• 7 hours ago
A man fined £100 after rushing to a shopping centre to pick up his disabled mother who had fallen ill has urged a parking company to "show some compassion".

Darren Hayhurst, from Ash, near Canterbury in Kent, has had two parking appeals rejected despite him insisting the incident was an emergency and leaving his car unattended for just 15 minutes.

His 70-year-old mother Rita Armstrong, who is registered disabled, suffers from vertigo and experienced an episode at the Charlton Shopping Centre in Dover, Kent.

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Transcript
00:0013th of August, my mum's birthday, I took her to Children's Centre Cafe, where she took a turn for the worse.
00:10She was in a wheelchair, she suffers fibromyalgia and she had a bad back, so I got a call that she'd had a dizzy spell.
00:20She suffered from vertigo. I've come to this car park to pick her up, thinking that it's like every other car park in Dover.
00:28Put my mum's disabled badge down, walked, picked her up, put the wheelchair in the car, my mum in the car, drove out, thought nothing of it.
00:39And then a couple of days later, got a parking fine for originally £60, but we've now got £100 to pay.
00:47And Rita, if you want to tell me a bit more about your disability and vertigo, how does that impact you in terms of going out?
00:55I don't go out very often at all, because I never know when one of these spells just happens.
01:03I might be walking around somewhere and then I'm dizzy, but I'm also not just dizzy but violently sick, so I need to get home.
01:16I mean, I can carry a bucket in the car.
01:21Has it affected your confidence in terms of going out?
01:24Oh yeah, definitely. I just don't want to go out. Why should I go out? I have to put up with this.
01:36Why do you think that they should overturn this?
01:40It's compassion, really. At the end of the day, it's a mistake that was made, and people make mistakes.
01:52Again, I'd do well to have paid for the parking ticket, I'd have checked the signs, but because I don't park in there, I've never parked in that car park.
02:01I just took it for granted that it was the same as every other car park where you display a disabled badge and you get three hours of parking.
02:08Do you think some leeway should be given for what you would describe as an emergency like this?
02:13Yeah, definitely. Like I say, at the end of the day, I know I'm biased because it's my mum, but if it's for anybody, if they're ill, give them a bit of credit, give them a bit of leeway.

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