Parking warden fines 'vulnerable' patients at hospital with 'broken ticket machines'
One woman was in tears because she feared getting a ticket
Warden issues fines to hospital patients whilst machine is broken
A parking warden issued fines to "vulnerable" patients at a hospital despite the ticket machines being broken. Sophie Ellis, 38, was at Crawley Hospital in West Sussex for an appointment and said all the machines weren't accepting cash or card payments.
She described the scene as "carnage", with elderly people and those in wheelchairs "crying" out of fear they might get fined by the warden. A nurse from the hospital intervened to appeal to the warden’s better nature, but Sophie said people were told to appeal their tickets. The local council has apologised for any "difficulties", but insisted the warden acted professionally.
Sophie, from Cheam in Surrey, said: "It was not my local hospital, and I had to drive all the way there and got to the car park, and it was absolute carnage and chaos.
"There were people at every single machine, and everyone was trying to pay [without luck], and with the average age of people trying to pay, I was the youngest there by 30 years.
"It wasn’t taking coins and wasn’t taking card payments. The warden turned up and started ticketing cars."
She said the warden started pushing coins through the machine, insisting it did accept coins, but she said it wasn't.
Sophie said most people didn't know how to download the payment app, which she argued wasn't accessible.
There was an older woman in tears, saying she didn’t want a ticket, Sophie said. She recalled telling the warden: "'You’re really targeting vulnerable people here, you don’t care?'"
Sophie eventually downloaded the MiPermit app to pay on her phone after signal issues, but was late to her mammogram appointment despite arriving 20 minutes early.
She said: "It was stressful for me getting a lump checked. The last thing I want to be doing is appealing a ticket, and I can’t imagine what it was like for the older people."
A council spokesperson apologised, saying there was a reported issue on Tuesday with some machines not accepting card payments.
They added: "We are sorry for any difficulties that this caused; however, a range of alternatives remained in place, including cash payments and online payments using the MiPermit cashless app, so people could continue to pay for parking.
"We have reviewed the footage from the body-worn cameras from the incident and consider that the officer attending the car park acted in an entirely professional manner."
