'My nan ended up in hospital after fighting wrongly-issued parking ticket'

The family of an 82-year-old woman were left furious after she fell in the street on her way home from court - where she was fighting a wrongly-issued parking fine.

Jackie Whitehurst has spent six weeks in hospital after suffering serious shoulder and arm injuries moments after winning a long-running legal case against parking firm Parkingeye.

Jackie's family, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, said she should "never have been in court that day" after being incorrectly pursued for more than a year over a parking fine for a car she no longer owned.

Parkingeye said it had "followed every process correctly" to "ensure that the case could be resolved as quickly as possible."

The family said they were "furious" at the way such a vulnerable person had been treated by the parking firm.

"It's not Parkingeye's fault she fell over but it's their fault she was at court," her son-in-law Simon Bessell said.

"I'm so angry. We'd proven the car was no longer hers but because they carried on pushing the case, an 82-year-old, who can hardly walk more than 50 yards, had to go to court that day."

Jackie was issued with a parking charge notice (PCN) in January 2025 for a parking offence at a pub car park in Saffron Walden, Essex.

Parkingeye said DVLA records showed she was the registered owner of the car at the time.

However, her family said she no longer owned the vehicle after it had been written off following a collision 10 months earlier.

They said after receiving the PCN, they told Parkingeye that she was no longer the owner.

"We explained it was an old person who drives a couple of miles a week around Stockport," Simon said.

"There's no way she would be in a pub car park near London a few days after Christmas."

The family also contacted the DVLA to ask for its records to be updated, which was completed in February that year.

However, because the original penalty notice was unpaid, Parkingeye continued to escalate the case.

"Parkingeye had the ability to go onto the DVLA database to check again and see Jackie didn't own the vehicle at the time of the offence, but they didn't," Simon continued.

He accepts Jackie did not respond to all the Parkingeye's correspondence but said this was because the process had left his mother-in-law "incredibly anxious", having believed she had already proved the car was no longer hers.

After an appeal found in favour of Parkingeye, the company took out a County Court Judgement (CCJ) against the grandmother.

"Jackie was so distraught," Simon said.

The family immediately applied to fight the CCJ and dismiss the claim.

Parkingeye said this was the first time evidence was provided about the ownership of the vehicle.

At this stage, the company agreed to "set aside" the original CCJ and twice emailed a "consent order" for Jackie to sign and return.

The family said they later found those emails in her junk folder but insisted the company should have sent them by post.

"Everything before then was done on letter. Sending an email to an 82-year-old lady about a court hearing, it's not right at all," Simon said.

Parkingeye said because the agreement needed to be signed, "the most effective way" to deal with it was by sending it on email.

In January, a judge at Stockport County Court finally overturned the CCJ.

The judgement highlighted she was "vulnerable" and that it would be an "abuse of process to permit the claim to proceed".

Shortly after leaving court, Jackie fell as she tried to get into her daughter's car.

Her family said her condition had since deteriorated in hospital.

"She's just got worse and worse. You ask yourself, is she going to come out of hospital?," her grandson James Whitehurst said.

"She shouldn't have been in court, it's absolutely ridiculous. She was so nervous on that day."

James accused Parkingeye of behaving in a "bullish" way.

"It feels like there's an air of arrogance from them and no empathy."

In a statement, Parkingeye said Jackie had "failed to provide any evidence to prove that she was not the registered owner when she appealed" and "failed to respond" to various letters and emails.

"We don't want to see any motorist end up in court and we have followed every process correctly to provide an audit trail and ensure that the case could be resolved as quickly as possible."