Park and ride beggars
‘Homeless’ drive to city (by sat nav), feed meter …and head off scrounging
CLUTCHING a child’s crutch in one hand and desperately proffering the other, he looks like a hopeless case well deserving of charity. But what the kind-hearted locals handing him their change probably don’t know is that hours before, he had driven to the edge of Cambridge, fed a parking meter with eight hours’ worth of coins and then walked a mile to the site of his begging in the city centre.
Two other beggars also travelled with him in the Volkswagen Passat estate on Saturday morning.
The group walked together to the outskirts of Cambridge, before separating to avoid working the same areas.
They left their left-hand drive car – which bears Romanian number plates – in a residential road, and did not bother to remove their sat nav device from its charging cradle on the dashboard.
Their displayed parking ticket showed that they had paid for the maximum eight hours, from 9am to 5pm.
When confronted on whether he was homeless, he claimed that he was Italian, before saying: ‘I do not speak English’.
Questioned further, he confirmed that he had driven into the city that day, but his disability did not prevent him from using a car.
Locals reacted with shock and disgust that the trio had apparently been feigning homelessness, but said that they were known to operate regularly in the city.
Lisa Jay, 65, a volunteer with the British Red Cross, said: ‘I have seen the man with the stick try his luck with myself and others as they walk into the bank.
‘They look to target the students who have some spare change and don’t want the hassle of turning them down. They bark at the kids – it’s easy prey to them.’ While it is unclear whether the man was disabled in this instance, locals have queried the matter.
A neighbour living close to where the beggars parked their car added that they were so successful that on ‘most days’ the car could be seen parked in the same spot as its owners worked the streets.
Asma Begum, 34, said: ‘I saw the group getting out of their car earlier this week, most days in fact. When I have seen them, it appeared odd that the man with the disability walked using a child’s crutch.
‘I had never thought that they were homeless, as I had seen them get out of the car and wait around before walking off.
‘If you had a child’s crutch I do not see how you could walk that far into town.’
Neither Cambridge Constabulary nor Cambridge City Council responded to requests for comment last night.