Re: And this ladies and gentlemen...
"More recently, the British Parking Association has been embarrassed into updating its "code of practice" to tell its members to "let off" people who make this mistake"
Specifically, "reduce the charge to £20" (according to the BPA man who was on You & Yours earlier this week). :( Really, there's no excuse (from a design perspective*) for not looking up the plate against a database ...
* as in desigining something good, not designed to make as much money as possible