A 50-year-old man was caught using disabled parking badge stolen from a pensioner’s car.

Akhtar Rashid Aziz, from Tooting, was caught using a blue badge stolen from a disabled 80-year-old living nearby.

Thieves smashed the victim's car window, which was parked outside his home, and snatched the permit.

A few months later council staff spotted Aziz using the badge to park his wife’s car for free in Tooting Bec.

When questioned under caution he refused to offer any explanation about how the badge came to be in his possession.

Aziz, of Parklands Road, Furzedown, was sentenced to 150 hours of unpaid community service by magistrates and ordered to pay the council’s prosecution costs of £492 plus a victim surcharge of £60.

This was in addition to the £255 he had to pay to get his wife’s vehicle back from the car pound after it was towed away.


The fraud team also took action against people who work at St George’s Hospital, in Tooting, who were caught cheating the system.

Hospital worker Samantha Taylor, 26, of Meadowsweet Close, Raynes Park, pleaded guilty to five offences of misusing her mother’s badge to park while on duty. She was ordered to pay fines and court costs of £520.

Pellegrino Avella, aged 52, of Peterborough Road, Carshalton, pleaded guilty to five offences of misusing his 75-year-old mother’s badge while working at the hospital. He was ordered to pay fines and costs of £520.

Repeat offender Pauline Cunningham, of Acacia Road, Mitcham, was convicted of five offences after she was caught using her mother’s permit to leave her vehicle all day in a disabled person’s parking space while she caught the tube to work. In September last year the 48-year-old was prosecuted for four similar offences. She was fined £1,750 and ordered to pay costs of £541. She also had to pay the £230 tow away fee to get her car back.

Hazel Sharp of Townfield Road, in Feltham, was caught four times using her blind daughter’s badge to park all day in Wandsworth. She was ordered to pay fines and costs of £470.

Zahir Chowdhury, of Gibson’s Hill, Norbury, pleaded guilty to five offences of misusing his disabled mother’s badge to park in Ruislip Street, close to his butcher shop business on Upper Tooting Road. He was ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £870.

Shopworker Khasru Miah, aged 42 of Lynton Avenue, Hendon, was ordered to pay £909 in fines and costs having been found guilty of five offences of misusing his mother’s badge to park his car while working in the Southside shopping centre.

Samantha Wainwright, 28, of Trinity Road, Tooting Bec, pleaded guilty to six offences under the Fraud Act for using two different stolen badges. She was ordered to pay fines and court costs totalling £1,126.

Aneta Wieczorek of Robin Hood Lane, Sutton, was ordered to pay fines and costs of £405 for using her father’s Polish-issued disabled parking badge to occupy a designated ‘disabled’ parking bay all day while working at the Southside shopping centre.

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The council’s transport spokesman Councillor Jonathan Cook said: "Sadly there are lots of people who try to fiddle the system in this way. The blue badge scheme exists to help disabled people get out and about, drive to work, visit friends or go shopping. It was not invented to give their relatives a passport to free parking."

Anyone with information about blue badge misuse can contact the council's team of investigators by emailing parking@wandsworth.gov.uk or calling 020 8 871 6547/7916.