PCN UKCPS Leeds City Station

[samh47]

Hi @b789

Is this one of those very rare occasions? Thank you so much for your help and guidance.

Dear xxxxxxx,

The Independent Appeals Service (IAS) has received a decision from the Adjudicator regarding your recent appeal for the below PCN.

Parking Charge Number (PCN): XXXXXXX
Vehicle Registration: XXXXXXX
Issued On: 26/05/2026
Issued By: UKCPS Ltd

Appeal Outcome: Accepted

The Adjudicators comments are as follows:

"The Appellant should understand that the Adjudicator is not in a position to give legal advice to either of the parties, but they are entitled to seek their own independent legal advice. The Adjudicator's role is to consider whether or not the parking charge has a basis in law and was properly issued in the circumstances of each individual case. In all Appeals the Adjudicator is bound by the relevant law applicable at the time and is only able to consider legal challenges and not factual mistakes nor extenuating or mitigating circumstances. Throughout this appeal the Operator has had the opportunity to consider all points raised and could have conceded the appeal at any stage. The Adjudicator who deals with this Appeal is legally qualified and each case is dealt with according to their understanding of the law as it applies, and the legal principles involved. A decision by an Adjudicator is not legally binding on an Appellant who is entitled to seek their own legal advice if they so wish.

In all Appeals the burden of proof is the civil one whereby the party asserting a fact or submission has to establish that matter on the balance of probabilities. If the parking operator fails to establish that a Parking Charge Notice was properly issued in accordance with the law, then it is likely that an Appeal will be allowed. If the parking operator does establish that a Parking Charge Notice was properly and legally issued, then the burden shifts to the Appellant to establish that the notice was improperly or unlawfully issued and if the Appellant proves those matters on the balance of probabilities, then it is likely that the Appeal will be allowed. However, the Appeal will be dismissed if the Appellant fails to establish those matters on the balance of probabilities. The responsibility is at all times on the parties to provide the Adjudicator with the evidential basis upon which to make a decision.

The signs offer the terms for parking. By remaining parked on land managed by the Operator, having had notice of the terms, the driver agrees to them. In consideration for entering the site they agree to pay for the time parked or pay the charge. In this way they have entered into a contract with the Operator and agreed to be bound by the advertised terms.

I am satisfied that the signs are clear, numerous and unequivocal. This is evidenced by the Operators site map, exhibits and images.

The Appellant raises as an issue the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and purports that the Operator has failed to comply with the requirements therein. I must point out that whilst the Act does need to be complied with in cases where the Operator wishes to avail themselves of the keeper liability provisions under Schedule 4, they are not obliged to do so where they do not. Instead, the operator is entitled to rely either on the legal presumption that the keeper of the vehicle was also the driver (which they are entitled to do in the absence of credible evidence to the contrary) or on an acceptance that they were driving at the material time.

On the present facts, the Appellant does not accept being the driver during the contravention. They accept being the registered keeper of the vehicle only. The Notice to Keeper is out of time and there is no evidence presented by either party of the Appellant being the driver.

I have considered all the issues raised by both parties in this Appeal and I am not satisfied that the parking operator has established that the Parking Charge Notice was properly issued and therefore this Appeal is allowed."

As your appeal has been accepted, the charge has been cancelled by the operator and you do not need to take any further action.

Yours Sincerely,
The Independent Appeals Service

[b789]

Well done for persevering, @samh47. The charge has been cancelled, so go and buy a lottery ticket while your luck is clearly in: an IAS appeal has actually been allowed. In fact, that is the second one this week from appeals I have suggested be submitted!

That said, the adjudicator could not resist inserting this extraordinary piece of invented law:

"The operator is entitled to rely either on the legal presumption that the keeper of the vehicle was also the driver (which they are entitled to do in the absence of credible evidence to the contrary)…"

That statement is simply false. There is no legal presumption that a vehicle's registered keeper was its driver. Keeper status is not evidence of driver identity, and the keeper is not required to produce "credible evidence to the contrary" to rebut a presumption that does not exist.

The burden rests upon UKCPS, as the party alleging that the appellant was driving, to prove that fact on the balance of probabilities. It does not shift to the keeper merely because UKCPS has no evidence and chose not to comply with PoFA. Silence cannot fill that evidential void.

The adjudicator's own findings expose the nonsense:

"There is no evidence presented by either party of the Appellant being the driver."

Precisely. UKCPS produced no evidence that the Keeper was driving, so it failed to prove its case. You, the appellant, did not have to prove that somebody else was driving.

If the supposed legal presumption genuinely existed, Schedule 4 of PoFA would be redundant: operators could simply ignore its carefully prescribed conditions, declare the keeper to be the presumed driver and require the keeper to disprove it. Parliament plainly did not create a detailed statutory mechanism for keeper liability merely to provide operators with an optional alternative to a pre-existing presumption achieving the same result.

The appeal was therefore allowed for the correct fundamental reason, but only after the adjudicator repeated a mendacious and legally indefensible fiction about Keeper liability. The conclusion is right; that purported statement of law is utter rubbish.