Sunday, January 25, 2009


We catch traffic wardens on video as they fake parking tickets

CHEATING parking wardens have been caught on video in a corrupt scam—brazenly dishing out false tickets to INNOCENT motorists then shamelessly FAKING photos as back-up “proof”.

Our investigators filmed them last week ticketing a LEGALLY parked motor and FABRICATING the “evidence”.

After being alerted to the scam by a reader, we parked our car on Thursday in a bay where the parking- warning sign is missing.

There is a thin 10ft- high black kerbside pole —but without the sign, wardens CANNOT legally issue tickets to any vehicle there.

Minutes later a patrolling warden stopped and tapped in the car’s registration number on his handheld machine.

Then he slapped an £80 parking ticket on the windscreen.

Next he took out a digital camera and photographed both the car and the ticket.

Finally he walked to ANOTHER bay 30 yards across the street and blatantly took a picture of the parking warning sign THERE.

Our team reported: “He took the picture by shooting upwards into the sky. That way there’s no background, and it’s difficult to tell it’s actually a different bay.”

Just 24 hours earlier we filmed a different warden pulling the same scam. This time, after ticketing our car, he wandered 40 YARDS along the road to snap another parking warning sign. In both cases the dodgy pictures, which were taken in Westminster, central London, were beamed to the local council, to be stored as “proof” that the car was wrongly parked.

Both incidents happened AFTER News of the World alerted Westminster Council to the dodgy goings on.

Our investigation started when parking campaigner Barrie Segal was ticketed 13 TIMES in two months by the council.

Barrie, founder of the website appealnow.com, first spotted there was no warning sign on the pole in the Bryanston Street bay last year.

Yet every time he parked there during the next eight weeks he was hit with a ticket—and each one backed up with a fake picture.

Then he had numerous threats to pay the £80 fine—which would be cut to £40 if he coughed up within two weeks. Barrie said: “There has been blatant faking of evidence to try to prove I was parked illegally.

“What the wardens are doing here is actually against the law.”

He went on: “The council’s followed the tickets up with more notices and even bailiffs’ letters. It’s scandalous bullying that would force most people to cough up.

“But this one bay is just the tip of the iceberg. This is happening all over the country, and motorists who have done nothing wrong are paying because they don’t realise.”

Both Westminster Council and the company employing the parking wardens, NCP Services, admitted parking tickets were wrongly issued and said attendants had been removed from duty pending an investigation.

NCP Services spokesman Tim Cowen insisted wardens were not on commission, saying: “There is no incentive to us to issue these unenforceable tickets.”

Source with video.

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