‘Happy Warden’ helped himself to shinty funds
TV PERSONALITY IN FALL FROM GRACE
BY CHARLIE GALL charlie.gall@dailyrecord.co.uk A TRAFFIC warden who enjoyed fleeting fame on national TV is facing jail for swindling his shinty club.
Cheery yellow peril David Martin – who was filmed shouting “jackpot” while emptying a parking meter – has been unmasked in court for embezzling £6000 from Oban Lorn shinty club.
The club is now struggling to survive with the men’s team in abeyance and only a women’s side competing.
Martin, of Oban, was treasurer but he was plundering the club’s cash for his own use.
Oban Sheriff Court heard last week how he dipped into funds between September 2016 and March 2019 to buy takeaways and groceries.
He even used club money to access cash and buy items and entertainment online from Amazon, Wish and Netflix.
Martin appeared in the BBC TV series The Country Council
in 2017 as “the Happy Traffic Warden”. A camera crew followed him on patrol in the centre of Oban where his cheery disposition was popular with motorists.
He said: “I absolutely love the job. I surprised myself how much I actually enjoy it, just getting out and speaking to people. It’s great.”
He’s filmed shouting “jackpot” as money pours out of a ticket machine he’s emptying.
Martin added: “A lot of people were taking bets whether I was going to last. However, I proved them all wrong.”
When we tried to telephone Martin for a comment, a family member hung up.
It was unclear last night if he was still employed as a traffic warden as bosses at Argyll and
His position was that he simply overlapped the funds by mistake