It’s not often kindness and understanding triumph in parking charge penalty disputes, but for one victim they have. And that is driver Andy Gordon who in a messy case still got hammered after paying for a ticket. The heroes here were supermarket Morrisons who despite having nothing to do with the matter have given customer Andy a goodwill gesture. The other company that stepped up was Metrus, property manager of the parking area in question.

That’s in south London and close to Morrisons’ Camberwell store. Loyal customer Andy got in touch with Crusader after parking there and buying a ticket from the machine. There was no problem about payment being accepted. But then Andy received a penalty notice from Civil Enforcement, the operator policing the site on behalf of Metrus.

If you’ve been affected by this issue or feel you’ve been a victim of injustice, please contact consumer champion Maisha Frost on maisha.frost@express.co.uk

Andy had slipped up when inputting his car reg with just one wrong digit. He submitted an appeal showing his payment had gone through but was still being chased for £20 for his mistake.

Clearly parking has to be controlled and infringements called out but this struck Andy and Crusader as most unfair. We asked Morrisons for its opinion and it was then it confirmed the site while near was nothing to do with them.

“The first penalty charge I got was in the wrong name and sent to an address I no longer reside at,” Andy explained. “I responded to the second ticket with a £100 charge, appealed with my payment evidence but was rejected.”

 But further down in this letter was mention of “mitigating circumstances” and a demand to pay £20 which would get him off the hook.

“I’m livid when I think of all the hours I’ve spent dealing with this and the worry these demands have given me and then they are still insisting I pay them something,” Andy added. “My attempts to contact Civil Enforcement have failed. This whole parking penalty law seems just a licence to hound people.”

Crusader then explained the sorry tale to Metrus which confirmed it had written to the building manager handling the site contract instructing for Andy’s PCN to be overturned. 

Morrisons, who gave Andy a £20 voucher, added: “We were sorry to hear about your issues and, why we can’t resolve it, we really hope this makes a small difference.”

“Morrisons have my loyalty for life,” applauded Andy. “Such a kind gesture, a bottle of Chablis will definitely erase the bad memories.”

[names have been changed]

Keep calm, quiet and carry on parking        

Keep the sounds turned down when parking, that’s the advice of leading insurer Churchill as Christmas outings get into full swing. New findings show parking is one of the most nerve-wracking parts of driving and damage caused by squeezing in and out of bays costs some £424 million a year.