WINDSCREEN SWIPER!
Warden removes valid parking ticket – so she can slap on a £50 fine
DISPLAYING zealous adherence to the rules may have given many parking wardens a bad name.
This enforcement officer appears to have thrown out the rule book altogether.
She was caught on CCTV apparently removing a valid parking ticket from a car – so she could issue a £50 fine instead. Footage shows the official, who has now been sacked, fiddling with the windscreen wipers before taking photographs of the car and placing a penalty ticket.
Landlord Kevin Gillespie has now spoken of his anger at receiving a fine. When he parked overnight in a council car park near his pub in Folkestone, Kent, he did not expect to run into any trouble as it is free to stay there from 6pm until 8am. he even decided during the night to pay £3 for a ticket and put it under the windscreen wiper so that the vehicle could stay until 10.30am.
But just after 10am, when he was stood outside talking to a customer, he spotted a parking attendant checking whether the cars had valid tickets.
To his surprise, he saw the warden putting a fresh ticket on the vehicle. When he went to look ten minutes later he saw he had been given a £50 fine. he checked the pub’s CCTV – and the ‘unbelievable’ footage seems to confirm his hunch. The landlord, 58, who has owned the Gillespies pub for 21 years, told Kent Live: ‘i looked around the car to see if [the £3 ticket] had been blown away.
‘i thought someone had nicked it. i came back in to look at the CCTV and i was astonished... They walk up to my car, take the ticket from under the wiper and put a ticket under it. i am furious.’ Mr Gillespie met with a member of Folkestone and hythe District Council soon after the incident on March 17 and they have now cancelled the fine, which was issued by private firm NSL.
Another warden for the council allegedly said that this specific attendant had come from London to cover shifts.
An NSL spokesman apologised to Mr Gillespie, adding that ‘appropriate action’ was taken and ‘the individual concerned is no longer employed by the company’.