Woman wins court case after her car was wrongly clamped

A WOMAN took a civil case to court after she claimed that “inadequate” signage at a Navan car park led to her car being wrongly clamped.

Maria O’Connor, Dowdstown, Garlow Cross, Navan took a small claims case against Apcoa Car Park Ltd, Park West Business Park, Dublin 12 seeking the refund of €125 clamping charge.

Ms O’Connor told the court that she parked her car at the Brews Hill car park on a day last July so that she could attend a relative’s birthday celebration in a nearby restaurant. She had purchased a €2 for two hours ticket online with Apcoa. However, when she emerged from the restaurant her gold-coloured Landrover was clamped.

She had used an online app to purchase the ticket. A screen shot of the payment to Apcoa was shown to Judge Cormac Dunne.

A representative of the company, Mervyn van Heerden appeared in court and said that there was no ticket displayed on Ms O’Connor’s car. Online payments were not applicable to that car park at Brews Hill. There were signs in the car park stating “Pay and Display”.

However, Ms O’Connor said there was no “adequate” signage to this effect in that car park. She said she had highlighted the case in the Meath Chronicle, saying that there were a lot of people being “caught” by the confusion at the car park. Shortly after the news item appeared, the signage was changed, she said.

“It was only after that article that the signage was put up”.

Judge Dunne made an order directing that Ms O’Connor be refunded the €125 clamping fee.

Speaking afterwards Ms O'Connor said: "I’m delighted with the outcome, it is a real victory for the ordinary person and it will make people aware that it is a private car park and cash only and hopefully I will save people from getting clamped in the future.”

Ms O'Connor says she was inundated with messages from people who had also been stung with a clamping fee in the same car park following the story in the Meath Chronicle and decided to take further action.

"I was so angry and mad over it then a friend of mine said why don’t you go to the small claims court," she said. "I had to pay €25 to bring them but win or lose there were no fees so I said I might as well fight my case.

"They couldn’t settle it online and I got a letter saying they wanted this to go before a judge and let them decide, I nearly died, I was never in court in my life, it was daunting but it was worth it to get justice in the end."