The wardens on £3k bonuses urged to issue scores of parking tickets daily, target vulnerable people and take photographs at angles to make offences seem worse Daily Mail

While working at the car park at Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust (pictured), Tony Taylor was told by his bosses to get wardens to focus on the hospitals’ cancer wards

  Cowboy parking wardens earn up to £3,000 a month in bonuses, it is claimed

  Leaked emails show bosses at firms push staff to issue scores of tickets daily

  Wardens allegedly using a vile array of 'dirty tricks' to boost their pay

  Some have been ordered to target patients outside cancer wards knowing they are likely to be distracted and late returning to car  

The penalties – which are often issued unfairly and without legal authority – are followed up with intimidating letters from bailiffs and unregistered legal firms threatening court action.

Last night, a whistleblower claimed the firms:

■Give staff huge financial incentives to issue as many tickets as possible. They penalise those who do not give out enough,

■ Target the ill and vulnerable, with ‘no concern if they are disabled – or even dying’,

■Hide in their cars so drivers do not realise they are on patrol,

■Issue ‘ghost tickets’, where parking notices are photographed on car windscreens before being removed so drivers do not know they have been given a ticket and later have to pay an inflated fee,

■Take photographs at angles to make offences seem worse than they are and make sure blue badges issued to disabled drivers are out of shot.

The whistleblower’s claims are supported by research from the Citizens Advice Bureau, which has been inundated with complaints over rip-off penalties.

While working at the car park at Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust, Mr Taylor was told by his bosses to get wardens to focus on the hospitals’ cancer wards. Mr Taylor has correspondence which lifts the lid on the threats made by management to staff.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Cancer charities: Stop these bullies! Bosses join Mail's fight to rid Britain of the scourge of car parking pirates

OUTRAGE: Labour propose 15 per cent death tax, Daily Express

Ed Miliband, Labour Leader.

Ed Miliband’s team were accused of plotting a compulsory levy that could snatch £46,000 from the average estate.

Critics warned that families still grieving for lost relatives could face a “secret tax bombshell” under the proposals.

The row was last night threatening to derail the Labour leader’s campaign to highlight party ­election promises.

And it was also being seen as a slap in the face to the hundreds of thousands of Daily Express ­readers who backed this newspaper’s ­crusade for the abolition of ­inheritance tax.

Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “People who save all their lives deserve better than a secret tax bombshell if Labour were ever to get in.”

The death tax proposals were exposed when comments made by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham – at a conference ­organised by the Left-wing Fabian Society last month – were revealed yesterday.

Labour chiefs previously abandoned plans for a levy to cover the costs of social care before the last general election in 2010 – but Mr Burnham confirmed the measure was being revived in “internal party discussions”.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Labour death tax proposal is the last thing we need, Daily Express

It's good to tax the dead, they don't vote, jokes Ed Miliband's guru friend Lord Glasman

TAXPAYERS would be the equivalent of £5,500 worse off if union-backed Ed Miliband became Prime Minister, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling has warned.

Fury as Muslim mayor flies Palestinian flag over UK town hall in 'gesture of solidarity', Daily Express

THE controversial directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets today ordered the Palestinian flag to be flown from the town hall as a "gesture of humanitarian solidarity" with the victims of the fighting in Gaza.

The flag was flown above Mulberry Place in London's Docklands following an edict from Lutfur Rahman, who is Britain's only directly elected mayor.

In a statement he said: "We are flying the Palestinian flag over the town hall as a humanitarian gesture of our solidarity with the people of Gaza.

"In addition to the current military onslaught, the blockade of Gaza is causing a humanitarian catastrophe. Over 1,000 people have been killed, most of them women and children. An urgent aid corridor needs to be opened to allow those injured to receive treatment and medical care.

"We mourn the loss of life in this tragic conflict. We call on our Prime Minister to help create a lasting peace that breaks the cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians and prevents any further loss of innocent lives.”

Read more here:

Update

Palestinian flag flown over Tower Hamlets town hall REMOVED after Jewish safety concerns

Further Reading:

Tower Hamlets Election Fraud Investigation 2

Tower Hamlets Election Fraud Investigation 1

Gibraltar rejects Spanish border plans, Daily Telegraph

Spain’s government announced on Tuesday it planned to introduce a “fast lane” for workers resident in Spain with jobs in Gibraltar in a bid to reduce traffic queues at the border to the tiny British Overseas Territory.

