When Is a Parked Car Not Actually "Parked"? The Minicab Driver Who Beat a Westminster PCN

Hook

Picture this: you've paid for your parking, you nip off for two minutes to help an elderly passenger with a walking stick and her luggage, and by the time you get back, a parking attendant is standing at your car with a Penalty Charge Notice already in hand. You didn't overstay through carelessness. You didn't dodge payment. You were simply doing your job. Surely that counts for something?

According to a Westminster parking tribunal, it does. This case is a brilliant example of how the letter of parking law can sometimes bend when the full picture is considered, and it offers a genuinely useful lesson for anyone who works from their vehicle, particularly minicab and taxi drivers who are constantly hopping in and out to assist passengers.

The Case

Mr Andoh, a minicab driver, had bought a pay and display ticket in Westminster while he waited for a passenger arriving on a coach from Poland. The coach ran late, as coaches often do. When it finally turned up, Mr Andoh didn't just point his passenger towards the car. He went to help her personally, as she was using a walking stick, and carried her luggage back to the vehicle himself.

While he was doing this, he spotted a parking attendant in the distance. Sensing trouble, he told his passenger to wait and ran back to the car to try to head off a ticket. He showed the attendant his watch, insisting he still had two minutes of paid time left. They both walked over to the pay and display machine to check. It turned out his watch was running slow. The attendant returned to the vehicle and issued the Penalty Charge Notice for parking after the expiry of paid for time.

Westminster City Council's case relied entirely on the attendant's written record, which actually confirmed Mr Andoh's version of events: that he had returned to the vehicle and that the two of them had gone to check the machine together.

The Arguments

Mr Andoh's argument was straightforward. He'd paid for parking. The ticket had run out only because his passenger's coach was delayed, and in the meantime he had been actively engaged in assisting a passenger with mobility difficulties, not sitting idle or absent from the vehicle. He backed this up with a job docket confirming the booking.

Westminster's position was essentially procedural. The attendant's notes matched Mr Andoh's account almost exactly. But crucially, the council didn't actually argue that a contravention had occurred. As the adjudicator pointed out, the local authority made no representations at all as to why it was appropriate to issue a PCN to a driver who had plainly paid for parking and had plainly returned to the vehicle to remove it. In other words, even the council's own evidence didn't really support ticketing him.

The Decision

The appeal was allowed. The adjudicator found that at the exact moment the PCN was being issued, Mr Andoh was in the process of returning to his vehicle while carrying his passenger's bag. In those circumstances, the adjudicator ruled that an exemption to the restrictions applied, and was "not satisfied that a contravention occurred" at all.

The Legal Reasoning, Explained Simply

This case hinges on a distinction that trips up a lot of people, including, apparently, some parking attendants: there's a difference between a car that has simply overstayed its paid time, and a car whose driver is actively in the process of loading, unloading, or otherwise attending to passengers or goods.

Loading and unloading exemptions exist in various forms across UK parking regulations. The basic principle is that enforcement is meant to target genuine overstaying or unauthorised parking, not brief, active periods where a driver is plainly engaged in getting passengers or goods in and out of the vehicle. A car sitting empty and abandoned for hours after a ticket expires is a different situation, legally and practically, from a driver who is fifty yards away helping a disabled passenger with her bags at the precise moment the clock runs out.

The adjudicator's reasoning effectively recognised that Mr Andoh hadn't "parked and left" in the way the contravention implies. He was mid-task. The ticket had expired only because of circumstances beyond his control (a late coach), and the moment he became aware a PCN might be issued, he immediately returned to deal with it. That combination, paid ticket, active loading, and an unavoidable delay, was enough to persuade the adjudicator that no contravention had actually taken place.

There's also a subtler point buried in the decision. The adjudicator seemed unimpressed that Westminster didn't even attempt to justify the ticket once the facts were laid out. Councils and their attendants are expected to exercise a degree of judgement, not just tick boxes. When the evidence from the council's own attendant confirms the driver's account, and that account describes someone actively returning to a vehicle they had legitimately paid to park, continuing to defend the PCN starts to look less like enforcement and more like box-ticking. For general context on how paid parking time contraventions work and where drivers commonly go wrong, it's worth reading up on how PCN code 82 for parking after paid time expires is typically applied.

Lessons for Drivers

1. Evidence of what you were doing matters, not just what the clock says. Mr Andoh won partly because he could produce a job docket showing exactly why he was there and what had caused the delay. If you're ever in a similar position, anything that documents your activity at the time, a booking confirmation, a message, a witness, can be genuinely valuable.

2. Being in the process of returning to your vehicle is different to having abandoned it. If you're actively walking back, loading, or assisting someone when a ticket is being written, that context can matter a great deal at appeal, even if it doesn't stop the attendant issuing the PCN on the spot.

3. Don't assume a PCN is the final word. Attendants issue tickets based on what they observe in the moment, and they don't always have the full picture, or the authority to make a judgement call there and then. An independent tribunal can, and does, take a broader view of the circumstances. If you believe you have a genuine case, it's worth exploring how to put together a formal appeal to a parking tribunal rather than assuming the ticket must stick.

4. Councils don't always get it right, and sometimes even they don't try to defend a ticket properly. In this case, Westminster's own evidence undermined its position, yet the PCN still had to go through a full tribunal appeal to be cancelled. That's a reminder that a PCN being issued doesn't automatically mean the contravention definitely happened.

5. If you're a professional driver regularly dealing with passengers, luggage, or deliveries, know your exemptions. Loading and unloading provisions vary between councils and locations, so it's worth understanding the specific rules that apply where you regularly work, rather than assuming a paid ticket alone protects you if you step away from the vehicle.

Key Takeaway

A parking ticket captures a single frozen moment, but a tribunal can look at the whole story. If you were actively attending to a passenger, loading luggage, or otherwise clearly engaged with your vehicle rather than having abandoned it, that context can be the difference between a PCN standing and being cancelled. As always, if you're facing a similar situation, it's worth seeking guidance on the formal appeals process rather than assuming there's nothing you can do.