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

11:00am Saturday 13th March 2010 in


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.

He was fined £1,500 by Weymouth magistrates.

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.

“They got a parking ticket and, as a result, the council prosecuted me.”

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

Comments(23)

Artful Badger says...
12:05pm Sat 13 Mar 10

£1500 fine ? Seems just a bit harsh for one of our local businessmen. He'd never get a fine like that if he was a local unemployed druggie and went shoplifting for the umpteenth time.

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Techie says...
12:36pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Well seeing as shoplifting isn't quite the same as defrauding the taxpayer that kind of makes sense.

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Mabu says...
1:28pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Harsh

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KurtayPan says...
2:17pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Why don't people take responsibility for their actions? I live in the same road as Mr Willis. On one side there is a young family, on the other they seem a quiet couple, hardly a recipe for anti-socialism. We have never heard anything to complain about. Trying to create sympathy when swindling local law abiding tax payers is out of order, if you get caught take some responsibility. A justified fine.

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Techie says...
2:24pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Mabu wrote:
Harsh
Why? If it was seen as being an acceptable risk then potentially lots of permit holders could do it. The number of parking spaces available to non-permit holders then goes down, and parking charges would then have to rise further to cover the mysteriously lost revenue OR we pay more Council Tax to subsidise all that free parking.

I'm not suggesting all permit holders would behave in that way, but this sends a signal that defrauding the Council (and us, by proxy) isn't acceptable.

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Get a grip says...
3:41pm Sat 13 Mar 10

I would not allow him to have any permits for say 1 year plus the fine.

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thewitonguesthouse says...
4:27pm Sat 13 Mar 10

My name is Claire Willis. I am Craig's wife. Having read the article I feel I must set the record straight as all of Craig's comments have not been published. Fact; The Guest House is 4 stories high and we therefore have 6 sets of neighbours and had endless problems from a set we had last year. One of our guests drove off with a permit. We had a guest arriving the same day who had reserved a permit. Craig copied a permit to replace the taken one until it was posted back. We did not try to gain an extra permit. The same serial no. as the copied one was used. Should we have tried to gain a permit we would have had the sense to change the serial no.! No financial gain was made. No extra space other than those entitled to us was taken. Craig is an amazing man who has spent lots of time raising thousands of pounds for charity. Everyone who knows him loves him to bits. Most of all his wife and children.

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CoogarUK.com says...
6:13pm Sat 13 Mar 10

It was fraud. Of course the fine is justified.

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Equilibrium says...
6:59pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Claire,
I'm sure your partner is a genuinely nice bloke but he must have known he was taking a risk when he photocopied the permit. He must have known it was wrong to do so. If he lost a genuine permit then that is unfortunate, but it does not mean he can just fraudulently manufacture a new one. If you lost a concert ticket would you just copy a friends and hope no one notices?
Fraud is fraud at the end of the day. It's human nature to take a chance every now and then, but if you get caught you have to take it on the chin and move on.
P.S I fail to see how ongoing A.S.B has anything to do with blatently mocking up a parking permit? A poor excuse...

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I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY DON'T LIKE THE NEW ECHO WEBSITE says...
8:00pm Sat 13 Mar 10

"Well seeing as shoplifting isn't quite the same as defrauding the taxpayer that kind of makes sense"
.
This isn't strictly true- every time an item is stolen from a shop, this is added to the stores losses. If the losses are too great, costs (i.e prices) will be increased to cover the losses through theft.
.
Ergo, shoplifting does affect Joe Public, as it increases prices.
.
This punishment is unfair- benefit fraud, shoplifting, even assault have all been reported in the Echo recently and the punishments were not as harsh as the size of this fine- as long as the accused is on drugs, they pretty much get away with it.

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I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY DON'T LIKE THE NEW ECHO WEBSITE says...
8:03pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Although, Craig Willis was in the Echo recently complaining about people driving the wrong way down a one way street- the Council said that the required improvements would cost £1600- so with his fine of £1500, they are only £100 short!
.
Looks like he has solved the problem on his own!

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Mabu says...
8:50pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Techie wrote:
Mabu wrote: Harsh
Why? If it was seen as being an acceptable risk then potentially lots of permit holders could do it. The number of parking spaces available to non-permit holders then goes down, and parking charges would then have to rise further to cover the mysteriously lost revenue OR we pay more Council Tax to subsidise all that free parking. I'm not suggesting all permit holders would behave in that way, but this sends a signal that defrauding the Council (and us, by proxy) isn't acceptable.
A parking fine and a letter warning that it would be treated as fraud should it happen again would have sufficed. I think it's a bit ott, talking about this chap as a fraudster. He's not living on a super-yacht after running off with peoples' pensions! He's running a guesthouse and he cut a corner. That's all.

