They didn't do anything as they weren't in they left them open and went out somewhere. Wife came round the corner and a Van was parked just off not leaving enough room. Wife has gone to get passed the van and this persons gate was left open hanging over the pavement by around 10cm it wasn't until she heard a scrape on the back door that she saw the gate had caught her car. I am sure there is a law about leaving gates open....at the end of the day it was hanging out onto the road and caused damage to a car that was actually watching another car parked on the road the gate shouldn't have been hanging off the edge of the pavement. I'm not saying we will get anywhere with this but thought I would ask not sure how the law works on this one Wife says that she found something on the Highways act 1980 - part IX obstructions of highways and streets section 153

If you go into google maps and type in rookwood square leeds and go to street view you'll see what I mean thats where the incident took place. Looking back at the gates I wont give the house number about 10cm of the gate move out onto the road over hanging the pavement.

Just had the side of our door scratched from someone leaving there drive gates open. the road has a dropped pavement all the way along what I mean by that is the pavement is the same level as the road all the way along so it never raises at any point. wife tried to get passed a parked van today and didn't see the persons driveway gates open onto the foot path/road as stated they are all the same level. It made a deep scratch along the drivers door (might be able to spray it myself) but left a note for them and contact detials asking for them to get incontact for the damage to the car. Not sure if I would be able to get anything out of this but would rather them pay up first than out of my own pocket. What is the law on driveway gates left open? I can't seem to find anyting on google searches regarding this.....only 1 statement from liverpool council about it being illigel to open them onto a public footpath I am in Leeds so would assume it be the same law? I can provide pictures of the street if need be to show what I mean about the road and the pavement?

Well we were hoping that the insurance company were going to be really good and get on with it but I guess not they are not great at all. The 3rd party could claim that further damage had occured but we have date and time stamped photos the day after it happend. he could fabricate the 12 or so hours between the incident and the photos been taken but then I guess this would be upto the judge. I would be happy to show a screen shot of the damage to the car? To be honest we thought the insurance company would send out a guy to have a look at the car like another company did a few years ago when a lorry wrote our car off or at least give us a list of credited garages they use but they said to us today that we can go to any garage. they haven't been very forth coming with information and we have only had one letter as stated before informing us of any action being taken. When it goes to court dependant on the repair costs to the car if the quote is something like £70 to get it fixed it wont be worth going through the insurance company if its something like £300+ might as well go through them. if for some reason it doesn't go in our favour its not an MOT failure so will wait and get it repaired once we have enough money as dont want to lose 3 years no claims. But we are going to report the insurance company to the FSA for there total messup of this case so far.

Wife has spoken to them today and we are getting this in writing that, we can go out and get 3 full quotes for the car, then they will take it to court that way for the cost of repair rather than getting the repair done first. At least this way when the insurance is due again end of April we should still keep our no claims when moving to a new insurer while the old one is dealing with this case

He doesn't have any insurance of any kind thats the problem if we went to court the judge would have to fine him the costs

Further to add this guy with the dog has told the insurance company that his dog was on a lead and she was speeding now without CCTV we can't prove this. The only thing we can go on now is I was a witness, if the dog was on a lead how the hell did it manage to get on the road and hit the side of the car, If it was our fault why did the guy not call the police. we had to chase the guy down as his dog run off so did he. He passed all his detials onto us. His address, name and telephone number and we went and reported the matter the same day to the police.

A further update for this..... Wife phoned the insurance company in January as we haven't had any updates....They had applied for CCTV and had the date of the incident down for the 21st November, she informed them that the date was teh 20th November when the incident happend not the 21st the 21st was when she reported it to them. So they logged it in the computer and said we will let them know the right date then. Wife had to ask them to be informed of what they do and keep her upto date as unless you ask as we foung out they wont tell you anything. So on Saturday 25th Feb wife gets a call from her insurance company. They told her the CCTV doesn't show any footage of her or a dog in the area...when she asked them the date they had CCTV footage of the 21st November so she got annoyed with the person on the phone so they went away and called her back 20 mins later and said that they couldn't get the CCTV footage for the 20th November because the council wipe the tapes once a month. They went onto say that they would have to take this person to court and the only way to do this was by her claiming off her own insurance getting the car fixed and then taking the guy to court. in the meant time we lose all our no claims bonus and our insurance is due again end of April. at the moment with 2 years no claims the costs are around £130 a month now we will lose 3 years no claims. The person said that the only other way to do it was to take them to court seperate with quotes and get a solicitor. We asked the person if our legal cover would cover solicitors fees but we are waiting till monday to find out. I'm so annoyed so much that I am reporting the insurance company to the FSA

