I was shaking with anger after being handed a parking fine – even though I paid AND left a note on my windshield

A MOTORIST was left “trembling with heart palpitations” after being hit with a parking ticket – despite paying for her spot and leaving a note on her windscreen.

Karen Wilson, from Hertfordshire, says her “legs were like jello” because she was outraged at the fine.

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She received the ticket at the Laura Troll Leisure Center in Cheshunt on July 29, which she believes was due to a fault in the parking system.

Karen, who is scared and uses the recreation center to help her mental health, says recreation center customers paid for parking with a machine in the nearby lot, but this has recently changed.

Under the new system, she explains: “Your license plate number must be recorded by a receptionist, then the municipal employees patrolling the car park enter the license plate numbers into a handheld device to see that the car has been registered.”

She adds that the new method “concerned her” as no registration ticket had been issued and therefore no hard evidence that parking had been paid for.

This prompted her to type a note stating that she used the leisure center and had paid for parking, which she left on her vehicle’s dashboard.

On the day she received a parking ticket, Karen says she took a swimming lesson and definitely registered her car with the staff, with the receptionist repeating the registration for confirmation.

Despite this, she still received a ticket and when she checked it online, she was told that she had “parked in a lot without clearly showing a valid pay-and-display ticket or voucher or parking meter”.

This caused Karen’s fear to flare up and make her tremble.

“My legs got weak and my heart began to pound. You just have the feeling that someone is after you. It really ruined my weekend,” she explained.

Luckily, the leisure center manager realized the mistake and emailed the municipality asking them to cancel the ticket.

A Broxbourne Borough Council spokesman said: “Without knowing the details of this particular case, it is not clear how this situation came about.

“If the customer has appealed the penalty fee and it is determined that a valid parking session was booked or if an error was made in the processing of the details at the centre, the penalty fee will be cancelled.”

However, Karen believes this is not good enough and says the ordeal has taken a toll on her sanity.

“I am very upset about this and think that either the parking attendants should be properly trained or the system should be better transitioned to a working system.”

She no longer drives to the recreation center, instead walking to her weekly swim sessions.

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