Driver loses ‘ blue badge’ fraud appeal

Motorist using fake mobility badge gets suspended sentence and fine

A MOTORIST who left his SUV displaying a fake ‘ blue badge’ in a parking bay reserved for people with reduced mobility has lost his appeal against conviction.

The driver claimed it was a photocopy of a valid badge issued to his brotherinlaw and allowed him to leave the Toyota Rav4 in the special bay in a Dénia street.

However, the man lost his appeal when judges in Alicante upheld a guilty verdict for falsifying an official document and the sentence earlier imposed at a Benidorm court in January.

The provincial court ratified a 12month prison term and a € 1,620 fine, the appeal judges ruling there was no ‘ conclusive’ evidence backing the alibi.

The unnamed driver parked in the disabled space in Carrer del Mercat on June 7, 2017. He was seen to place a fake blue badge on the dashboard of his car; a colour photocopy of an original issued in Norway in the name of his exwife’s brother.

However, the motorist argued the badge was not a forgery because it was a copy ‘ that matched’ an original and genuine document.

He argued the original blue badge belonged to his exwife’s brother and it was his fatherinlaw who made photocopies for the family’s vehicles when transporting a person with reduced mobility. He simply ‘ forgot’ to remove it from the car.

But the court found there was no evidence to confirm the claim; further, the judges said it was three years since the former brotherinlaw and ‘ holder of the document’ had lived in Spain.

The court said in any case the offender’s forgetfulness in removing the card had continued for an extended period, and in June 2017 the driver was guilty of ‘ improper use of a parking space of people with reduced capacity’.