Hi sorry for the delay had problems with loss of internet until today, Its East North East housing. I have text the women at the housing office to inform her I would be asking the local councilor for a meeting to be setup with the housing manager. but failing that have been in contact with the ombudsman and they might be able to help if communication breaks down with the councilor and the housing manager or if the meeting doesn't take place

Hi, no written complaint has gone in only over the course of 3 years have I written to the local counilor. All the rest have been either face to face complaints or over the telephone so it is whatever is logged on the system. I am going to ask for a copy of all records they hold. The housing is council (leeds city council) its not housing association. As for logs kept no. well I say no we have some but as stated going to ask for a copy of everything reported to the council. then I will try and put 2 and 2 together with any blanks they dont have.

I wonder if someone could help me I'm not sure I have posted in the right part of the forums. I live in a council house 12 years now and it has needed some repairs doing to it. We haven't been getting repairs done and we held our rent back because of this reason we have been told that we are in violation of our tenancy and that rent and repairs are separate matters and there are routes we can go down for repairs. We said to women on phone well we have been to councillor 3 times and 2 times you have ignored his letters. Head surveyor has been out and still no repairs done as he made no notes on computer. And yesterday the plasterer never turned up booked 8-12 housing office said they couldn't get hold of him all day and he would contact us at 17.00 he never did so we called today to be told he can't come and do it now till Wednesday at the earliest I was like I booked a whole day off work waiting for this guy they said sorry nothing we can do now till Wednesday as fully booked. I asked for another guy then and after some arguing about getting time off work they said a guy could come Friday evening this week but he said he was busy so might not get all the bathroom plastered and might have to come back Monday I was pretty annoyed but had to agree to Monday as well. I have a feeling that this person wont turn up tomorrow and just come wondering around here on Monday. I was told they would work around my hours because of the mess up. I'm fed up and don’t know who else I can take this up with as I am told the housing manager doesn't meet with people and if I with held my rent they'll take me to court to have me removed from the house. I work for the NHS and can't just take days off here and there and I'm not wasting one day after another on the hopes they might actually turn up. Some Advice would be grateful

Sorry for the delay in getting back....needed a break from asking all these questions and its been all work talk so needed a break from it. To answer what you said then yes it was all brought up and it was a long shot that she was going to get her job back. They took into account that wife did have parking problems but could not dismiss that she went against the school directive. They took into account that she did find parking but said that as much as they can agree that she found parking she didn't move her car on the first day when asked even if it meant parking outside the school and it getting as far as a disciplinary after the first day it would have been looked at in a different light instead she parked there for over a week. I can understand some of what they said so they changed her “gross misconduct” to “cumulative misconduct” which isn't as bad and she has been given 10 weeks pay. We are looking to take the matter for legal advise and been given a form to fill out by the union they said its free advice and they will tell you if anything further can be done. What she wants to do is go down the bullying route. In the appeal for some reason the head teacher decided to bring up the “breach of confidentiality” even though it was not upheld for the first governors. My wife said that there was no place here for it to be mentioned as it had been brought up and wiped clean already however he was very insistent that he didn't care what anyone thought he believed he was right and that she had “breached confidentiality” in his opinion. But this was how the school operated when my wife had approached them before the parking issue in October going back to July she had been off sick with work related stress and had an assessment at work bullying was brought up and was meant to be investigated. She then broke up for the summer holidays and on her return to work in September they moved her out of her department into another department with nobody she knew and the school said it was to move her from perpetrators. She didn't want to move departments but they said she either moved or it would go to the governors They never dealt with the bully's and when all this parking came to light in October and wife brought it all up the school made out that it was all wife's figment of her imagination and she had perceived something that wasn't happening. She had shown emails that were in her pack from one staff to another that referred to her as “She is late again” “hi its me again here we go again with her” This was from her line manager to the HR of the school. So lets see if anything further can be done. Not a total victory but a better outcome than it was at the start.

