LABOUR PAINS
Couple’s £110 fine for parking at hospital while having their baby
A COUPLE who drove to a maternity ward with the wife deep in labour have been slapped with a £110 hospital car parking fine.
Zoe Bellevue de Sylva had been in labour for two days and daughter Phoebe was about to arrive as husband Stephen Knight rushed her to the hospital at 4.30am.
The disabled bay was the only space available and, with no time to spare, they parked there.
Zoe, 28, a microbiologist at the hospital, said: “She was being born, I couldn’t wait. I was having her.
“Stephen told a midwife where he’d left the car and she said it didn’t matter. Getting me in was far more important. What else were we supposed to do?”
In the turmoil that followed Stephen did not leave his wife’s side to move the car.
But as they left with baby Phoebe nine hours later, they found a £20 fine from wardens at the Royal Preston Hospital, Lancs.
It has since escalated to £110 and passed to bailiffs as the Preston couple fight it.
Paul Havey of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “We will look into this matter.”
Over 444,000 people have signed a Daily Mirror petition calling for the end of crippling hospital parking charges that raked in a record £175million for NHS trusts and private contractors last year.