“I might have won and not paid them, but how many people have?”

A determined driver has beaten a Sheffield parking firm in a row over what she claims is a faulty machine.

Rebecca Muir refused to cough up £100 for allegedly not paying at Fraisthorpe Beach near Bridlington and turned detective to fight back against the claim by Excel Parking.

Rebecca Muir won her fight over a £100 parking demand at Fraisthorpe Beach near Bridlington. | Google

She no longer had her parking ticket but produced a bank statement showing she paid that day.

And she demanded records which she says showed the previous driver’s registration number was applied to her transaction.

She wrote: “Not many people are aware of this new parking machine fault but should we have to fight it out at court I am sure I will be able to make the judge aware, so that further cases will also fail.”

Elms Legal - which works for Excel Parking - dropped the case without explanation.

Emily Scriminger-Faulkner, of Elms Legal in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, replied: “Thank you for your email. Please note that we have now closed this matter.”

Rebecca said: “They dropped this before it’s gone to court because maybe the judge would have asked them to put a new machine in. And they wouldn’t want that!

“I might have won and not paid them, but how many people have?”

Excel Parking boss, Simon Renshaw-Smith, and wife Karen Gillott, company secretary at the Barlow Hunt Ball. | National World

Excel Parking insisted Rebecca had used the next customers’ registration number and “the double entry was Ms Muir's doing, not machine failure.”

It said it remains “satisfied the charge was correctly issued” - despite Elms abandoning the case.

The company demands £100 from drivers who break its terms and conditions.

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To The Star, it said: “Ms Muir alleges that a fault with one of the pay machines caused the previous user’s VRM to duplicate onto her ticket.

“Having investigated the allegation with the machine manufacturer and our own records, it has been confirmed that although two tickets were purchased with the same VRM, it was actually Ms Muir who made the first transaction and was therefore the first person to enter the incorrect VRM.”

It added: “Our legal representatives returned Ms Muir’s case to us to further investigate her allegation and we are satisfied the charge was correctly issued.”

David Walsh

Determined driver beats Sheffield's Excel Parking in row over 'faulty' machine at popular beach