I'm popping out so will post a lengthy post when I get back but to shorten it at the moment she didn't get her job back but that was never expected. However the governors felt that the matter of Gross Misconduct was not relevent in this case and decided that insobordination and failure to follow a management directive would stand for reasons that she did actually park were she shouldn't. they said that they have taken into account her circumstances and decided that it would be changed to "cumulative misconduct" and gave her 4 weeks notice pay.

Wife has started with a large part of the paper work now for tomorrow. This maybe too late now for a response but this evidence will be going in tomorrow in any event. firstly more of a rant than advice.....As mentioned further up about getting a legal letter about wife being on site and taking photos when she shouldn't. I sent an email to the legal department of Leeds city council about how she had permission to enter the grounds and if she wasn't allowed to take photos then why did the school take photos of her car and explained about how the school have not passed on all the information to the council. I wanted to take the matter up with the person that sent the letter who stated that should we need to speak to her about the letter we can do hence the email sent and I did give her my contact details to ring me. Today I got an email from education Leeds HR the person that emailed me is the person that has dealt with wife in the past for back to work (sickness and past disciplinary) she seems to work with he school most of the time. The person from the legal department sent a copy of my email to this education Leeds women and she said to me that anything concerning the letter wife could bring up with the governors. Wife was going to mention it anyway to them. What annoyed me was the fact that this was the legal department following a complaint from the school and nothing to do the education Leeds department HR and they shouldn't have forwarded on this email as my complaint was with the legal team and they sent on private information onto the person that works with the school so they got everything in the email. Might sound daft but for me its like a barrister for the defendant showing the other side their case before going to trial. I'm taking the matter up with the person that sent the letter tomorrow. To get to the point the photo's we took of the illegally parked cars were not added to the appeal bundle so the governors did not have these and advised by members on here to inform the school in case they had been missed by accident. I got an email response today from the investigating officers PA that the school have deemed the photo's not relevant to add to the appeal pack. But if wife wanted to bring them along for the governors she can ask them what they think. Also all the evidence we put in about parking and handed to the governors as our defence has not been added to the appeal pack either so these new set of 3 governors don’t have any information of emails we gave them, photo's of where her car was parked outside of school when the residents were complaining and any police letters we sent in when our car was damaged. The only thing added to the appeal pack is the transcript of the last hearing and a response to her appeal letter. I don’t know if she could add this info into the appeal tomorrow as its all relevant but she will try.

Well the point she could argue is that it doesn't matter if it was once or 10 times the fact that the school didn't do anything about it from the start then some of the blame has to fall back on them.....for a week and a half wife parked in that spot at that point she was suspended for breach of confidentiality. this was not upheld and not important here to mention....but if she hadn't been suspended then she would have been parking in the same spot for at least a month. Now on the grounds the school claim that it was such a matter that was so serious on health and safety and used this as part of the sacking why didn't the school take action sooner if the matter was in their case as bad as it was they left the car there for over a week taking photo's instead. Also the point being that where the area was with yellow cross hatched lines was actually a dead end and a place where delivery vehicles came in to make deliveries to the kitchens who didn't have a problems getting passed her car. If emergency services were to enter the school they would have to come in the front entrance and take a right into the area where main part of the school is facing and park where the layby is that has double yellow lines this is where wife took pictures of 3 cars parked. As already stated the school didn't point out anywhere at least for health and safety reasons for her to park anywhere else in the school grounds knowing her history with parking distputes. so they could have at least eased the situation themselves while it was being investigated. so the fact whether she parked there or not the school could have if the situation was as serious as they make out forced her to move the car or suspended her on teh same day she parked there. the school have to take some responsibility on this. I can agree to some extent then perhaps she shouldn't have parked there but the school never said anything about her parking there being a "health and saftey matter" only that they didn't want her parking in school grounds and going against a management directive it was only brought up when she had her meeting on the 10th November but this was after she was suspended. As from monday she will start putting something together there is nothing to lose here anyway if they upheld the case then it changes nothing and if she wins she will hand her notice in anyway. Without going into too much detial here the school have bullied the wife so much since 2007 even the Union agreed that her face doesn't fit and they have had a hard time trying to defend her because the way the school have been doing it they have said that in their own opinion they want to find a way to get her out and they will keep trying. the bullying got so bad she was off for 6 months with work related stress (part of this was down to parking issues) they actually moved her out of the department to have a new line manager. they never dealt with the bullying and their answer was down to her fabrication she was being bullied when it was never happening. So its been a long ride. once again your advice has helped a lot and some of it I will ask wife to use. I'm on a 7-7 shift tomorrow then out celebrating with wife and family get together on sunday so any more replies I wont get chance to comment till monday evening at the latest

