Fined and threatened with points for speeding... there's just one catch

David Copeland, a 35-year-old electrician from Ketley in Shropshire, received a £100 speeding fine and was told he faced three points on his licence. There was only one small hitch... he was actually parked up at the time.

Fortunately Copeland remembered exactly where he had been at the time - so he knew that the camera had flashed while the car was parked and empty - and he was in a Chinese takeaway nearby.

According to The Shropshire Star, he contacted the council, and they looked into the case - at which point they discovered that the camera had been triggered by a motorbike driving past. Staff apologised, and withdrew the notice.

He told the Daily Mail: "The other day I was back there when an ambulance on blue lights set it off again - so I'm expecting another fine through the post in a few days. I'll be banned from driving at this rate if these mistakes keep happening."
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Council blunders

It's not the first time a council has made a daft mistake when checking photos of motoring offences and issuing penalty notices.

Back in February last year we reported on the motorist in Bradford, who got a parking ticket after a mobile traffic camera photographed him stopped at a bus stop. The camera operator didn't notice that he hadn't actually parked: he'd stopped at a red light.

A month later a man in Bristol received a parking ticket after stopping for 90 seconds to check the parking restrictions. The photo that came along with the penalty notice clearly showed him standing next to the car checking the sign.

However, these people can be thankful that at least their tickets were the result of an honest mistake. The same couldn't be said for the victims of parking wardens in a car park in Lincoln in September this year. The rules let people park for free for two hours, but some people received fines for overstaying, when they knew they hadn't. The wardens time-stamped photos to prove their claims, and an investigation revealed that the photos had been digitally altered to change the times.