Sir – West Oxfordshire District Council insists that its high number of cancelled parking fines is due to them generously giving members of the public “the benefit of the doubt”. Interesting.

As far as I can tell, in Oxford “benefit of the doubt” means “we made a mistake, but we’re not going to admit it, because then we might have to apologise”.

At least, I think that’s what it means, as that’s the response I got from Oxford City Council when I complained about a very obviously wrongly-issued parking ticket. The word ‘sorry’ was noticeably absent in the condescending letter cancelling the fine.

Sophie Grigson, Oxford