden City, said: "You would have thought they would have got their paperwork right by now, but evidently not.

"This will hopefully teach them a lesson. They are absolutely strict with the letter of the law if you are in a bus lane for only a few seconds, so this will show them that it works both ways."

Parking ticket expert Barrie Segal, of Appealnow.com, said: "The council should have overturned all these faulty fines on its own initiative; it should not need telling."

However, a Barnet spokesman said a ruling by an adjudicator did not set a precedent and that the 24,593 similar notices that had already been paid could not be appealed against retrospectively. Barnet said the wording was the result of a "computer error" and it adopted the phrase "beginning with the date on which this penalty charge notice was served", on 31 March.

The spokesman added that the alteration did not mean the council agreed with the adjudicator's decision. " Barnet council feels its interpretation of the Act was fairer on the motorist as it gave a longer period to either pay or lodge an appeal," he said.

The ruling came two years after Barnet lost its case against Hugh Moses after failing to put the date of offence and date of issue on parking tickets. It led to thousands of tickets being overturned throughout the country.