council ticket private bailiff clamps car and police threaten to remove them from the car

[queensclose]

quick question. bailiffs clamp my friends car over unpaid council ticket. he sat in the car and bailiff called the police. informed him he was committing the offence of obstructing an enforcement officer and will be arrested. officers radioed control who said to go ahead and arrest them

 

can they do this

[josephbloggs]

Short answer yes.

If its been clamped its in control of the enforcement agent.

Then if he gets in is could potentially be interfering with controlled goods without lawful excuse and obstructing an EA

Tce act 2007 sch 12 para 68 1,2,3

[queensclose]

heres my thought and properly wrong.

could you say i,m not obstructing the enforcement officer, he is welcome to to take the car but i am not moving. its not my fault the tow truck is not insured to carry passengers

[Bailiff Advice]

quick question. bailiffs clamp my friends car over unpaid council ticket. he sat in the car and bailiff called the police. informed him he was committing the offence of obstructing an enforcement officer and will be arrested. officers radioed control who said to go ahead and arrest them

 

can they do this

 

Without knowing the background it is very difficult to advise. For instance, it may be that your friend had entered into a Controlled Goods Agreement that was broken. It is possible that he has broken previous payment arrangements.

 

As I have said repeatedly on this forum, it is so important to address the debt on receipt of the Notice of Enforcement (and in fact, the previous Director General of CIVEA stated in December that approx 50% of debts are now settled at the 'Compliance Stage').

 

Has your friend actually been arrested?

[queensclose]

he ignored it and of the blue they clamped the car. he decided to pay as the officers warned him they has told by the control he could go ahead and arrest him on the bailiffs complaint he had been obstructed

[lookinforinfo]

Short answer yes.

If its been clamped its in control of the enforcement agent.

Then if he gets in is could potentially be interfering with controlled goods without lawful excuse and obstructing an EA

Tce act 2007 sch 12 para 68 1,2,3

 

Joseph Bloggs when you say yes you are assuming

a]that the owner of the car was also the person who was driving the car when the alleged offence was committed

b] that if they were, then the driver had received a Notice of Enforcement and the statutory 7 clear days notice had elapsed

c] that the car was not on finance

d] that the EA was certificated

for starters.

[queensclose]

its was the owners who had the ticket, it was the partner in the car

did have notice but ignored

no finance

was ea certified

[lookinforinfo]

Sorry, I started writing this about an hour ago then was called away so missed the previous couple of posts. However those reasons I cited are reasons why it may not be so cut and dried as Joseph asserted.

[Bailiff Advice]

Without knowing more details it is difficult to know the background.

[queensclose]

they borrowed the money to avoid arrest. i just wanted to know for future reference to see how far the police would go.

 

the fact are. partner used car and got a council parking ticket.

they ignored it and hoped to go away.

 

enforcement officer clamped car early morning. unable to obtain access to a secure access flat to notify of it being clamped. partner came down to go to work and found it clamped. informed him that he visited the flat yesterday and left letter of attendance (no one would have allowed him entrance to the flats and wouldnt answer how he got in) produced id saying enforcement officer with photo. nothing to say he was authorized to execute warrants in england and wales. warrant of control in office as they dont need to carry them around apparently. he showed police a council website about liability orders. which said you can be arrested for obstructing an enforcement officer. i told the police they should seek advice from the police station and not rely on what the enforcement officer says.. they radioed back saying to go ahead and smash a window and arrest him.

he decided to pay because he didnt want the car damaged and towed away with extra expenses and the fact they were going to store the car 80 miles away

[Fair-Parking]

The answer as to whether the police can arrest anybody for 'obstructing' a bailiff trying to enforce a PCN is emphatically NO. Its the latest bailiff 'smoke and mirrors' trick coupled with yet more police ignorance on civil law.

 

Para 68 (1) of Schedule 12 does not apply to parking. It only applies to judicial courts which have issued warrants themselves. It doesn't apply to the administrative court known as the TEC which does not issue warrants - it merely authorises them.

 

Not that the bailiff would have had a genuine warrant with him.....

[josephbloggs]

The answer as to whether the police can arrest anybody for 'obstructing' a bailiff trying to enforce a PCN is emphatically NO. Its the latest bailiff 'smoke and mirrors' trick coupled with yet more police ignorance on civil law.

 

Para 68 (1) of Schedule 12 does not apply to parking. It only applies to judicial courts which have issued warrants themselves. It doesn't apply to the administrative court known as the TEC which does not issue warrants - it merely authorises them.

 

Not that the bailiff would have had a genuine warrant with him.....

 

Whether the enforcement agent is collecting council tax, non domestic rates, a parking fine, court fine or acting as a hceo, if they are intentionally obstructed the person acting unlawfully can expect to be arrested.

There is no mention of what types of debt the enforcement agent is collecting affecting paragraph 68.

And as you well know, the enforcement agents dont have to carry warrants/liability orders in any case

[queensclose]

no one was stopping him removing the car. he was just sitting in the car. the tow truck driver said he cannot lift the car with someone sitting in it because of insurance purposes. maybe he was also obstructing the ea.

