Driver told to pay record-breaking £24,500 parking fine
 

A woman has been ordered by a court to pay a record fine to a private parking company after ignoring hundreds of penalty notices.

The £24,500 fine is understood to be the largest parking fine in the country.

Carly Mackie, who lives in Dundee, was ordered to pay Vehicle Control Services the money after repeatedly parking in an area reserved for residents at a property rented by her mother and stepfather.

The 28-year-old had been issued with penalty notices almost every day over two years, but claimed they were unenforceable as she lived there at the time.

Mackie insisted that she was entitled to park her Mini in front of the family's garage, and would not accept the offer of a parking permit for a space nearby for £40 a month.

After racking up a £18,500 bill and ignoring more than 200 penalty notices, she was taken to court by the private parking firm last year.

Sheriff George Way said in a written statement that Mackie had "entirely misdirected herself on both the law and the contractual chain in this case".

"She knew perfectly well what the signs displayed, and that she was parking in breach of the conditions.

She stated that (effectively a protest position) that parking charges were illegal and unenforceable in Scotland and that she could park where she liked as her father's guest.

The defender is not the tenant. The defender's car was an additional burden on the parking facilities and she was the same as any other interloper.

She was offered a permit by the factors (at a reasonable charge I think) but she refused on principle."

– SHERIFF GEORGE WAY

http://www.itv.com/news/2017-04-03/d...-parking-fine/

I know laws in England and Wales are different to those in Scotland but do you think it's right that she has been ordered to pay this fee to a private company?

What is your thoughts on private parking company fining people for parking without permits? Should parking be free?

If it's a rented house/apartment and those are the rules then it's her own tough luck, she could have paid for a spot for £10 a week :shrug:

Maybe they should have clamped her a few times instead though, I'm sure that would have stopped her without it going this far :laugh:

I don't think private authorities have the authorisation to do so

Oh ok, I think they do here if it's a private land.

If it's not like a council parking fee or whatever doesn't it mean she can just say no to them

She would have more had more chance of getting away with it in a council run car park, private run parks need to make a profit, she was silly to ignore it.

Clearly not as it went to court and the decision went against her according to the article

..............shoulda walked....got the bus................

Mark L

They want the money.The more the merrier.Private parking companies are usually arseholes.
She is an idiot though.She should've got the message the first time.To do it every day for 2 years is just stupid.

She clearly thought she was in the right.

As anyone seen the news story about the police in wales they gave an ex con a mobile phone and after he went back to prison gave it to two mates.

They ran up a 44 thousand pound bill and the police are paying it with no charges brought.

They had to pay as they gave him a contract phone instead of a PAYG in error not sure why the phone companies allowed the charges to build up, they should have cut the phone off when it reached a a couple of hundred :umm2:

she clearly thought she would get away with it

Imagine the money they'd have lost.No way they were cutting that off.They were probs taking bets on how high it goes:laugh:

The ignorant woman got what she deserved. Parking is often a Hugh issue and she has no right to park in residents parking spaces. Ignoramuses such as her are a stain on modern living.

Especially when she was offered a spot for £10 a week, that's really good value