‘Bored’ car park attendant in ticket scam

A CAR park attendant operated a ticketing scam to pocket up to 70 customer payments because he was bored and lonely, a court has heard.

Paul Tait (19) was given 150 hours community service after admitting the fraud against his employers at McCausland in Belfast city centre.

Prosecutors said it was unclear how much money had been taken during the six months he worked at the Grosvenor Street car park.

Belfast Magistrates Court was told police were contacted last October after cancelled payments were noticed on the system. CCTV checks carried out by a manager revealed Tait, of Glenwherry Place in Belfast, had been on duty.

Part of the scam involved generating an invalid ticket on the computer to falsify car parking records. Investigations also uncovered cash transactions where Tait manually lifted the car park barrier for customers before putting their cash in his wallet.

A Crown lawyer said managers identified around 70 occasions when Tait took the cash for himself. Tait pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud by false representation.

A prosecutor said Tait had blamed “a period of depression at the time, and that subsequent loneliness and boredom of the job led him to discover he could commit this fraud”.

❝ A period of depression, and the subsequent loneliness and boredom of the job led him to discover he could commit this fraud