Quote:I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.

As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. Smart Parking has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. Smart Parking have little hope at IAS, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

Quote:"The provisions of Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 relating to keeper liability do not apply at this location."

• the driver has not been identified;
  
• you have made no admission that you were driving;
  
• (not so) Smart Parking cannot rely upon PoFA;
  
• the driver's alleged liability has not transferred to you; and
  
• you have no liability merely because you are the registered keeper.
  
• The invented "keeper was probably the driver" argument
  

• identify you as the driver;
  
• make you responsible for the driver;
  
• make you a party to the driver's alleged contract;
  
• transfer the driver's alleged liability to you; or
  
• require you to prove that somebody else was driving.
  

• every registered keeper is presumed to have been driving;
  
• a keeper's silence proves that the keeper was driving;
  
• a keeper must identify somebody else to avoid liability; or
  
• an unidentified driver's contractual liability automatically passes to the keeper.
  

Quote:"There is no 'reasonable presumption' in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort."

• (not so) Smart Parking continues demanding payment.
  
• Powerless debt collectors send increasingly threatening debt recovery letters which can be safely ignored.
  
• The amount is artificially increased.
  
• A bulk-litigation solicitor may send a Letter of Claim (LoC).
  
• A county court claim might be issued as a further means of applying pressure.
  
• If properly defended, the claim is overwhelmingly likely to be discontinued before any hearing.
  

• your status as registered keeper;
  
• your lawful refusal to identify the driver; and
  
• its misuse of Elliott v Loake.
  

• why PoFA does not apply;
  
• why the driver remains unidentified;
  
• what actual evidence identifies you as the driver;
  
• how keeper status supposedly makes you a contracting party;
  
• why your refusal to name the driver supposedly creates liability; and
  
• why an unrelated criminal collision case is said to establish a presumption that does not exist.
  

Quote:I appeal solely as the registered keeper of the vehicle. The driver has not been identified, and no admission is made concerning the driver's identity.

This appeal turns upon a single dispositive issue: the Operator has no lawful basis upon which to hold the registered keeper liable.

1. The Operator expressly disclaims keeper liability under PoFA

In its rejection letter, the Operator expressly states:

   "The provisions of Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 relating to keeper liability do not apply at this location."

That admission is fatal to its case against the Appellant.

Any alleged parking contract was necessarily formed, if at all, by the conduct of the driver. Liability for any alleged breach therefore rests with that driver unless it has been lawfully transferred to the keeper under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ("PoFA").

Schedule 4 is the statutory mechanism enacted by Parliament to permit recovery from a vehicle's keeper where the driver remains unidentified. That statutory transfer is conditional upon the Operator satisfying every one of the applicable mandatory requirements.

The Operator expressly admits that Schedule 4 keeper liability does not apply. The alleged liability therefore remains that of the unidentified driver and has not transferred to the Appellant.

The Operator cannot achieve through assertion, inference or evidential sleight of hand the very transfer of liability which Schedule 4 does not permit.

2. The Notice to Keeper was, in any event, served out of time

The alleged parking event occurred on 12 July 2026. The Notice to Keeper was dated 28 July 2026 and is deemed to have been delivered on 30 July 2026.

Paragraph 9(4) of Schedule 4 requires a postal Notice to Keeper to be delivered within the relevant period of 14 days beginning with the day after the specified period of parking ended. Paragraph 9(6) provides that a notice sent by post is presumed delivered on the second working day after posting.

The Notice was therefore delivered 18 days after the alleged event and outside the mandatory relevant period.

Accordingly, even if the location were relevant land for the purposes of Schedule 4—which the Operator expressly to denies—the Notice could not create keeper liability.

The position is therefore the same on either possible construction:

1. if Schedule 4 does not apply at the location, there can be no statutory keeper liability; or
   
2. if Schedule 4 could apply at the location, the Operator failed to deliver the Notice within the mandatory period and there can be no statutory keeper liability.
   

There is no third route by which the unidentified driver's alleged liability may be transferred to the keeper.

