A mum was left 'disgusted' after being hit with a £100 fine while waiting for an AA repair vain to arrive as she charged her electric car.
Mum-of-three Sue Connerty had taken her disabled son, Alex, to get a coffee and whilst there she decided to charge her car at the Central Square car park in Liverpool on February 26, LiverpoolEcho reported.
After returning back to her MG electric car, Sue could not detach the charging cord which was stuck in the car and she decided to call the AA who were eventually able to get her car free and Sue continued with her day.
However, only a week later she received a fine of £100, but Sue thought nothing of it as she would explain the situation and the fine would hopefully be rescinded.
She said: "You can stay in the car park for two hours. The AA came out and managed to release my car for me and I thought nothing of it.
"I got this fine through and obviously I thought no bother I'll just let them know what has happened and I was absolutely disgusted when they came back to me and said I had to pay the fine."
Sue decided to appeal the fine with the owners Euro Car Parks but her appeal was rejected. She then contested the fine with POPLA, an independent appeals service for parking charge notices issued on private land, who also rejected her appeal.
She said: "There was nothing I could do to move. Other than literally trying to drive away and break my car, I had to stay there.
"The stress of having a disabled child in this situation and then to have this fine hanging over me which I can't afford to pay in the first place.
"They have reduced the fine to £60 but I still have to pay it. I'm furious over it, I really am, I just don't understand the mentality behind it. I've given a totally valid reason for why I went over the time limit."
In correspondence between Sue and Euro Car Parks, the car parking firm said: "Having carefully considered the evidence provided by you we have decided to reject your appeal.
"The car park is operated by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) – cameras capture an image of vehicles entering and leaving the car park and calculate their length of stay.
"Your vehicle was parked longer than 120 minutes/hours, therefore the notice was issued correctly and remains payable."
A spokesperson for POPLA said: "In this case, as the vehicle was on site for 38 minutes longer than permitted, we found that the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) was issued correctly.
"While the reasons for breaching the parking conditions were outside of the driver’s control, the Parking Operator isn’t obliged to cancel a PCN due to mitigating circumstances, and we have no influence over their decision."
Euro Cark Parks were approached for a comment but were yet to respond at the time of publication.
