Denise Reece said she has been unfairly penalised by Havering Council over a “genuine mistake” after parking in Appleton Way, Hornchurch.
She was slapped with a £60 fine for paying for parking in the wrong location on November 16 last year while attending her granddaughter’s first birthday party.
The former council worker reached out to the Recorder after hearing about the case of Wendy Hill, who was sent a charge by the authority for an almost identical infraction.
Denise had parked her car in Appleton Way to go shopping nearby, and was fined after mistakenly selecting Appleton Way car park as her location when paying on the RingGo app.
Even though the two parking zones are on the same road, her appeal was denied by the council.
“The zones are in the same bloody road – they’re literally metres from one another,” Denise said.
“I even paid above what I needed to pay because I know I sometimes get distracted in the shops.
“I did everything a responsible person needed to do and yet there was no give at all for any kind of error.
“There was no financial gain on my part from parking there and there was no financial loss to the local authority. There’s a lack of compassion.”
She added that the council had failed to consider her diagnosis of ADHD, which means her attention to detail “sometimes lacks”, when reviewing her appeal.
Denise said she was especially “aggrieved” that her fine was upheld after reading that the council was looking to cancel Ms Hill’s fine, which was issued just over the road in Fentiman Way.
“If it’s black and white, then I’ll own it,” she said.
“But if they’ve upheld someone else’s appeal under the same circumstances and denied mine – where’s the objectivity? There is clearly a massive lack of consistency in their approach.”
After her appeal was denied, Denise also submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the council about the total number of PCNs issued in Havering where payment was made using an online parking app, but the wrong location was entered.
The local authority responded saying that it did not have a record of the information she had requested.
Havering Council has been contacted for comment.