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CoogarUK.com says...
9:33pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Mabu, he is a convicted fraudster.

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Micke12 says...
10:55pm Sat 13 Mar 10

crime is crime, theft, deception, fraud or whatever. you commit the offence at the risk of being caught. the magistrates' will have listened to the mitigation put forward by Craigs defence and will have taken that into account. If he has been suffering ASB, then he should have tried to seek an ASBO against these people, but to blame ASB for his fraudulent activity is out of order. I understand that stree makes us do things we may not normally do, but that does not excuse you in the eyes of the law. I also agree though that druggies and petty thieves get away too lightly, but that is the fault of Government policy, not the courts or the council. Craig, you were unlucky this time round and hopefully you can put this behind you and carry on with all the good things you have done in this town. I do also agree that the fine was excessive as it was not an attempt to create something that was not originally real, just an attempt to cover matters until the replacement permit could be supplied by the council. Perhaps the fine should be reviewed by the higher courts and reduced by 50%. It should also be noted that this man, of previous good character now has a criminal conviction and therefore a criminal record. This will without a doubt, affect him and his family for the next 5 years under the Rehabiltation of Offenders Act 1974, so this poor chap is going to have to declare if asked. All in all, justice has been done, but in my view to the excess and that brings justice into dis-repute.

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pd7 says...
11:33pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Prision office assaults lady helper in Weymouth 500 quid fine.

Copy a parking permit 1500 quid .

Nuts

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M&GB says...
12:09am Sun 14 Mar 10

With reference to justice, the word "rough" comes easily to mind in this instance. Here, an honest and hard-working individual, who is bringing business to the town, misguidedly forges a parking permit. This is not to fraudulently gain an additional one, but is a temporary substitute for one that has gone missing. Under great duress - losing sleep and business - caused by anti-social neighbours crashing, banging, yelling, and playing loud music that all invade through the partition wall, the error of judgement is hardly surprising. We know only too well because we likewise have suffered from chronic anti-social behaviour of some tenants next door to us. We also know just how reluctant the Council have been to use their available powers to deal robustly with these disturbances and the individuals who cause them. As with Mr Willis, the Council have attempted to make us feel as if we were the problem for complaining, rather than the perpetrators of constant noise and intimidation. And yet this Council has been quick and merciless to have Mr Willis clobbered as hard as possible for attempting to find a short-term solution to cover for a parking allocation to which he was entitled. However, following our own experiences of this Council`s Environmental Health staff, we are hugely dismayed by what has happened to Mr and Mrs Willis - but hardly surprised.

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worldwide says...
9:07am Sun 14 Mar 10

£1500 How Stupid are our courts,
Shame Craig was not an MP would have got ,,here,s another parking ticket sir please dont do it again,,
Drive a car no tax no insurance and drunk £450 fine lose the licence for a year..... is that not 10 times as bad as Craigs minor parking permit, the judge must of had his leg over that morning.......

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ddchelsea says...
9:37am Sun 14 Mar 10

pd7 wrote:
Prision office assaults lady helper in Weymouth 500 quid fine. Copy a parking permit 1500 quid . Nuts
I'm with you on this, seems a joke!

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Mabu says...
1:10pm Sun 14 Mar 10

CoogarUK.com wrote:
Mabu, he is a convicted fraudster.
Is your TV black and white?

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BastardInBlack says...
5:27pm Sun 14 Mar 10

Maximum fine could have been £5000 so he got off quite lightly

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CoogarUK.com says...
1:12am Mon 15 Mar 10

Mabu wrote:
CoogarUK.com wrote: Mabu, he is a convicted fraudster.
Is your TV black and white?
He was convicted of fraud. That makes him a convicted fraudster. Do you receive a hefty discount off the cost of your TV licence, or are you only blind to the facts?

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dorwey says...
9:16am Mon 15 Mar 10

One thing people are not taking into account, is the fact that on THIS occassion he got caught, we don't know how many times he has done it in the past and got away with it, he could be a serial fraudster for all we know, he is a criminal and has been dealt with as such.

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james the thirst says...
6:43pm Mon 15 Mar 10

As a person who has issues with extortionate parking charges anyway I have a lot of sympathy with this man, motorists already contribute very substantially to the exchequer and to have the local authorities jumping on this bandwagon and squeezing the pips out is nothing short of theft albeit under a smokescreen of bureaucratic respectability; get the revenue by other means, free or low-cost parking would encourage more people into town to spend money. When you first arrive in a town the first thing you must do is pump substantial sums of cash into a machine in order to park; this sends out a very clear message ... hostile town and the majority of the comments above would seem to corroborate that; I'm only suprised that no ones called for the tar and feathers form this unfortunate man. Anyone who sticks two fingers up at the parking fascisti gets my vote

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