The expired badge was stamped in Ealing and issued in Barnsley.
A council worker was caught using a faked Blue Badge on her car parked at a shopping mall – which was only a 10-minute walk from her home.
The woman who has not been named by Hammersmith & Fulham Council, resigned after the authority prosecuted her for defrauding the disability parking system, and she was later convicted of fraud.
In fact Hammersmith & Fulham has the highest number of Blue Badge prosecutions in the capital.
Earlier this year, an investigating officer was checking disabled parking bays in Bulwer Street, next to the Westfield Shopping Centre in White City, when he spotted the fake badge on display.Westfield Shopping Centre
Upon closer inspection, he saw the badge was stamped to show it was issued by Ealing, yet when he checked the badge’s serial number on the national database, it actually matched one issued by Barnsley Council that had expired in April 2016.
The officer waited for the driver to return to the vehicle and confronted the woman as she was about to unlock her car.
She handed over the badge and was cautioned, with the officer telling her that her case would be passed to the council’s lawyers for action.
But while they were preparing the case, it became clear the woman was a council employee who lived in the borough, where she held a valid parking permit.
Not only that, according to Google Maps, the walk from her home to the mall would have taken her less than 10 minutes, the council papers said.
The woman resigned from her council post ahead of her court appearance.
She pleaded guilty to fraud at Westminster Magistrates Court on August 8, and was sentenced to a home curfew order between the hours of 8.15pm-6am, had an electronic tag fitted for a month and was fined £560.
Topping the tables
Earlier this year, H&F was singled out for topping London’s tables with the highest number of Blue Badge fraud prosecutions in the city for the third year running, followed by Newham.
The council’s fraud team won a British Parking award with the Metropolitan Police and BBFI for their joint work tackling Blue Badge fraud, after they undertook 141 prosecutions over abuse of the disability parking badges between 2016-17.
According to the council, Hammersmith & Fulham’s Blue Badge bad behaviour hotspots include Westfield Mall and the borough’s three football stadiums, and the problem is particularly bad at weekends. weekends.
A council spokesman said it took “Blue Badge fraud extremely seriously, which is why recent figures have shown us to be the top-performing borough in the country.”
National statistics for Blue Badge prosecutions from 2017-18 showed the council undertook 137 prosecutions, with the next closest borough hitting 88.
“All our traffic wardens receive specialist training to help them identify fake Blue Badges and recognise potential misuse,” the spokesman added. “This has proved effective, as between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018, the anti-fraud team seized 171 blue badges.”