Council worker loses job after being caught using disability parking permit

By Julia Gregory, local democracy reporter

A council worker lost his  job when he was caught out using a parking permit for people with disabilities.

His use of the Blue Badge was exposed after he used the permit when he parked on roads near Kensington and Chelsea council’s town hall close to the High Street in March 2020.

At first the council employee said the badge belonged to his sister in law who was visiting the town hall, but later said she was at home.

The driver was dismissed from the council for gross misconduct after a disciplinary hearing which was upheld at appeal.

He was also fined £600 plus £400 costs by magistrates in March 2021 who found him guilty in his absence.

The case is just one highlighted in the council’s annual fraud report.

Over the last financial year the council’s fraud investigators looked into 338 cases of fraud totalling £530,000.

The majority of cases were tenancy or housing.

There were 23 high to medium risk frauds including Blue Badge and non domestic rates worth £81,900, a drop from the 71 cases worth £159,000 prepandemic  in 2019/20.

Investigators also discovered that a tenant made £15,000 subletting a council flat in Kensal New Town. They made £1,100 a month after advertising the one-bedroom flat with “generous living space” and an “open plan living room”.

However the tenant said they had been advertising for a flatmate and disputed the case when it came to court.

City of London magistrates sentenced him to a 12-month community sentence order with 40 hours unpaid work.

Another motorist used an expired Blue Badge to park their Mercedes for free in a disabled parking bay whilst at work in Knightsbridge.

The car was about to be removed to the car pound when the driver turned up.

Magistrates later handed down a £600 fine with £400 costs.

Fraud investigators also looked into cases for housing associations.

They found one tenant subletting their Ladbroke Grove home whilst living in Switzerland and had not been on the electoral roll locally since 2011. The tenant moved to Switzerland in 2019 and investigators discovered a credit card registered to an alias, which had not been used in the UK.

The tenant was also being paid in Swiss francs and abandoned the two-bedroom flat in June 2019. The housing association got the vacant home back a year later.