A woman was hit with a £100 fine while waiting for an AA repair van to arrive.
Mum-of-three Sue Connerty was waiting for her electric car to charge at the Central Square car park in Maghull on February 26.
She had taken her disabled son, Alex, to get a coffee and while there she decided to kill two birds with one stone and charge her car. When she returned to her MG electric car, Sue could not detach the charging cord which was stuck in the car.
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Unable to disconnect the cord on her own Sue called the AA and was eventually able to get her car free. Sue went on her way but only a week later she received a fine of £100.
Speaking to the ECHO, 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 appealed 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 which has been seen by the ECHO, they 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.