No the photos of wife's car were taken by the school the first week while the investigation was being carried out (November time) Wife had been sacked on December 1st but she took photos of the parked cars on December the 15th. the letter from the legal services appears to highlight the fact she was on the premises without consent and just drove in to take photos. the only reference in the letter that doesn't mention about being on property without consent is this " I must warn you that the taking of such photographs without consent may constitute a breach of the data protection act 1998" She did have consent as went that day with her father to pick up the last of her things from her pigeon hole and he had to sign to take them off the property which while he was in the building she noticed the cars parked where they shouldn't and took the photo's and the legal team have banged on about it being private property. But we haven't distributed the photo's we took only handed them in as part of our appeal to the HR officer of education leeds and the chair of the panel whom the appeal had to be written to. However to quote the data protection act 1998 the school never asked wife for consent to take photo's of her car during the investigation and felt fit to distribute them in their defence. I dont know how the law stands on this but surley this can't be onesided? Even though this legal letter has not been put in the bundle and not appeard to have been used as evidence on the schools part for the appeal they may happen to mention it on the day I dont know can deal with it then. Wife is not going to raise it as a big issues about cars being parked where they shouldn't but will mention it as you say we dont know if anything happend about them but just want to highlight to the governers that the school have raised issue that she as a sole person has gone against school rules and no one else has but clearly after her sacking others are and would like to know what the school have done to take action. Really we have nothing to lose but ask it may help just a little

Thank you very much for the offer of coming along ms-smith but my wife said she will be doing the talking in this case and just having Union as support. The meeting isn't actually at the school either its at some hotel in Garforth. but I do live in Leeds I work for the NHS although my poor spelling and grammar wouldn't signify this Its my wife’s 40th birthday this weekend so she has decided to leave things alone until after the weekend so it doesn't spoil anything. She did say she would pop on her self and have a read and reply after the weekend so will leave any gaps I have missed for her to fill in. You've really give some ideas to float around. We/she hasn't given up no way. I've never done an appeal case before so from what I can gather we are limited as to what we can bring up that isn't new info as we are going back over old ground really but approaching it at a different angle and hoping the governors will listen. Worse case is the sacking stands and we really aren't at a loss. I must admit though the photo's we sent in of the cars parked were they shouldn't on school grounds did not appear in the case bundle sent to us and has been completely ignored so we will re-submit them on the day but not way heavily on them as evidence. The one thing I want wife to raise is and whether this will make a significant difference I have read through the case bundle as it has the transcripts of the hearing and the school raised that while wife was parked in a none-designated area and her 2 front tires was parked on cross yellow hatched lines The school took photos of her car for a full week (CCTV and Digital Camera) from different angles and submitted them as part of their evidence one of the governors raised the fact that wife being a driver would have known that parking in any area of cross hatched lines would mean it is breaking the law and that she isn't allowed she agreed with this but said that because the school wasn't in a position to help her she had no choice. What I want to raise is that while she was parked there for a week and a bit and the school took photo's the governors concluded that this was “a serious matter for health and safety possibly making it difficult for emergency vehicles to access the school and deliveries to take place” They the school didn't take any action themselves knowing where she was parked and played a part for over a week knowing that it “may” have been a problem on health and safety grounds. Instead the week and a half later they suspended her because of a “breach of confidentiality” which was never upheld by the governors. I might not have raised that before but its not relevant about the confidentiality. Its my opinion that the school can't even stick to its own rules and policy and could have suspended wife the very first day she parked in that spot on the grounds of health and safety but they didn't. In any case they could have asked wife to park somewhere else in school grounds and agreed that it would not alter the investigation but they didn't. So how far we can push this I dont know but I do think that its worth mentioning.