 

what made it worse the ea was polish and very bad broken english and the police had to speak to his office to understand what was being said

[queensclose]

based on what is above. he is considering making a compliant to to the police for losses caused by them threatening arrest by obstructing an enforcement officer. the control room advised the attending officer this was the law and they would enforce it.

 

any ideas how to word it

[lookinforinfo]

I'm not quite sure what losses your friend might have incurred because of the Police action. The bailiff fees would have been the same and the only

extra fee would possibly be the clamping fee which may not be payable if the car owner did not receive the Notice that the car had been clamped.

And if that is the case then it is to the bailiff company that the owner should seek to get his money back.

 

However the Police were wrong to side with the bailff and you may be able to get compensation for threatening to smash the car window and

forcing the person who was not guilty of any misdemeanour to pay for a debt that was not theirs. Obviously the car was not guilty of any

misdemeanour either.

 

They could also suggest that the EA who would know that PCNs are not covered by the Control of Goods Regulations 2013 was guilty of

inciting the Police to commit an unlawful act and charge the EA accordingly. That might stop some of the bailiffs from continuing their lies to the

Police.

[queensclose]

thanks for the information thats coming back

 

just to be clear are you saying a PCN is not covered by the control of goods regulation. the breakdown of fees are listed under the letter control of goods where they have listed the car,

 

i understand that a PCN warrant is issued by the TEC so does not fall within the paragraph

 

the court”, unless otherwise stated, and subject to rules of court, means—

(a)the High Court, in relation to an enforcement power under a writ of the High Court;

(b)a county court, in relation to an enforcement power under a warrant issued by a county court;

©in any other case, a magistrates' court;

 

with the TEC warrant was issued from a business centre with no hearing or judge to rule. just a member of staff saying yes they owe you for a parking ticket and you can pursue it.

 

because of the police threat his father paid over £500 which would not have been paid. if the police did not get evolved he could have got a family friend with a tow truck to remove the car into private storage and invite the bailiff to remove the clamp

[ploddertom]

You may all note I have removed some posts for now as they had nothing to do with the original plea. These will all be sorted and moved to a thread of their own possibly in the Bear Garden or Parking Forum but give a bit of time for this to be done.

[lookinforinfo]

As I understand it Ploddertom the OP has moved on from asking if the Police and EA action was correct to learning that that there is a possibility at the very least that the Police and EAs were wrong to threaten the car occupants. And the change in the thread reflected that.

Do you suggest that the OP should start a new thread seeking clarification of Fair-parking's assertions and arguments against by taurusgemini and

Joseph Bloggs.

[Peterbard]

I hesitate to comment as i know little or nothing about parking enforcment, but this is the active regulation which enables the use of schedule 12 in court fines would this not also be applicable here

 

62Enforcement by taking control of goods

(1)Schedule 12 applies where an enactment, writ or warrant confers power to use the procedure in that Schedule (taking control of goods and selling them to recover a sum of money)

[doggone it]

Having read some of what was on here I got confused as to the original post asking about obstruction then deviated into whether enforcement for PCN's were lawful. Therefore not surprised all the differing posts were removed. Maybe we should have a new thread to discuss the Obstruction issue as there are some matters that are clearly not but it appears that Bailiffs are again twisting HM Constabulary around their little fingers.

 

Procedures as to the legality of PCN Enforcement is one that should be taken up with the Government, conjecture here only seems to provide ammunition for elsewhere when in actually fact it is only 1 persons view and not that of the Forum as a whole. If the subject is going to degenerate into tit for tat then this thread is better off closed.

[Peterbard]

I understand what is being said, but as a general point ,how are people to give advice on the behavior of EAs if they do not understand what it is they are allowed to do in the first place.

 

From what I have read I see no reason why the schedule 12 procedures do not apply in parking enforcment, this also means that the protections are also available, I think any advice given should reflect this.

[lookinforinfo]

If there is one thing I have learned from this Forum thanks to interpretations of the various Acts and Regulations by Bailiff Advice and Ploddertom for

example is that you cannot take one line of and Act and take it as read without reading other parts of the the Act.

 

There is no doubt that the Control of Goods Regulations 2013 was rushed into force without perhaps crossing all the "t"s and dotting the "i".

Schedule 12 begins by explaining the definitions of the words used. Below I have copied the definition of "Court" in their world.

3

1] In this schedule

 

 

 

 

 

"the court", unless otherwise stated, and subject to the rules of court, means-

 

[a] the High Court, in relation to an enforcement power under a writ of the High Court

 

a county court, in relation to an enforcement power under a warrant issued by a county court

 

[c] in any other court, a magistrates court

 

It is Fair-parking's argument that the TEC does not fall into any of those categories. Indeed on his website he states that he has in writing from

the TEC that they confirm that they do not comply with the above definition of a Court. I have no way of knowing whether the MOJ intended

to exclude parking from the Regulations since it ihas been decriminalised or whether it was a careless piece of legislation.

 

It may be surprising that this very important point has been missed by most people on this Forum but to me it does read that the TEC is not

included as a Court and therefore neither is parking .

 

It follows on from there that the Police were wrong to threaten to arrest the people in the car and should be of help to the OP in deciding what

action could follow from his first post.

[doggone it]

I see we are off track again, not be a surprise if it's closed then.

[ploddertom]

Definitely off track.