Woman charged £1,333 by parking meter for half hour stay

Diane Slater, 49, owed just 50p but she was charged the equivalent of £44.43 a minute.

A mother of two got a shock when she returned from a 30-minute shopping trip to be told her car parking would cost her £1,333. The machine normally charges 50p an hour but it had calculated her stay at 308 days.



She said: ‘I was just buying a few bits and bobs. When I put my token in to pay I couldn’t believe it.’ Mrs Slater, from Norton Leys, Warwickshire, parked in the Clock Towers Shopping Centre multi-storey in Rugby on Saturday.

She said: ‘When I called security and told him how much it would cost,he said, “Yes, that’s correct”. ’ Car park bosses eventually admitted the computer had misread the ticket and apologised. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like that,’ said the centre’s manager, Tony Spencer.