She had the meeting today with Union who still stick to the grounds that this appeal wont make a difference and that all the school are focusing on are the facts which are she broke school rules, could have found parking off site then put a grievence in to argue her case on the offset but decided to park in school anyway even when asked to move her car. As for the principles statement " I feel I'm in a difficult position and recognise that we are in a disagreement with wife but she still insists on parking on site and the quicker this is resolved the safer the school community will be and I would like to compromise on her part of her parking off site prior to any hearing. Well the schools response to this is for the appeal - The compromise from the principles witness statement, referes to him hoping she would park offsite while the initial investigation took place. He was not willing to compromise on her actions as she was expected to adhere to the management directive as every other member of staff did. He simply hoped she would show some respect by removing her car until a conclusion was reached. At no point did this indicate that her moving her car would end the process. Simply put he didn't say in his statement any of what the investigating office just replied to only what I posted on here. While he might not have actually said the case would be over if she found parking he did ask/hint of a compromise not simply that wife should show some respect to the school while they investigate as they had shown clear evidence that they were going to take it to a hearing whether she found parking out side of school or not. Still going to have a go and will start looking at typing something up early next week as we still have a load of evidence to re-submit that the governors dont seem to have taken into account. In the pack that got sent to us today the photo's of parked cars we submitted as further evidence have not been included and our only response to that was the letter that got sent to us about taking photos on private property. I must admit I have been given better advice on here than wife has with Union they dont seem that interested in this one now....they did however give wife some information for unfair dismissal if the appeal fails but said they can't comment on that as the legal guys know better than them if there is a case to take it further. If so will look at our car/house cover to see if any of them can cover a case like this.

Thanks for the advice will sorting stuff out next week wife has a meeting with her Union although with this case they haven't been supportive at all. As you can see though the school have always been like this I call it "professional bullying" I've actually seen it first hand myself when I went as a witness with then girfriend.

Thought I would add that the 3 cars parked outside the front entrance on the school ground parked where they shouldn't for the principle to see her taking photo's he would have had to have looked passed the cars parked where they shouldn't and in any event wouldn't have known she was taking photos as her phone was just sat above the steering wheel and her car about 50ft from his office he wouldn't have known what she was doing with her phone as the flash wasn't even on. So the only conclusion I can come up is that the photo's were passed onto the school which shouldn't have been because the principle was a witness during the hearing.

Just a small update. got a letter today from the education board/local council..... Dear wife.... It is alleged by the principle of school that you trespassed at the school on december 15. you came onto the premises without lawful authority and took photo's of cars parked on the school site. I must warn you that taking photo's without consent may constitute a breach of the data protection act 1998 Please note that the school buildings, playgrounds and playing fields and car park are all private property and you therefore have no right to be on the school site. your presence on school premises again with out lawful authority may constitute a nuisance of disturbance to the annoyance of persons lawfully using those premises, contrary to section 547(1) of the education act 1996 which states: Any persons who wothout lawful authority is present on the premises to which this section applies and causes or permits nuisance or disturbance to the annoyance of persons who lawfully use those premises (whether or not such persons are present at the time) is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine.. Letter goes on about a fine and court action should she tresspass agian. However I would like to add that on said date this happend my wife agreed by the school went in to collect bagged up stuff from her pigeon hole, collect her 2 wage slips and collect her reference agreed by the school. She went in with her father who while she waited in the car went to collect her stuff from reception. it was then that she took photo's of the illegally parked cars on the school grounds and sent them with her appeal application. She has been in contact with the education authority who sent the letter but the lady wasn't in so passed a message onto her stating that wife was allowed there as agreed by the school to collect her belongings. Also I'm not sure about the data protection act 1998 on media but while she did take photo's during her week in school before her suspension the school took photo evidence of her parking from their CCTV (dated) and from a digital camera from different sides of her car that the CCTV couldn't see and that wasn't (dated) The first we new that these photos were used as evidence were when her pack came through the door 7 days prior to the hearing. Under the data protection act would the same rules apply to wife as she never gave consent for them to take photo's or distribute them to other parties? (ms-smith sorry I must have got it wrong when I posted initially about heads statement about parking off site which is why I posted what he said again in his words and not from memory) Btw found out today from the Union that her appeal date is dated Feb 1st we haven't got a letter about it yet but wife phoned Union today for any updates which it was them that had the letter union were surprised we hadn't got one yet.

