Council used wrong picture to enforce £120 parking fine

A woman has won a six-month fight over a parking fine after she proved Westminster council wrong with their own photographic evidence.

Pensioner Prudence Fay was issued with the £120 fine in Kilburn Park Road even though she was parked near a sign saying parking was allowed. When she complained to the council, she was told the warden had taken a photo showing that Mrs Fay was parked illegally as the nearby sign said parking was not permitted any day except Sunday.

The 69-year-old from Islington denied the claim and said the sign she was parked next to clearly showed drivers could park there at weekends and demanded the photographic evidence. After months of wrangling with the council, Mrs Fay was sent the picture and was shocked to see the warden had taken a photo of the wrong sign and a small tree in the photograph clearly showed Mrs Fay was not parked where the warden said she was.

The fine was issued on a Saturday last July. Mrs Fay said the parking in the road was ridiculous as the two signs, which were about 10 metres apart, contradict each other. "They must have been getting people like this for years," she said. The evening before Mrs Fay was supposed to go to a formal appeal, Westminster agreed to drop the fine.

Kevin Goad, Westminster's assistant director of parking, maintained that Mrs Fay was correctly issued with a ticket. However, he said: "We acknowledge that a second sign on the same stretch of road makes the rules unclear and in an effort to provide a fair service we have cancelled the ticket and offer our apologies."