Drivers given 8.6 million parking tickets by private firms in a year

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A carer who received a “disgusting” £100 parking ticket has won a legal battle to overturn her penalty. Bath resident Debra Rulach received the ticket while attending to an elderly dementia patient in the city’s Palladian flat complex. She had parked her car at Victoria Bridge Square car park in a panic after feeling something was off with her client, as his “flat lights weren’t on”, before finding him in distress.

Ms Rulach said she hurried into the building at around 7.10pm without locking her car and ran to her client’s residence.

She told Somerset Live that she stayed with the man, in his 80s, to help him calm down and switch his electrics back on.

She explained: “Normally, I get my client’s parking permit and put it on the car as soon as I arrive.

“However, when I got there that evening, I saw that the lights in his flat weren’t on.”

“He’s a dementia sufferer in his 80s so I was very concerned when I saw that. I parked up and didn’t even lock my car before going inside.

“When I got to his flat, he told me he had somehow managed to turn his electrics off and he was obviously very distressed.”

Parking officials took a photograph of her car at “around 7.53pm”, which was “just before” she came back out.

Ms Rulach received a £100 Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) for parking without a permit from Premier Park shortly after leaving her client.

Her letter from the company explained that she could pay a reduced £60 fine.

She appealed the notice, explaining to Somerset Live she did not want to pay, as it “would be the same as admitting I was in the wrong, and I wasn’t”.

She added: “There were other vehicles there, unloading shopping, but they singled me out and I was prepared to fight them in court.”

But the company refused to grant her appeal, leading her to take up the issue with the Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) parking ombudsman.

POPLA helped Ms Rulach review the case and ultimately helped her to overturn the fine.

She said while she was “very pleased” to have succeeded, she wanted to ensure others don’t encounter the same issue.

She complained the lighting in the car park was “not very good”, adding: “It is disgusting the way they are trying to con people.”

Express.co.uk has approached Premier Park for comment on Ms Rulach’s case.

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