A friend of mine has been diagnosed as suffering from bowel cancer.

Unfortunately as he is too old for an operation and too frail for chemotherapy he has been given just a few months to live.

As his only relatives live in Manchester everyone here has been rallying to help.

On September 13 I drove to Park Street to see him and, as I am disabled myself and there were bays empty, I parked opposite George Thorn House on yellow lines and set the clock at 11am.

I discovered that my friend had taken a sleeping tablet as prescribed but was suffering from after effects of falling over, slurred speech and unaware locality.

So I took him to the doctors and left the surgery at 1.30pm. Knowing that my time was running out I changed my clock to 2pm.

Previous to this I had challenged a parking fine on illegal parking and was told by a member of the council that as long as my clock was correct I could stay as long as possible.

When I returned to the car I found I had been given a ticket.

Upon challenging them, even though the council admitted that I had been given duff information by them, they told me this is insufficient grounds to cancel the ticket.

Although I have paid the fine and am appealing against it I feel that disabled drivers in this borough have a rough deal as other boroughs do make concessions and Weymouth and Portland don’t.

Chris Osgood, Waverly Road, Weymouth