The £1m Gatwick parking ‘cowboy’
Passengers ‘found their cars dumped in muddy field’
A ROGUE company promising holidaymakers secure airport parking in fact dumped their cars in muddy fields, a court heard.
Asad Malik, 37, made £1million over two years using a picture of a secure car park at a hospital 400 miles away in Scotland to advertise his company London Parking Gatwick (LPG) Ltd, jurors were told.
The false advertising led travellers to believe their cars were safe and secure when in fact they were being driven around before being left with the keys taped to the windscreen, Lewes Crown Court heard.
Other vehicles were left at petrol stations and mosques, and one customer found an old receipt for garlic naan bread when she returned to her car.
Another traveller was allegedly forced to search through fields for his car for five hours after he landed at Gatwick Airport because he could not contact the company. Prosecutors said Malik included fake customer reviews on his website and told angry customers they had no right to complain once they had left the airport.
The businessman, from Crawley, West Sussex, and his company are accused of six counts of fraudulent trading and unfair and misleading commercial practice between October 2015 and August 2016.
Richard Heller, prosecuting for West Sussex County Council Trading Standards, said the company had engaged in a range of ‘dishonest practice, misleading claims and unfair commercial practices’. He said airline passengers, lured by affordable prices, had been led to believe their vehicles would be valet parked in secure locations, protected with CCTV and 24-hour security guards. In fact, cars were used to tow other vehicles through the mud and were left unlocked or with the keys stuck to the wind-
screen in a clear plastic bag. The jury were told that cars were driven extra miles and returned dirty and damaged to their owners or not returned at all. Several complaints were uncovered by Trading Standards officers, and more unhappy customers came forward during the investigation. Mr Heller said: ‘In June 2016, Sylvia Goodman said her car was returned with a bent key, the language on the dashboard display was changed to one she didn’t recognise, there was hardly any fuel left, it was dirty, the time had been changed and there was litter in the car including a Coop receipt for mini garlic naans.’ The naan breads were bought fourand-a-half hours after she dropped her car off at the airport, expecting it to be parked a few minutes drive away, the court heard.
Mr Heller noted: ‘Which gives rise to the obvious question – where had it been in that time and why wasn’t it taken to, and left at, one of the parking locations?’ Other drivers received parking tickets after their cars were left at petrol stations around Gatwick Airport. Another customer had to search through fields for his own car after LPG failed to return it.
‘Christopher Allen, who used LPG’s services in June 2016, returned to Gatwick expecting to have his car brought to him but despite several attempts to contact the company he could not do so,’ Mr Heller told the court.
‘He describes how with the help of other passengers he managed to locate his car in a muddy field some five to six hours after he arrived.’
The company was brought to court after Trading Standards officers conducted a ‘ mystery shopper’ investigation, trying out the company’s service with cars fitted with tracking devices. Asad Malik and London Parking Gatwick Ltd deny six counts of fraudulent trading.
The trial continues.