Durham motorists fined after printing own parking tickets - Cheating motorists who printed their own parking tickets to save just £3 a day have now been hit with a three-figure fine as soon as they were caught out.

Durham County Council yesterday issued a tough word of warning to any more parking ticket fiddlers when enforcement officers ended the fake ticket scam. Two officers working for the council’s parking contractors, spotted wierd pay and display tickets stuck in car windscreens, while they were on routine patrols in Durham City.

After discussing it with their manager, they watched the situation and alerted the police.

Vehicles were seized and when their owners reported their cars missing, they were slapped with £100 fines and had to receive a caution for illegal parking.

The contractors operations support manager said: “We knew there was something strange about the tickets and it didn’t take us long to work out they were not the real thing.

“Immediately we went about collecting the evidence we would need for a police investigation, and this included taking photos.

“We handed over our evidence and, as a result, four vehicles parked in Sidegate Car Park displaying fraudulent tickets were seized by police.

“When the owners reported their vehicles missing they were arrested and interviewed. They subsequently accepted a police caution in respect of the offence they committed.”

The car’s drivers received a caution for the offence of producing and supplying articles for use in fraud. They were also required to pay the recovery charges in excess of £100 for each vehicle.

Parking all day in Sidegate costs just £3.

The council's contractors work for around 60 local councils and this is the first instance the company has ever come across such a scam anywhere in the UK.

The contractors said: “We have never heard of any drivers trying to cheat their way out of paying for parking by faking their pay and display tickets before. It is a particularly sneaky kind of crime, whereby these drivers were parking for free in spaces for which the vast majority of law-abiding drivers were perfectly happy to pay a reasonable charge.”

Durham County Council’s head of transport, Adrian White said: “It’s good to know that this scam has been discovered and that it has been dealt with so quickly.

“I hope this serves as a warning to anyone who may be thinking about flouting the rules. We are watching.”

Barrie's comment.
This blatant dishonesty disrepects the overwhelming  majority of motorists who are honest.

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