Daftest parking tickets of the year

CAMDEN Council has ranked highly in some of the silliest parking tickets of the last year.

Lobby group Appealnow.com has compiled a list of the daftest tickets of 2005 and Camden Council is responsible for one of the most ludicrous.

The incident involved an RSPCA officer working on Albert Street, Camden Town

He parked his car to protect an injured bird from traffic but after rescuing it he found a penalty charge notice on his van.

Alan Goddard, RSPCA's south east regional superintendent, said: "We appeal against these fines and sometimes they are overturned but it is ridiculous that we get them in the first place.

"We are providing a service to these boroughs by rescuing these animals, and yet they issue our officers with parking penalties when there is nowhere else to park.

"We would rather spend our money on animal welfare than parking fines."

Another case on the list was a ticket Westminster Council issued against Camden-based funeral directors Leverton and Son.

A traffic warden gave tickets to four cars in the cortege at a funeral while mourners paid their respects.

Allan Clinton, a funeral director who was working that day, said the award was merited.

"I would have to agree with that," he said. "It was unnecessary. It was quite clearly a funeral service with a hearse and two cars - there were flowers on the hearse, it was outside a Catholic church. It was fairly obvious. It was a single yellow line and we weren't causing any disturbance.

"But I believe since that incident they have now revised their policy so you will not be ticketed if there is a hearse and two cars.

"But what if there is a hearse and three cars? I don't know where it will end up."

Both Camden and Westminster Council told the Ham&High that

they would look into their respective cases.