3. Keeper status is not evidence of driver identity

The Operator knows only that the Appellant is the registered keeper. That establishes nothing about the identity of the driver on 12 July 2026.

The DVLA keeper record identifies the person registered as keeping the vehicle. It does not identify who drove it on any particular occasion. Likewise, ANPR images identify a vehicle and its registration mark; they do not identify its driver.

There is no legal presumption that the registered keeper was the driver. Nor is the keeper subject to any statutory obligation to identify the driver to a private parking operator.

The Appellant's lawful refusal to identify the driver:

• is not an admission of driving;
  
• is not evidence of driving;
  
• does not make the Appellant a party to the alleged contract;
  
• does not reverse the burden of proof; and
  
• does not transfer the driver's alleged liability to the keeper.
  

The Operator's suggestion that the keeper must either identify the driver or produce evidence showing that the keeper was not driving is a reversal of the proper legal position. The Appellant is not required to disprove an unsupported allegation. It is for the Operator to establish a lawful cause of action against the person pursued.

The Operator has produced no evidence identifying the Appellant as the driver. It is instead attempting to convert the absence of driver information into evidence that the keeper was driving. Silence is not evidence, and the absence of information identifying another person does not identify the Appellant.

4. Elliott v Loake is wholly inapplicable

The Operator relies upon Elliott v Loake [1983] Crim LR 36. That reliance is legally misconceived.

Elliott v Loake was not a private parking case, a contractual dispute or a case concerning statutory keeper liability. It arose from a criminal road-traffic prosecution following a collision from which a vehicle had left the scene.

The prosecution in that case possessed substantive evidence connecting Mr Elliott and his vehicle with the collision. In particular:

• forensic evidence demonstrated that debris recovered from the scene matched Mr Elliott's damaged vehicle;
  
• the evidence established that his vehicle had been involved in the collision;
  
• Mr Elliott had possession and control of the vehicle;
  
• he stated that nobody else had permission to use it; and
  
• his explanation concerning the damage was found to be untrue.
  

The court held that there was ample evidence upon which the justices were entitled to conclude that Mr Elliott had been driving. The conclusion arose from the particular and compelling evidence in that criminal prosecution.

The case did not establish any general proposition that:

• the registered keeper of a vehicle is presumed to be its driver;
  
• keeper status constitutes evidence of driver identity;
  
• a keeper's refusal to name the driver permits the keeper to be treated as the driver;
  
• the keeper must prove that another person was driving; or
  
• liability under a private contract may be transferred from an unidentified driver to the keeper without compliance with PoFA.
  

None of the evidence present in Elliott v Loake exists here. There has been no collision, police investigation, forensic examination, demonstrably false account or evidence concerning exclusive possession of the vehicle. The Operator has merely obtained the Appellant's registered keeper details from the DVLA and is attempting to use those details as a substitute for evidence of driver identity.

That is not what Elliott v Loake decided.

The Operator has cited an unrelated criminal case and attributed to it a legal presumption which it does not establish. Its reliance upon that authority is therefore entirely misplaced.

5. The Operator's construction would render Schedule 4 redundant

The Operator's argument is also inconsistent with the existence and purpose of Schedule 4 itself.

Parliament enacted a detailed statutory scheme permitting an operator, subject to strict conditions, to recover an unpaid parking charge from a keeper where the driver is not identified.

If an operator could disregard those conditions and obtain the same result simply by asserting that the keeper must have been the driver unless the keeper identified somebody else, Schedule 4 would serve no purpose. Every operator could circumvent Parliament's requirements by declining to rely upon PoFA and substituting an allegation that the keeper was driving.

That cannot be correct.

Schedule 4 does not merely provide one optional evidential argument among several equivalent methods of imposing liability upon a keeper. It provides the statutory means by which an unidentified driver's alleged parking liability may be transferred to the keeper.

The Operator has admitted that the statutory mechanism does not apply. It cannot reproduce the same transfer by inventing a presumption of driver identity.

