The history behind AppealNow.com: investigations, case reviews, adjudicator appearances, books, media work, the Crazy Parking Ticket Awards and the High Court proceedings known as Moses v Barnet.
An Evening Standard profile of Barrie describes a formative episode in which a television company asked him to investigate the legality of a bus lane that motorists said was unfair. He examined and measured the markings and concluded that they were not compliant. The paper reported that council employees were subsequently filmed removing the disputed markings.
That episode captures the approach that later became characteristic of AppealNow: do not begin with the assumption that a penalty must be correct merely because an authority issued it. Start with the document, the signs, the markings, the applicable rules and the evidence.
Barrie founded AppealNow.com as a specialist parking information and appeal service. Its historical biography says he had reviewed more than 30,000 parking tickets. The description of his later 2015 parking book refers to more than 60,000 tickets and 7,000 adjudicator cases, illustrating how the case archive grew over time.
The best-known legal episode in Barrie's parking work arose from challenges to the form of penalty charge notices issued by London authorities. One case proceeded to judicial review in the High Court and is commonly referred to as Moses v Barnet.
The dispute concerned whether the penalty charge notice itself contained the information required by the statutory scheme then governing civil parking enforcement. The point was not simply whether a vehicle had been parked in contravention; it was whether the enforcement document complied with the legislation.
Barrie was granted permission to represent the motorist in the High Court proceedings. AppealNow's historical material treated the case as part of a wider challenge to notices being issued by several London councils.
AppealNow says Barrie founded the awards in 2003 to highlight extraordinary examples of enforcement through humour. The first year's winner was described as a rabbit hutch that had received a parking ticket.
The awards provided much more accessible material for newspapers, radio and television than a technical discussion of statutory wording. They also generated the material that later became The Parking Ticket Awards: Crazy Councils, Meter Madness and Traffic Warden Hell.
A substantial profile described Barrie as a motorists' champion and recounted the bus-lane investigation and later parking-ticket challenges.
Barrie was quoted criticising a payment arrangement under which a contractor received a fee associated with penalty notices, arguing that the structure risked reinforcing the perception that enforcement was driven by revenue.
The Guardian sought Barrie's view in a European motoring-enforcement dispute in 2018. GB News subsequently interviewed or quoted him in parking stories in 2022 and 2025.
AppealNow's biography records Barrie submitting evidence on parking matters to the London Assembly and the Parliamentary Transport Committee. It also records technical assistance to television programmes and involvement with consumer reporting, including material for Which?.
One reason parking enforcement generated so much public interest is that it sits at the intersection of technical rules and everyday life. A small error in a sign, line, notice or procedure may be difficult for an individual motorist to identify, yet the same problem can affect a large number of notices if it is systematic.