Luca Bottazzi, aged 45, admitted he ‘made a mistake’ and now has to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work
The general manager at Birmingham’s high-end Gaucho restaurant used a fraudulent disabled badge to park up nearby – despite earning £59,000 a year. Luca Bottazzi was caught after parking a Toyota on Barwick Street around the corner from the dinery where he works on Church Street in the city centre.
A Birmingham City Council inspector found that he was using a photocopy of a disabled badge in someone else’s name, while the expiry date – which had elapsed – had been altered to run out later this year. Bottazzi, aged 45, from Stadium Road in Hall Green, admitted an offence of using a false instrument with intent it be accepted as genuine, under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act.
On Thursday, August 18, he was sentenced to a 12-month community order at Wolverhampton Magistrates’ Court, which is being utilised amid the ongoing closure of the Birmingham courthouse. Prosecutor Jaspreet Randhawa confirmed the offence took place at 1.53pm on January 7 on Barwick Street where the maximum stay is four hours.
She told the court the inspector, who was out ‘combatting the misuse of blue badges’, noticed a badge issued by Coventry City Council on a Toyota. Ms Randhawa said: “The expiry date was December 9, 2021. He saw the badge was a photocopy and also it had been altered to expire on December 9, 2022. No parking was paid for.”
The court heard Bottazzi returned to the vehicle and confirmed to the officer he had parked it up and displayed the badge. Ms Randhawa added that fraudulent badge use caused a ‘significant cost to the public purse’.
Bottazzi, who represented himself, was asked by the court what he did for a living and what his means were. He confirmed he worked six days a week as the general manager of a restaurant on Church Street – known to be Gaucho – and that he earned £59,000 a year, which he broke down to £3,300 a month after tax.
Magistrates ordered him to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work within the 12-month community order period as well as pay £375 in court costs and a £95 victim surcharge. Bottazzi said ‘I made a mistake’ when Birmingham Live approached him for comment.