His birthday was on the thursday he worked the weekend. they pay from monday to sunday then get the pay the following friday

Could do with some advice. Stepson is at college and has been working since 16 collecting glasses at our local club on a weekend...He recently turned 18 before the weekend and they were informed when his birthday was so the actual weekend he worked he was 18. When they paid him it was at the hourly rate of £4.20 not the 18 rate of £4.98 they have told him when he asked that he needed to work a week in lieu before he can get the £4.98 rate. I've looked up google on this and can't find anything that relates to current employment pay rises with age and as far as I was aware working in lieu of something is usually when you first start a job. Can someone just clarify with me on this whether its true or not? thanks

I thought I would mention that 90% of our case was about the parking issues outside of school and nothing was mentioned in the outcome letter as if nothing was even said about it or the governors were not interested. Same as the "inconvenience to other staff" it was actually one staff member that couldn't get her car out at the time before the parking permit came into effect and over 40 staff were parking in and around the school car park blocking each other in so it wasn't just my wife then and she emialed the site manager about it not against my wife as such but about cars in general parking around the car park the email was dated June 11 so why the governors have put this in I dont know as it was shown to them that is was before the permit parking and everyone was parking in the school grounds they seemed to have ingnored this but I explained this in the appeal letter. Finally I will repeat what the headmaster said in his written statement - Investigating officer - you said at the beginning you might want to provide more information? Principle - I feel I'm in a difficult position and recognise that we are in a disagreement with wife but she still insists on parking on site and the quicker this is resolved the safer the school community will be and I would like to compromise on her part of her parking off site prior to any hearing. Signed - 7th November Once again thank you for all the advice you have given and if I need to update you on anything I can if not I will post once this is all over.

As I said I would here are the 2 letters one of her final meeting before the hearing and the outcome letter after her sacking. I can't really say much more and would like to thank all those for helping best they could unless you have any questions to these I will update you again once we have had our appeal meeting but I doubt it will get over tourned but would rather go out fully at least trying. Btw ms_smith I had mentioned her meeting throughout being the 11th november in actual fact it was the 10th when it took place so they only gave her tuesday/wednesday to find parking. Conclusion of disciplinary investigation - dated the 17th on the letter didn't recieve untill the 19th November I am writing further to conclude the investigation. following our meeting on the 10th November I can confirm that the findings of the investigation support the decision to refer the case to a formal disciplinary hearing before a panel of governors. As you have a current live final warning on file the above (failure to follow a management directive and insubordination) may constitute cumulative misconduct and you must be aware that a potential outcome if this hearing is dismissal. the rest of the letter talks about notice given for the hearing etc Outcome of disciplinary hearing I write to confirm the outcome of the hearing. The panel concluded that there was evidence that your misconduct was cumulative, in that you had a live warning from the 28 June 2011 (which included wilful disobedience of instructions) and the panel felt your failure to follow a reasonable directive and insubordination in these circumstances was a continuance of this type of misconduct. the decision was to dismiss you with immediate effect. the panel were satisfied that you were aware from the management directive that you were not entitled to park in the car park without a permit and the evidence indicated you had failed to take responsibility for finding alternative parking. All other staff had complied with the directive regarding parking. The panel had regard to the potential health and safety implications of your parking in an unauthorised way. leading to increased risk of impediments to emergency vehicles accessing the school. We also noted the inconvenience and difficulties to other staff and delivery vehicles by your actions. We further the view that your actions constituted gross misconduct. Justifying the loss of notice pay. due to your insubordination being of such a serious nature. In that your disregard for the managment directive was compounded by your declaration that school could take disciplinary action against you plus the potential health and safety implications of you continuing to disregard instructions. We were not satisfied that you would seek to change your behaviour in the future. You can appeal in 10 days etc etc.