The measure, which follows the EU recommending both sides work to ease traffic flow at the frontier, is designed to limit disruption for commuters who travel to Gibraltar each day for employment.

Spain’s Tax Administration Agency said it would spend 5.3 million euros to establish the “fast lane” using bar code readers and turnstiles to check passes issued by those who could prove they are resident in Spain but have regular work in Gibraltar.

An estimated 6,000 workers cross the border into Gibraltar each day.

Gibraltar’s government immediately criticised the plans as not going far enough, claiming freedom of movement should be a privilege enjoyed by all.

Read more here:

Further Reading

Spanish Union calls for Occupation of Gibraltar

British government should get tough on Spanish attacks on Gibraltar, say MPs

EU dismisses Spanish claims Gibraltar Reef

Spanish Journalists arrested for raising Spanish Flag in Gibraltar

Gibraltar and Spain Q&A

The Teaching of Disillusionment 07302014 Jesus did not commit Himself to them . . . , for He knew what was in man —John 2:24-25, Oswald Chambers, Daily Devotional

Oswald Chambers.

Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism.

Read more here:

First Muslim mayor to face fraud trial: Tower Hamlets borough boss accused of promising houses for votes Daily Mail

Lutfur Rahman

  Lutfur Rahman allegedly used illegal tactics to win May mayoral election

  Islamic voters were 'told they should be good Muslims and support him'

  Supporters accused of branding his main rival racist and anti-Islamic

  Four voters have submitted damaging dossier of evidence to High Court

Britain’s first elected Muslim mayor is to face trial over claims he committed widespread voting fraud.

Lutfur Rahman, 48, is accused of using illegal tactics to win the mayoral election in Tower Hamlets, East London, in May.

People were allegedly promised council houses if they backed him and Islamic voters were told they should be ‘good Muslims’ and support him.

His supporters are accused of doctoring ballot papers, manipulating postal voting and sabotaging the chances of his main rival, Labour candidate John Briggs, by branding him racist and anti-Islamic.

Four voters have submitted a damaging dossier of evidence to the High Court in an attempt to overturn Mr Rahman’s election victory.

Yesterday Mr Justice Supperstone and Mr Justice Spence granted them the right to have their allegations heard at a full trial, which is expected to be heard in Tower Hamlets later this year.

Mr Rahman was a member of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party and was its candidate to be the first directly elected mayor of the borough in 2010.

But he was expelled from the Labour party after allegations surfaced about his close links with an Islamic extremist group called the Islamic Forum of Europe.

Mr Rahman then won the 2010 mayoral contest as an independent candidate.

Read more here:

Homes for votes deal in council election fix': Petition claims polling for mayor in London's Tower Hamlets was fraudulent

Hospitals send parking bully boys to hound sick and grieving: NHS spends your cash on 'dodgy' debt collectors Daily Mail

  NHS Trusts are employing bogus lawyers to threaten vulnerable patients

  Patients taken to courts over £60 tickets issued while receiving treatment

  Trusts are using bailiffs to go after those who do not pay exorbitant 'fines'

  Parents issued a £50 ticket while at hospital to say goodbyes to dying son 

  Hospital refused to apologise and instructed solicitors to chase payment

Hospitals are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to force patients to court over car parking tickets.

NHS Trusts are employing ‘unfit’ debt collectors and bogus lawyers to threaten vulnerable patients and their families and make them pay up.

In some cases, patients have been dragged through the courts over £60 tickets issued while they received treatment.

Documents seen by the Mail show Trusts across the country are using bailiffs and legal firms to go after those who do not agree to pay exorbitant car parking ‘fines’.

Elderly parents Robert and Josephine Taylor were issued a £50 ticket while at hospital to say final goodbyes to their son Stephen, who was dying of pneumonia. 

They had accidentally parked in the wrong bay but the hospital refused to apologise and instructed solicitors to chase the payment, threatening court action.

Read more here:

See the previous part of this series

DVLA rakes in millions colluding with cowboys: Nearly 100 firms trying to buy drivers' details, official figures show

NEIL HERRON: We saw off the rogue clampers. Now let's purge the parking ticket pirates

Why do Hospitals feel the need to charge ridiculous car parking charges ?, it’s a tax on the ill and their visitors, and must be stopped