A former traffic warden from Barnsley in South Yorkshire has claimed that his former colleagues tampered with ticket machines and ignored "grace periods" in order to issue more penalties.
Andrew Williams is suing Barnsley council for constructive dismissal. Appearing before an employment tribunal in Sheffield, he alleged that colleagues bullied him out of his job after he blew the whistle on their "fixing" ticket machines to reach parking ticket targets set by the council.
According to Williams, the council expected wardens to issue around four parking tickets a day. When he failed to meet the unwritten targets in 2007, parking manager Alan Turton asked him what was wrong.
He said: "He asked me how come these other people had issued consistently higher tickets than me. I said some of them were issuing tickets they shouldn't be, tickets that were illegal.""
Williams explained that some wardens gave out tickets in undesignated areas and others where there were incorrect road markings. Hand-held machines used to issue tickets can also be manually over-ridden to produce illegal tickets.
"I demonstrated two ways how it could be done. There is a third way but I couldn't demonstrate it as you need to be issuing a ticket at the time."
After blowing the whistle, Williams claims that he was singled out for bullying and harassment.
Council bosses deny this, however. They say Williams was caught "sleeping on the job" and performed his duties while not wearing a uniform.
A spokesman said: "Barnsley Council does not normally comment on matters within an employment tribunal.
"But given that car parking enforcement issues are always emotive the council feels it is important to put clearly on record that in the case of Mr Williams the council has consistently denied that there has been any illegal activity by its civil parking enforcement officers and specifically Mr Williams' allegations of bullying and harassment have also been consistently denied."
Links:
- Traffic warden 'bullied out of job for blowing whistle on colleagues' (Telegraph)
- Constructive dismissal law (Findlaw.co.uk)
- Constructive dismissal law news (The Solicitor)
- Employment law Q&A (Community)
- Find an employment solicitor (Contact Law)
