8 in 10 parking fines overturned on appeal
A huge number of parking fines are being quashed because councils present poor evidence or no proof at all when challenged by drivers.
More than half of appeals against fines go uncontested in some areas, raising serious doubts about the fairness of millions of tickets.
Motorists in some parts of the country are almost three times more likely to appeal successfully against a fine than elsewhere, figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph show.
Critics of parking regulations last night said that the figures demonstrated a "postcode lottery" in a system that is in crisis.
Barrie Segal of the group Appeal Now, which helps motorists get fines overturned, said: "Councils don't bother to contest many of the appeals against them because they know they have been issuing tickets unfairly or they don't have the evidence needed to fight the case.
"They rely on motorists to pay the fines without question."
Parking charges and fines reached an estimated £1 billion across Britain last year, involving around eight million Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) issued for parking infringements, with councils making an estimated £500 million profit.
However, while in some areas more than eight out of 10 fines are overturned on appeal by the Independent Parking Adjudicator, in others only a third are quashed.
Westminster, Birmingham and Leeds are among the districts where it is easiest to appeal.
Appeals to the adjudicator against PCNs imposed by Westminster City Council were successful in 88 per cent of cases.
The borough, which covers the West End and many of London's major tourist sites, did not bother to contest 44 per cent of appeals.
But in neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea, just under half of PCNs were overturned on appeal, with only 23 per cent not contested by the council.
In Birmingham, there was an 87 per cent success rate on appeal, and the council failed to challenge seven out of 10 cases.
Paul Watters, spokesman for the Automobile Association, said: "It's a postcode lottery. We've been calling for greater standards of fairness and uniformity between councils, but the Department for Transport will not grasp the nettle and deal with the authorities.
"Some councils are issuing lots of unfair tickets which are then quashed at the adjudicator stage, but only after motorists have been dragged through the appeal system.
"Drivers ought to be compensated for their inconvenience."
Other districts where motorists stand a high chance of overturning a fine include Hackney (86 per cent), Leeds (85 per cent), Sandwell in the West Midlands (78 per cent) and Nottingham (76 per cent). Leeds failed to challenge more than half of appeals.
One motorist who challenged Leeds City Council was Ashley Finister, whose 13?year-old son Jordan suffers from a rare brain condition.
He was given six tickets in a month at Leeds General Infirmary, where his son was receiving treatment, because he did not realise his disabled parking permit had expired.
Mr Finister challenged the validity of the tickets by exploiting a technicality over dates.
When the council refused to back down over its demands for £480, Mr Finister appealed to the National Parking Adjudication Service and won. It ruled that the authority had failed properly to display the date of issue and the date of the offence on each ticket.
Mr Finister, of Bramley, Leeds, said: "We have enough worries without having to cope with the stress of this case. When I first rang the council to say I was contesting it, I was laughed at as if I was just some kind of waster trying to dodge a fine."
As a result of Mr Finister's victory, Leeds dropped 141 other cases where tickets had been written incorrectly.
The toughest borough in which to appeal is Reigate and Banstead, in Surrey, where nine per cent were successful last year and each one of them was challenged by officials.
A spokesman for London Councils, which represents the capital's local authorities, said: "There could be several reasons why appeals are upheld at the adjudicator stage.
"More evidence may have been submitted by the motorist or the council may not contest the appeal because an official overseeing the case realises it should have been quashed earlier."
By Patrick Sawer