Brain tumour gran left without her blue badge
Hospice champion feels worth less following row with parking attendant
A great-gran with a brain tumour was left without her disabled badge for a week after it was kept by a parking attendant who believed she was misusing it.
Furious Lynn McMorrow, 62, from Ayr, told how he retained the badge after she showed it to him during a parking row in the town’s Alloway Street.
Lynn said the incident made her feel worthless and she couldn’t use the badge to attend vital hospital appointments for scans on a benign tumour.
Road bosses said it wasn’t returned to her as the attendant thought it was being misued.
And he began making enquiries because the vehicle wasn’t parked in a bay and the car had been parked on a double yellow line and blocking a motor-cycle bay.
Road chiefs say guidelines on the Scottish Governemnt’s website state that blue badges can’t be used to park on reserved motorcycle bays or double yellow lines if the badge holder remains in the vehicle, as was the case in Lynn’s case.
But Ayrshire Hospice champion Lynn, who is unable to drive, said the incident began when she was being ferried around by her partner, Sam Brodie.
He parked in Alloway Street to get cash from a nearby ATM at 10.45 on December 4, 2021.
The vehicle was partially parked over a motorcycle bay and on a double yellow line when a parking attendant approached the vehicle and asked to see the blue badge.
Lynn said: “The parking attendant kept my badge and said, ‘you’re not getting this back’.
“Sam tried to get it back but the attendant was laughing and sneering at us the whole time.
“I feel I was treated disgracefully that day and it made me feel worthless.”
Lynn, who has lived with a brain tumour since 2018 and broke her leg in 2019, added: “It was a complete abuse of power, there was no reason given at all for why he was keeping it.
“He never thought to ask why I might have needed my blue badge. I can’t drive because of a brain tumour, Sam is my carer.”
Lynn, who featured in Ayrshire Hospice’s national TV ad campaign last month, was left furious after her complaint to Ayrshire Roads Alliance (ARA) was rejected at the first stage of the process.
ARA claimed in a response to Lynn on January 10 that their worker was injured in an altercation during the incident after “stumbling backwards into an advertising hoarding” during a scuffle with Sam. Following the scuffle, ARA added that the parking attendant was injured and remains absent from work as a result. In their response and following of CCTV, they said they were “satisfied that there was nothing untoward” with the behaviour of the parking attendant.
Kevin Braidwood, head of roads at ARA, said: “At the point when he (PA) received the badge no decision had been taken as to whether it warranted confiscation.
“The PA also took into account the fact that the vehicle was blocking a reserved motorcycle bay.
“Due to how the situation escalated, the PA did not have the opportunity to issue a fine.”
ARA say that their worker was unaware of Lynn’s health condition and that he was “not afforded the opportunity to offer any advice.”
Mr Braidwood said no claim of an assault was made by ARA to police but that officers who attended were unable to gather witness statements and the parking attendant was unable to fully capture the scuffle on his CCTV equipment.
A police spokesman said enquiries were carried out and nobody was arrested or charged.