Parking officers left red-faced after driver snaps them without ticket (From Enfield Independent)

Enfield parking officers left red-faced after driver snaps them without ticket

3:10pm Monday 2nd July 2012 in News By David Hardiman, Reporter

A motorist has caught out traffic officers who were “openly flouting the law” after photographing them parking illegally in Enfield Town.

Enfield Independent reader Len Wilcock, 54, of Bush Hill Park, reacted with anger when he saw two officers from Enfield’s mobile CCTV unit parked without a ticket in a pay-and-display bay in Windmill Hill drinking tea in a café at 10.30am on Friday morning.

And when the quick-thinking driver got out his mobile phone to snap the silver hatchback so he could prove they should have bought a ticket, he said the two men just laughed at him.

Mr Wilcock said: “They couldn’t have cared less and just sat there laughing at me. It makes them look like a law unto themselves.

“The main problem people have with parking regulation is that it lacks credibility, and it’s not helped when we see the people who are supposed to be enforcing it openly flouting the law themselves.

“It make people see it for what it is – a revenue-raiser – and people don’t like that.”

He added that he had sent his photos to the Enfield Council’s parking team and is waiting for a response from them, but wants the two officers to be punished.

As the Enfield Independent revealed last week, more than £2.5million worth of parking fines went uncollected in the borough last year, nearly half of all charges issued.

The council collected £3.5million from penalty charge notices – fines given out by traffic wardens for parking violations – but 41 per cent of the fines from the 86,864 tickets issued in 2011/12 went unpaid. The council says it is chasing the money owed through the courts.

The Enfield Independent is waiting for a response from Enfield Council.