David and Goliath!

Sometimes in England local authorities act like Goliath so we have to be like David a lot of the time! On Midlands Today tonight, one such David was interviewed. He is a certain pensioner Robin de Crittenden who is taking on his council, Sandwell Borough, in order to prove that these paragons of democracy are beyond their legal remit when it comes to summary justice and parking fines.

de Crittenden has suggested that it is his right to be in court to answer a parking violation as the system for fine collection in this country is in breach of the 1689 Bill of Rights, which protects citizens from "fine or forfeiture before conviction". Of course the council is pretending that this is of no consequence.

When it comes to fines, taxes, and duties, English government does a marvellous job in pretending to be absolutely in accordance with the law. Often it is not, but the pointyheads in charge hope for any breach to be quietly forgotten or spun out of existence. When a citizen fights back, they get rattled, but never accept it gracefully.

All power to Mr. de Crittenden, I say!

http://motoring.independent.co.uk/features/article8269.ece

Neil Herron has far more on this and other cases. http://neilherron.blogspot.com/

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