A motorists’ campaign group has written to the Mayor of Newham demanding the Council refunds drivers illegally issued parking fines from unauthorised CCTV cameras.

The National Motorists Action Group (NMAG) general secretary Alex Henney sent a letter to Sir Robin Wales on June 26 following revelations that Newham Council gave out £350,000 worth of fines between 2011 and 2013 from a dozen cameras that were not registered with the Vehicle Certification Authority (VCA).

The NMAG letter asked the Mayor to consider disciplinary action for Council staff and claimed the money did not legally belong to the local authority under the Theft Act 1968.

The letter reads: “The Council has no choice in the matter as none of the relevant motorists has any financial liability to the Council in respect of his/her unlawful penalty charge demand.

“Likewise, none of the motorists who have already paid penalty charges to the Council under wrongful persuasion had any financial liability to the Council which has never had lawful entitlement to any of these payments.

“None of these penalty charge payments has come into the lawful ownership of the Council which must now divest itself of all of these monies none of which belong to the Council.”

The Council confirms it has carried out an internal investigation following the matter but there are no further disciplinary plans.

A spokesperson added: “A review in June 2013 of 169 cameras operated by Newham Council found that 12 cameras used to issue fixed penalty notices were not fully certified at that time.

“The Council has decided that all outstanding fines from these fixed penalty notices issued via these cameras will be cancelled.

“Any cancelled fixed penalty notices that were subsequently paid will be refunded in full.

“The cameras recorded vehicle use which was liable for enforcement.

“As other councils have established in law when involved in similar cases on a much larger scale, we will therefore not be allowing appeals on tickets paid in relation to these cameras.”