A Good Samaritan who was fined for stopping on the roadside to help an injured man has labelled the traffic warden who ticketed his car “heartless and shameful”.

Richard Yadgar, 27, was driving along Golders Green Road, Golders Green, with a friend last Thursday evening when he noticed a man collapsed on the pavement.

The marketing manager, of Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood, immediately stopped his car and rushed over to check the man’s condition before calling for an ambulance.

But as he waited by the man’s side for the ambulance to arrive, a Barnet Council traffic warden was busy issuing him with a penalty charge notice for parking on double yellow lines.

Recalling his decision to stop, Mr Yadgar said: “It was a split second decision. I wanted to suss out the situation and immediately it struck me that this person was in trouble.”

The collapsed man, a 43-year-old who lives in a Golders Green care home, told Mr Yadgar he had two shunts in his brain and needed to get to hospital after falling down on the roadside.

But as they waited for an ambulance to arrive, a traffic warden arrived on the scene in a car and was met by angry protests from a crowd of passers-by as he proceeded to issue Mr Yadgar with a parking fine.

He said: “A parking warden issued a ticket despite protests from the crowd who were saying, ‘This guy is helping the man on the floor!’

“The guy got taken in an ambulance and I went up to the traffic warden and said, ‘Have you not got any heart? It’s disgusting, it’s shameful and it’s embarrassing that you would even do that’.

“He said it was too late for him to remove the ticket and I would have to call the council.”

Following the incident, Mr Yadgar took to Twitter to vent his fury with Barnet Council and the following day the council cancelled the parking fine and apologised.

A council spokesman said: “The council is not in the business of penalising Good Samaritans and after we were made aware of all of the facts we cancelled the ticket.”

The council claims the traffic warden was not aware that Mr Yadgar was helping an injured man and only realised once the notice had been served, at which point it was too late.

But Mr Yadgar is unconvinced, adding: “It’s embarrassing for the warden more than anything. He’s seen an opportunity and taken it without thinking it through.”