Two car parking companies were today investigating claims that some parking attendants have resorted to bribes to cancel tickets as well as indulging in theft and illegal ticketing.
The allegations were made in a BBC1 Whistleblower programme being screened tonight.
A BBC reporter went undercover as a parking attendant after reports of corruption and criminality inside the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
The reporter worked for car parking company APCOA and he also came into contact with an attendant working for another parking company NCP.
The undercover attendant found:
- The NCP attendant was accepting cash of half the price of a fine to cancel parking fines.
- One attendant tried to steal a motorbike spotted on his patch.
- Attendants tried to boost their ticket quota by issuing tickets to abandoned vehicles and by breaking the rules about what constitutes an illegally parked vehicle.
The undercover reporter Nkem Ifejika said: "In my experience parking attendants are being pushed to ticket any minor infringement because of the pressure to meet quotas."
APCOA's managing director Paul Bird said: "We are deeply concerned about the allegations. We are a very responsible company. We take our duties very seriously.
"We have many hundreds of parking attendants who are excellent, hardworking, honest individuals and it leads me to believe that the incidents captured on footage are very largely isolated incidents."
An NCP spokesman said: "We take this very seriously and we will crack down on it. This kind of fraud is isolated."
Credit:bbc.co.uk
