Weymouth guest house owner fined £1,500 over copied parking permit

11:00am Saturday 13th March 2010

By Laura Kitching

THE owner of a Weymouth guesthouse has been fined £1,500 for fraudulently photocopying a council parking permit for his guest.

Craig Willis, 38, who owns the Wilton guest house in Gloucester Street, pleaded guilty to forging a parking permit and supplying the forgery to a guest staying at the bed and breakfast last summer.

A parking warden on patrol spotted the forgery last July when he saw a blue Kia displaying a permit which, he said ‘looked unclear and hazy’.

His suspicions grew on the discovery of a red Citroen parked directly behind, displaying a much clearer permit, with an identical reference number to that of the Kia.

The court was told that each permit should usually carry a unique reference number.

It was later confirmed that the permit displayed by the Citroen was the original and the owner of the Kia had been given a duplicate.

The owners of the two vehicles confirmed that Mr Willis had supplied the permits to them during their stay at the Wilton Guest House.

In a police interview, Mr Willis admitted making the fraudulent permit by scanning it and laminating it and said that he might have also allowed the copy permit to be used again after July 19 2009.

Councillor Peter Chapman, spokesman for finance and assets, said: “People who commit fraud in our borough place a financial burden on the majority of law-abiding residents.

“In this case the fraud also abused a permit system designed to ensure that both residents and visitors stand a fair chance of being able to park near their homes and accommodation respectively.

“The borough council is committed to bringing offenders to justice and works diligently in conjunction with other authorities to stamp out fraud.

“In this case, the perpetrator may have thought he was doing his guests a favour by duplicating a parking permit - however, his actions show a lack of respect to residents and visitors who abide by the rules.”

Mr Willis said after the case: “When I copied that permit it was at a time when I had a terrible trouble with anti-social neighbours - it was very stressful for me and my family.

“So I photocopied another permit I’d paid for and gave it to a guest for the weekend.

“I held my hands up right from the beginning and tried to explain the situation but they wouldn’t take anything into consideration.”