David Jones was fined £1,040 plus other costs.
A man was fined last week for using his 92-year-old mother’s blue badge parking permit to park free-of-charge near his Battersea office.
Architect David Jones, from Carshalton, was seen parking his Nissan Qashai on four occasions in Patience Road and Khyber Road, near Battersea Park, without his mother in the vehicle.
Angered by the council’s decision to have his car towed away, Mr Jones even came up with a false story to reclaim his removal fee.
He claimed that his mother had been in the car with him the occasion and that he had dropped her off at a café in Tooting on his way to Battersea.
The council’s permit fraud team found photographic CCTV footage as evidence that this story was actually false.
Mr Jones eventually admitted four counts of blue badge misuse and one count of making a false representation at South Western magistrate’s court earlier this week.
He was fined a total of £1,040 and ordered to pay the council’s prosecution costs of £562.
These fines come on top of the £265 Mr Jones also had to pay to get his Nissan back from the car pound.
The council’s transport spokesman Cllr Russell King said: “This case shows the lengths that some people will go to try and fiddle the system.
“The blue badge scheme exists to help disabled people get out and about, visit friends or go shopping. It was not invented to give their relatives a passport to free parking.”
Thomas Coakley, Rowena Crescent, Battersea, was also in court on the same day pleading guilty to five counts of blue badge misuse after using his disabled wife’s blue badge to avoid paying to park in near his work.
To report suspicious cases of blue badge permit misuse in Wandsworth, contact the Council Investigation Team on 0800 085 0866 (answer phone) or speak directly to a Team member on 020 8871 8021/6547.
Photo courtesy of Tdmalone via WikiCommons, with thanks.
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