Original in-game verdict

Background 1. Helen Pritchard asks the tribunal to cancel a £50 parking penalty issued by the Local Parking Review Service. The dispute concerns a parking session in Leicester. Helen says she paid £3.20 before the officer observed her car, but accepts that the receipt shows a registration differing by one letter from her car’s registration. 2. The hearing record includes the payment receipt, the officer’s penalty record and image, the parties’ submissions, and Helen’s account of the correction. The parties have had an opportunity to make final submissions. No further obtainable proof has been identified, and an adjournment is not permitted. Issues for determination 3. The first issue is whether the payment shown on the receipt covered Helen’s car, LP21 XKP. Helen bears the burden of supporting her request for relief under Rule 1, The Claim Needs Proof. The reliability of the receipt and the account about correction are considered under Rule 2, Reliable Records Beat Vague Stories. 4. The second issue is whether the penalty decision lacks adequate record support under Rule 45, Agency Decisions Need Record Support. Helen, as the party seeking cancellation, bears the burden of showing a basis for that relief. The question is not whether the Service’s record is perfect, but whether the evidence supports setting aside the decision. Submissions of the parties 5. Helen submits that she paid for the correct place and time before the officer arrived. She accepts that the receipt records LP21 XKR rather than LP21 XKP. She says she corrected the entry in the app, but acknowledges that she has no independent record showing when the correction reached the parking system. Her final submission asks the tribunal to consider the documented payment and her account, while not treating the correction timing as established. 6. The Service asks that the £50 penalty be upheld. It relies on the officer’s record of LP21 XKP at the location at 10:14 and the recorded search result of no matching paid session. The Service also acknowledges that the app’s correction history remains unreviewed. It asks the tribunal to obtain further information, but the record identifies no available proof that can now be produced, and adjournment is not allowed. Evidence and findings 7. Exhibit 3-e1 and the repeated receipt at exhibit 7-e1 show a £3.20 payment at 10:02 for parking until 12:02, with session reference 68419. The receipt is direct documentary evidence of a payment and its stated period. It also records LP21 XKR. Helen’s car is identified in the record as LP21 XKP. The receipt therefore proves payment for a session, but does not itself prove that the session was registered to Helen’s car. 8. The officer’s penalty record, exhibit 4-e2, identifies LP21 XKP at the same location at 10:14, records “no matching paid session,” and includes a clear image of the registration. This is contemporaneous evidence supporting the observation and the search result. It does not contain correction history or information about system updates. 9. Helen’s statements are consistent on the central point: she says she corrected the registration, but cannot independently prove when the correction reached the system. Her account is relevant and has been considered as an attributed account, not as a produced system record or admitted witness testimony. The Service’s statement that the correction history remains unreviewed confirms that the history was not checked; it does not establish what that history would show or when any correction took effect. Reasons 10. On the first issue, the receipt is reliable evidence that Helen paid £3.20 for a session covering the time of the observation. It is not reliable proof that the payment covered LP21 XKP because it expressly identifies LP21 XKR. Helen’s explanation that she corrected the entry is possible, but the record does not independently confirm the correction or its timing. Under Rule 1, the burden rests on Helen to support cancellation. The evidence does not establish that the paid session covered her car. This issue is not proven. 11. On the second issue, Rule 45 calls for an administrative decision to have record support. The officer’s clear image and contemporaneous record support the finding that LP21 XKP was present at 10:14 and that the search found no matching paid session. The unreviewed correction history is a real limitation: it means the record does not answer whether a correction was made or whether it had reached the search system. The Service’s record is therefore incomplete on that point. 12. That incompleteness does not, by itself, prove that the search result was wrong or that the correction reached the system before the search. Helen expressly cannot establish that timing. Nor does the supplied law make an unreviewed history alone sufficient to cancel a penalty. Considering the record as a whole, the contemporaneous observation and search result support the decision, while the missing correction information leaves an uncertainty that falls against Helen because she bears the burden of showing a basis for relief. The challenge to the decision’s record support is not proven. 13. The Service’s request that the tribunal obtain the correction history does not change the result. No evidence shows that this information is now obtainable through an adjournment, and adjournment is not allowed. The tribunal must decide on the available record rather than assume what an unreviewed history would contain. Final order 14. Helen Pritchard’s request to cancel the £50 penalty is denied. The penalty issued by the Local Parking Review Service stands. No payment between the parties is ordered by this tribunal. This decision does not find that Helen failed to make a payment; it finds that the available evidence does not establish that the payment was registered to her car or that the officer’s recorded search result was wrong.