CRASH VICTIM WINS PARKING TICKET FIGHT

HEARTLESS traffic wardens dished out five parking tickets to a crash victim close to the scene of an accident in Islington.
But thanks to the intervention of the Tribune the tickets amounting to fines of £360 have all been quashed.
Office manager Lisa Copp, who was badly injured in the accident, this week thanked the paper for taking up her case and giving her the best New Year ever.
Ms Copp had been fighting Islington Council over the tickets since the crash when she came off her motor scooter in Brecknock Road, Holloway, in November.
She accused the council, who claim to have “commonsense” parking policies, of being “mean-spirited” and in desperation after getting nowhere, she contacted the Tribune just before Christmas.
Following our enquiries, the council announced on Wednesday that the case had been re-examined and it was decided to drop all the fines.
“I’m absolutely delighted,” said Ms Copp. “It’s such a relief. Thank you, Islington Tribune.”
Ms Copp, 32, came off her Vespa 125 after skidding on a damp patch.
She had been trying to avoid a car in front of her which had to stop suddenly when someone ran out into the road.
With blood pouring from a deep wound on her leg and shaking with shock, she was taken by ambulance to the Whittington Hospital, where she needed 12 stitches following the accident.
Before she was removed to hospital a kindly member of the public picked up her damaged scooter where it lay on a main road and pushed it into nearby Pleshey Road, where it was parked on a resident’s bay.
A policeman on the scene had reassured Ms Copp that he would speak to Islington’s parking serv­ices and, because it was an accident, she would not receive a parking ticket.

Ms Copp, who lives in East Finchley, was unable to walk for a week. When she finally managed to go and collect her scooter she found the parking tickets attached.
Later Islington’s parking department cancelled one ticket out of “goodwill” and another due to an “administrative error”. But they refused to cancel the three other tickets on the grounds that the scooter was illegally left in a resident’s bay and Ms Copp should have arranged for it to be removed.
Ms Copp, who planned to appeal against the fines in court, added: “I couldn’t believe they would fine someone in a road accident. The accident wasn’t my fault and I was badly injured. It all seemed grossly unfair and money-grabbing.”
She supplied the council with documentation showing that she was taken to hospital, and photos of her leg with stitches in. She even presented a police incident report of the accident.
But a letter from the parking department said officials were sorry that Ms Copp had been involved in a traffic accident, but they had carefully looked at each of the tickets and were satisfied that they were issued correctly.
“It is the driver’s responsibility to remove or arrange removal of the vehicle from a parking place where it is not permitted to be parked,” an official said.
A spokeswoman for Islington Council said: “We were very sorry to hear of Ms Copp’s injury. Clearly she was unable to move her motorcycle following the accident and we have cancelled all the tickets issued.
“Managing parking space in Islington is never easy but it doesn’t make sense to uphold tickets issued in a situation like this. I wish Ms Copp a very speedy recovery.”
PETER GRUNER