Is this defenceable?

[metalrat]

My son parked his car in a disabled bay one evening at 19:13pm.
He was in the shop opposite for about 2 minutes.
There were no other cars parked in any of the other 9 vacant disabled bays nor in any of the vacant non disabled bays further up the road.
He accepts he parked in one of the bays.
He contacted the council to enquire if it had been issued out of hours, they said they would investigate.
He received no further correspondace until 2 days ago when he was informed the penalty would be increased to £60 because of late payment.
Is there any appeal he can make or should he just accept he was unlucky and pay the fine?
Any help appreciated

[Bernie_the_Bolt]

Whilst your son does not dispute the contravention, the enforcement process has to be lawful to enable the council to collect a penalty using a judicial process.

What this means is that if the council screw up in their admin you are not liable for the penalty. But you have to be prepared to argue hard.

The first thing to do is to scan and post both sides of the PCN - obscure reg no and other personal details - so we can advise.

[metalrat]

Thanks for the reply Bernie
My son is looking for the notice at present, he has put it in a safe place he says??
He does however recollect that they got the wrong colour of car on the notice, I don't see if this would have any bearing on things as it is only a minor error.
What do you think?

[patdavies]

Colour is effectively irrelevant.

Follow Bernie's advice (last sentence)

If he has been informed that the penalty has increased, then he has been served an NtO (Notice to Owner). Scan, wash and post this as well. He now has the necessary forms to appeal formally against the ticket. (any appeal/letter prior to issue of NtO is informal, the Couincil does not have to respond, but the adjudicator usually takes a dim view of this)

All the above relates to a Council issued ticket - it will quote on it Road Traffic Act 1991