A widow who used her dead husband’s blue badge to park for free in Hove for nine months has been fined £1,000.
Fiona Fforde, 51, of Storrington, was first caught using her late husband Grant Perkins’ badge in September this year, more than seven months since he had passed away.
She had parked her black Mercedes in St Aubyns, Hove – close to where she rents a three-bedroom Airbnb apartment.
The badge had already been cancelled after Brighton and Hove City Council had received a tip-off that it was being used fraudulently to park a white Mercedes in the same road.
This was passed to West Sussex County Council, who confirmed Mr Perkins had passed away on 31 January and cancelled it on 9 September.
After giving her a ticket for parking in St Aubyn’s that day, Brighton and Hove City Council looked through their logs and found the badge had also been used to park in St Aubyns on another nine occasions, once in Kingsway, twice in Church Road and once in Seafield Road, from February onwards.
On Wednesday, she was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £100 and costs of £400.
Another driver, Jason Douglas of Wembley, was also fined for fraudulently using a blue badge twice and failing to give information about who was driving his black VW.
He was caught using the badge in Pelham Street on August 18 and in London Road on 21 August.
He was fined a total of £700 and ordered to pay £400 costs and a victim surcharge of £31.
A third driver, Jason Danahar of Summer Lane, Bognor Regis, is charged with using a badge fraudulently four times in August, once in Goldstone Villas and three times in Goldstone Road, and of twice failing to give information about who was driving his white Jaguar.
He failed to turn up and a warrant without bail has been issued for his arrest.
