A DISABLED pensioner has labelled the council ‘heartless’ after a traffic warden ticketed his car while he struggled to find his blue badge parking permit.

Dennis Hayes, 84, had stopped on a single yellow line in Grove Park, Wanstead, for less than a minute when the inspector pounced – slapping a £50 penalty notice on his windscreen while he tried to find the sticker in his glove compartment.

The ticket showed that the grandfather-of-two, who can barely walk after having two hip replacements, had been parked on the spot from 11.29am until 11.29am when the fine was issued on April 7.

He said: “I had just stopped in Grove Park so that I could go to Somerfields and then to the bank, and was looking down to get the permit when this ticket appeared on my windscreen.

“I don’t have the permit displayed in my windscreen all the time because I find it obstructs my vision, so I just put it up once I’ve parked the car.

“They are supposed to give you some time to display your blue badge after you’ve parked, so I was really upset to see that I had been ticketed so quickly.”

Mr Hayes, of New Wanstead, complained to the council about the incident but was told that he would have to cough up the money, despite being a registered blue badge holder – entitling him to park on single yellow lines.

He said: “I have tried to fight the council over this, but at my age, you just reach a point where you’re too tired and stressed, and you just want it over and done with.

“I can’t get up in the morning every day knowing I’ve got to fight Redbridge Council again.

“If I had been a lot younger I would have probably got really angry about it and given the bloke a hard time.

“I would walk to the High Street if I could, but I’ve had both my hips replaced so I really can’t get that far without a car.

“You would have thought these people could use a bit of discretion when issuing these fines.”

But a council spokeswoman disputed Mr Haye's version of events.

She said: "We manage parking in the borough on a fair and consistent basis.

"When our civil enforcement officer issued the penalty charge notice, full details of the vehicle were taken and evidence held shows that no one was in the vehicle at the time the ticket was issued.

"If anyone disagrees with the reason a ticket has been issued and wishes to make an appeal, they can do so by following the instructions contained in the Notice to Owner.

"The council can assure residents that it does thoroughly consider all PCN appeals in a process that has up to three stages; informal representations to the council, followed by a formal appeal to the council and finally an appeal to the independent parking adjudicator."