A man in Edinburgh has been fined several thousand pounds after being caught by police using a fake blue badge to park in London.
The blue badges, which entitled you to park in disabled parking bays, are issued by local councils to genuinely disabled people in order to make their lives a little bit easier, given their lack of mobility. Mr Humayun Reza of Edinburgh was previously in charge of a large care home in Scotland, where he is believed to have gotten hold of legitimate bages for residents, before copying them for his own use.
Mr. Reza was caught last year after parking a non disabled vehicle with the fake badge displayed in his window in a disabled parking space. Fraud investigators had been examining the conduct of Mr.. Reza for a long time, but had previously been unable to catch him or a member of his family in the act.
Mr. Reza appeared in magistrates court last week, where he was branded fraudulent and dishonest by the judge, who later fined him a whopping £7, 515.
Unfortunately, this type of crime would appear to be increasing in Great Britain, with many more people being convicted of similar offences in 2010 than in previous years. Disabled people, who’s government and council funded benefits include the blue badge and the motability scheme, have seen a 70% increase in the fraudulent use of disabled spaces in some areas of the country, with people consistently using the spaces illegally.
Fines for the offence have been increasing aswell, with those prosecuted having to face fines upwards of several thousand pounds. This appears to be a direct attempt by the authorities to deter criminals from falsifying blue badges, although its effectiveness has been called into question given the increase in offences.
Mr. Reza’s fine is the second largest fine for this offence in the last few months, after a woman in Birmingham was fined over £8,000 for parking her Renault Kangoo (coincidentally a popular model for wheelchair accessible vehicles) illegally, whilst displaying a fraudelent disabled badge.