In September 2013, Kazzie parked in a private car park what had two free hours. Parking at the car park was managed by Vehicle Control Services. She hadn’t read the terms and conditions as she knew there was two hours free parking and that she was going to be less than 2 hours. As she was returning to her car after shopping, she fell ill, and another lady come to her assistance. She was too ill to drive her car so phoned her husband to come and drive her home. After waiting an hour and a half for her husband, she received a phone call from him saying that he was still stuck on traffic. She was feeling somewhat better now, and decided to drive herself home. Two weeks later, she received a PCN in the post along with two photos of her car, as she had overstayed the two hour limit by 75 minutes. She had fortunately taken the phone number of the lady who helped her, so she appealed to VCS and also asked the lady to write directly to VCS to give her version of the events (as a witness), which she did. VCS rejected her appeal and said they should have phoned them at the time as their phone number is on the signs. However, she was feeling to sick to call them. She received a POPLA code and wrote to POPLA explaining the situation and including a copy of the lady’s statement. She received a reply from them saying that her appeal has been refused, the assessor says that she cannot take into account mitigating circumstances surrounding a breach of contract, and that she should have called the helpline number on the notice board.
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