i use to be a parking attendant and if theres no photo of the fine on the car it wont stand up in court unless theres a photo or video footage of you using the car park without going into the Aldi store 1st. If theres no picture or video proof then they dont have a leg to stand on, write back asking for proof and if they dont supply it and still say that you have to pay, take them to small claims court and when you get your solicitor onto it he will have the photo or video evidence if there is any, if there isnt any then you will win.
With respect, that's not quite accurate. We're talking about a private firm here, not the council. You don't say which sector you worked in?
They can photograph his car all they like, but they'd still need to establish (to the satisfaction of a court) that there was a
legitimate contract in place, which the OP had wilfully entered into, subsequently breached, and that damages were accrued in the process, which the parking company seek to recover.
Since the number of these private bandits... sorry, car parking companies... taking people to court is approximately zero
then I don't think they are quite as watertight as that.
Fair enough your job as warden was to slap tickets (in this case, invoices) on cars and take pictures. But as a private company they are not the council and have no rights to issue fines, penalties or anything of the sort. This is all down to contractual law.
Since the OP isn't even necessarily the driver, but rather the RK, then things become even more problematical for the other side. The OP is under no obligation to say who was driving, nor to help the other side with any IDs.
Why should/would the OP take them to the small claims court? On what grounds? About the only grounds he would have, at a later date, is that of harassment. He can't sue the parking company because they allege he owes them money (aka the ticket). That ball is in their court, and they aren't about to serve because they know what the outcome would be!
OP, send the template letter and forget them. Don't go digging yourself any holes by asking about evidence and basically inviting them to pursue you. Admit to being the RK, acknowledge receipt of their letter, and tell them to pursue the driver. Ignore anything that comes after that.
EDIT: As a somewhat amusing side-note. I remember reading somewhere once that a guy had taken offence to these Dick Turpins ticketing his car for no real reason. I'm still referring to the private sector btw, not council officials. He put up a note in the window of his car stating that his car was a photographic model and anybody who wanted to photograph it was free to do so, at a fee of £xxx. Of course, the next time a private parking 'attendant' wanted to ticket his car, they had an interesting quandry. His own offer of using his car as a model, adequately signed, was no more or less enforceable than the parking company's offer of using parking with £x charge for overstaying.
