Devizes parking ticket rage punished (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Devizes parking ticket rage punished

7:00am Saturday 21st July 2012 in News By Jill Crooks

Iain Quigley, pictured in 2010, when he complained about the number of parking tickets he was receiving

Devizes pub landlord Iain Quigley has been found guilty of verbally abusing a female traffic warden who issued him with a parking ticket.

Salisbury Magistrates’ Court heard that Quigley, 43, confronted the parking attendant, Louisa Emery, moments after she had put a parking ticket on the windscreen of his VW Golf parked in High Street, Devizes, across the road from his pub, the Four Seasons, and swore at her.

Miss Emery told the court: “Mr Quigley came across the road shouting quite loudly that I was ‘f...... targeting him’ and ‘that I should get a proper f...... job.”

Quigley went back inside the pub and his father, Thomas Quigley, came out and spoke to Miss Emery saying he had been parked there longer than Iain Quigley but Miss Emery said her handheld computer did not have a record of his car.
Iain Quigley came back out and shouted again at Miss Emery.

Miss Emery, who has been a parking attendant for four years, said: “He was still very irate and very angry. I was physically shaking, I was intimidated.”

She phoned her supervisor when she left and was unable to continue patrolling that day.

The court heard that before this incident on the morning of February 14, Quigley had received 25 parking tickets for contravening parking regulations in Devizes. The fines had amounted to £1,400. Two fines were still pending and one had gone to a bailiff and he had asked his mother to help him pay.

Two men working on fitting out the Wilkinson’s store near to the Four Seasons said they heard Quigley shouting abuse at Miss Emery. One of them, Gareth Martin, said Quigley used the term ‘stupid bitch’.

Quigley, who has been landlord at the pub for four years,  denied a charge of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to cause alarm or distress. He said he did not swear at the parking attendant, nor call her names and claimed he was being
targeted by the parking officers.

He told the court: “The traffic warden was finding the whole thing amusing. She had a big grin on her face which made me a bit more angry. She was just chuckling to herself.”

His father told the court he heard his son say ‘f...... bitch’ in relation to Miss Emery but did not think he was directing it at her.

Magistrates found Quigley guilty and said they felt greater harm was caused because Miss Emery is a public servant.

They fined Quigley £200, plus £15 towards a national victim surcharge fund and £500 costs.

The court heard that since this incident parking attendants have been advised to go in pairs when approaching Quigley’s car.