I had a minor victory the other week with Newcastle City Council over parking.
The 'quick' version of the story is...
Went on a work night out for a few drink in Jesmond area of Newcastle, which if you know the 'toon' you will know is basically a long street of bars and hotels, surrounded by a lot of residential streets. I'd parked off the main street, in a marked parking bay at around 8pm on a Friday, and went back to the car at about 11pm when we moved on to Newcastle city centre. Nothing was on the car when we got back. About eight weeks later I get a 'final' demand for £15, which I must admit, I ignored, seeing as a) it's a small amount, and b) it was also the first demand as far as I was concerned. They kept sending letters, yet ignoring my requests for information on what, where and when the ticket was all about. They finally told me what the ticket was for when they sent the "This is the last chance, in seven days we start court proceedings" letter. Now me and my fiancee are currently applying for a mortgage and she gets nervous about this kind of thing, so I relented and sent in a cheque for the £15, along with a note pointing out that payment was not me legally accepting the ticket, and I was going to appeal. The next day this was followed by a letter, requesting proof of my misdemeanour, such as would be admissable as a defence item in court. The basic pretense of this was that if they could not provide such proof, and I pointed out that a copy of the ticket wouldn't be acceptable as they had failed to take a duty of care in delivering it to me (they can't argue with that, I never bloody got one!) and therefore I couldnt be sure it hadn't just been written out there and then, I would classify their final letter as a demand for money with menaces (i.e. threatening me with a criminal record for non payment of fines). Funnily enough, no photographic proof exists, so I got a letter a week later with a cheque for my £15 back.
I know £15 is sod all in the grand scheme of things, but it's nice to get one over on them once in a while!