Ex-magistrate stunned as CCJ issued over 50p parking dispute

Clive Sowerby, who runs Sowerby's Shoes in Stourbridge, dedicated 22 years to seeing the law upheld in his role as a justice of the peace (JP)...and now, as he prepares to retire from his shop, he says his good name and future opportunities have been ruined as a result of standing up for himself over what started out as a 50p parking fee discrepancy.

Back in October 2019, he'd parked on a pay display car park in Crown Lane, which he has used for some years, only to find a ticket requesting a £60 charge be paid for breaching parking terms.

It seemed he'd put the usual £4 in the ticket machine - only to discover the fees had gone up to £4.50.

Mr Sowerby, whose shop in Lower High Street had been trading for almost 50 years, says he wrote to explain the discrepancy and hoped the matter could be put aside - it was after all a mistake over 50p.

Clive Sowerby in front of the Crown Lane car park

However, he said he was surprised to receive a further demand for payment in November...so he wrote again. By this time the charge had gone up to £160.

A few months later the Covid pandemic struck and the country plunged into lockdowns - and it was during the third lockdown in January 2021 that Mr Sowerby, aged 77, says he discovered the case had gone to court.

With Sowerby's Shoes shut - he had been isolating at home in Chaddesley Corbett with wife Helen, who has leukaemia and who was recuperating from Covid having fallen gravely ill with the virus in autumn 2020.

Only collecting post and checking the premises occasionally, he found a note at the shop saying he had post to collect from Stourbridge sorting office - and when he eventually managed to collect his mail he found letters from the county court asking first for £250.55 and then £272.55.

He says he wrote to inform the court he'd only just received the claim and wanted to put his case across in court - but he claims he was told to appeal against a judgement at that stage would cost £255...which he said was like a fine in itself when his business was suffering from the coronavirus crisis.

So he now has a CCJ against his name, which will stay on file for six years and could make it difficult to obtain credit in the future.

The judgement was issued on January 28...the date Mr Sowerby claims he first laid eyes on the court claim.

He said: "A CCJ at my time of life is grossly unfair. That's going to dramatically affect me for anything I might want to do financially in the future. You can't imagine what this case is doing to the stress levels of my wife who has leukaemia and is recovering from Covid, not to mention mine."

Mr Sowerby said he'd been hoping for a more human response over the whole matter rather than just "forms demanding money" and he'd been prepared to go to court.

He said: "I didn't mind going to court being a retired magistrate. If the court finds in their favour I would accept it but this is completely out of order. I'm not a dishonest person but I'll certainly stand up for what is right. You have to stand up and be counted somewhere along the line against total injustices."

He added: "All this for the transgression of a 50p parking charge. There's so much unfairness about this. A big issue also is with the court having issued this when we were in mandatory lockdown. Nobody should be receiving CCJs in lockdown."

Premier Parking Logistics claim the only address on file for Mr Sowerby was that provided by DVLA, which should have been his residential address - not his business address.

A spokesman for the company said the initial charge was issued for an expired ticket on October 14, 2019, and he said parking charges had increased months before a fine was issued to Mr Sowerby whom he said "should have engaged with us".

The Crown Lane car park

Sign at the entrance to the Crown Lane car park

He said people have 14 days to pay a parking charge notice and 21 days to appeal and he added: "He never responded or sent an appeal to say this was an oversight."

The spokesman said if there had been some dialogue in "the same week or same day we would have looked at it" but not months later.

He said the pandemic had hit his business hard and resulted in him "chasing old debts" to put food on the table and he said he'd heard excuses galore from people trying to get out of paying a parking fine, adding: "It’s the same old story."

Premier Parking Logistics say on their website that they are "one of the few companies that rigorously pursue unpaid parking charges via the courts".

The website adds: "Unfortunately many of the cases taken to court have been led into the belief that parking charges were not enforceable and by defending a case it would either be not pursued or be thrown out - this advice has come from various internet/advice forums and has resulted in an original charge of £60 costing the defendant at least three times that amount, a county court judgement being issued (which could make getting credit very difficult for up to six years) and time/money spent by a defendant preparing a defence and attending court."

Mr Sowerby has since contacted Dudley Council and Trading Standards over the matter and been in touch with the Federation of Small Businesses and Stourbridge's MP Suzanne Webb who said she wrote to Premier Parking Logistics on his behalf "because we were concerned that the initial fine had risen so dramatically to more than £270.00".

But she added:"Unfortunately, the company said it could not lower the penalty because the time to appeal had expired and the debt had been transferred to a debt collection agency.

"I have real sympathy with Mr Sowerby’s position. The fine was handed out during unprecedented times when it was difficult to retrieve post from his shop due to lockdown. I think there should have been more flexibility. I know Mr Sowerby is exploring other avenues and I am happy to help where possible."