SNOPPER NICKED AT LAST

Our Crime Correspondent reports

Rother District Council, who operate out of Bexhill-on-sea in Sussex, have a car park at Camber Sands which is just up the road from Rye. It`s a nice area, very popular with visitors, especially dog owners, as a big chunk of the beach is where dogs are allowed to go and do their thing. A couple of weeks ago, the Snopper family, including grandsons and Barney the Retriever, paid a visit to Camber Sands. On arrival, there was a wooden kiosk with a nice young lady inside taking money and issuing car parking tickets.

Last week, Snopper thought it would be nice to take Mrs. Snopper and Barney back for a return visit. On arrival, the wooden kiosk was boarded up, no sign of nice young lady, so Snopper concluded that, as the summer season had drawn to a close, the car park operation had closed down and parking was therefore free. On returning to the car after their seaside ramble, Snopper was surprised to see a penalty notice from Rother District Council, demanding payment of £80 as he didn`t have a parking ticket. This after over 50 years driving and never once exceeding the speed limit brought on an immediate feeling of shame, as much for being found out as for committing the `offence.`

With a painful shrug of his elderly shoulders, Snopper duly wrote a cheque along with a covering letter to apologise for his oversight but also confirming that he is an old age pensioner struggling to survive on a fixed income during the deepest financial crisis for decades and that perhaps Rother District Council would look to providing a clear notice on the boarded up kiosk so that visitors - especially the terminally dim - might purchase a ticket from the pre-payment machine, wherever it might be situated. And he thinks that pensioners shouldn`t have to pay anyway, a campaign being launched, as our picture shows, by a band of Snopper`s golf groupies gathering outside the offices of Rother District Council. The outcome is awaited, but there is real worry that his hitherto unblemished (well, nearly) reputation might finally come to an unfortunate end. Et tu, Snopper?