A LAKE Macquarie man is contesting a $144 parking fine he received for stopping briefly in a motorcycle zone to help his terminally ill wife into the car.
Bruce Toy said he parked outside Best & Less at Toronto, helping his wife, Pam, into the car, while his son sat in the driver's seat, with the hazard lights on.
"I've got two disabled stickers on the front of the car," Mr Toy said.
He saw the parking officer take a photo of the car and questioned him, Mr Toy said.
"And he said yeah, well, they were parked illegally."
Both his and his wife's accessible parking permits were clearly displayed on the front of the vehicle, and the fine print says you can 'stand' in a no parking zone and "virtually anywhere" for five minutes, Mr Toy said.
"We were parked right outside Best & Less where it's flat, and I had the wheeler, and he's taken pictures of me from the back of the car. He must've run up, the grub.
"There's a picture of me standing there as I'm putting her in the car."
The time stamp on the photos, which Mr Toy obtained through Services NSW, showed the car was parked for just three minutes.
"Three minutes it took me to get her in. I had to scoot her in, then lift her legs up, put them in, shut the door, and put the wheely thing on the back."
His son came back to pick him up because the car could only fit two of them at a time, Mr Toy said.
"You ring them up, the council, they don't care," he said.
"Services NSW, they don't care. The rotten grub. He's seen me, and seen her in that wheelchair thingy. And he's taking pictures. He's taken pictures of me putting her in the car. And then gone across the road and booked me."
Mr Toy has taken the matter to the office of Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper where staff have made representations on Mr Toy's behalf.
His wife had lived through 17 hits of chemotherapy for three different types of cancer, Mr Toy said.
They were preparing her for a second doctor's appointment as part of the Voluntary Assisted Dying program, but he was not optimistic she would make it that far, Mr Toy said.
"They said she has six weeks, maybe, and she's not going to last that long," he said. "We've been together for 53 years."
He was not at all confident that she would be around for the deadline he has been given to pay the fine, on September 10.
A spokesman from Mr Piper's office said it appeared that the fine had been issued within the boundaries of the law, but that representations had been made to the Office of State Revenue and it was now in their hands.