6. No cause of action has been established against the Appellant

The Operator's case amounts to the following:

1. an unidentified person allegedly entered into a parking contract as driver;
   
2. the Operator obtained the Appellant's details because the Appellant was the registered keeper;
   
3. the Operator cannot rely upon Schedule 4 to transfer the driver's alleged liability to the Appellant;
   
4. the Appellant lawfully declined to identify the driver; and
   
5. the Operator has therefore chosen to assert that the Appellant was driving.
   

That final assertion does not follow from the preceding facts. It is unsupported by evidence and is plainly intended to circumvent the absence of keeper liability.

The Operator cannot hold the Appellant liable as keeper because it has expressly disclaimed Schedule 4. It has not identified the Appellant as the driver and has produced no evidence that the Appellant entered into the alleged parking contract.

The Operator has therefore failed to establish any lawful basis upon which the Appellant could be liable.

The appeal must be allowed and the Parking Charge cancelled.

Further and alternative grounds

Without prejudice to the primary and dispositive ground that the Appellant cannot be held liable as keeper, the Operator is put to strict proof of the following matters.

1. Status and control of the land

The location adjoins the council-owned Recreation Ground Car Park and Swans Nest Lane Car Park, both of which are governed by the Stratford-on-Avon District Council (Off-Street Parking Places) Order 2023, made under section 35 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

The Operator's express statement that Schedule 4 PoFA does not apply "at this location" strongly suggests that the land is subject to statutory control and is not relevant land.

The Operator must produce a precise boundary plan identifying the land monitored by its ANPR system and explain:

• who owned and controlled that land on 12 July 2026;
  
• whether it formed part of either council car park;
  
• whether it was governed by the 2023 Order or any other statutory provision; and
  
• why the Operator expressly states that Schedule 4 does not apply there.
  

2. Standing and authority

The Operator is put to strict proof of its standing to offer parking contracts and recover parking charges in its own name.

It must produce the contemporaneous, unredacted landowner or occupier agreement showing:

• the identity of the contracting landowner or lawful occupier;
  
• the precise land covered by the agreement;
  
• the duration of the agreement;
  
• the restrictions and tariffs it was authorised to impose; and
  
• its authority to issue and litigate parking charges in its own name.
  

The existence of signs, payment equipment or an assertion that authority exists is not evidence of the required standing.

3. Signage and contractual terms

The Operator must produce contemporaneous evidence of every sign relied upon, including:

• the entrance sign;
  
• the complete wording of every contractual sign;
  
• the tariff and RingGo instructions displayed;
  
• the location, height and orientation of each sign;
  
• a site plan showing the signs in relation to the parking spaces and ANPR cameras; and
  
• evidence that the material terms were sufficiently prominent to be read before any alleged contract was formed.
  

Undated close-up photographs of isolated signs would not establish what signs were present, where they were positioned or whether their terms were visible to the driver on the material date.

4. No proven period of parking

The ANPR timestamps record only when the vehicle passed the entrance and exit cameras. They do not establish when the vehicle was parked, when any terms were read and accepted, or when the vehicle left its parking space.

The Operator cannot simply treat the entire 153-minute camera-to-camera interval as a period of parking. It must establish the actual period parked and the contractual basis upon which that period is calculated.

5. Consideration and grace periods

The Operator must demonstrate that it allowed the applicable consideration and grace periods, including reasonable time to:

• enter the site and locate a space;
  
• park and read the contractual terms;
  
• complete payment through RingGo;
  
• return to the vehicle after the paid period; and
  
• leave the car park.
  

The Operator must not include those non-parking activities within the alleged overstay merely because the vehicle remained somewhere within the camera-controlled boundary.

6. Proof of the alleged breach

The Operator must produce the complete RingGo transaction record and the contractual terms applying at the location on 12 July 2026. It must establish:

• when the contractual parking period commenced;
  
• whether it commenced upon entry, parking or payment;
  
• when it expired;
  
• how additional time could allegedly be purchased;
  
• how that facility was communicated to the driver; and
  
• the precise contractual term said to entitle the Operator to demand £100.
  

These additional grounds are advanced without identifying the driver, admitting that the Appellant was driving, or conceding that any contract was formed.