A mother has been fined after using her disabled daughter’s blue badge to avoid paying for parking.

Media Ahamed was alone when she parked the vehicle on double yellow lines in Dewsbury.

She claimed that she needed to fetch medication for her daughter but Kirklees magistrates told her that her actions deprived a more needy person of a parking spot.

The 35-year-old pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully using a disabled person’s badge.

Kirklees Council prosecutor David Stickley said that the offence occurred at Crackenedge Lane on November 16 last year.

He explained that a council enforcement officer was carrying put routine checks of badges and came across Ahamed’s Volkswagen Touran parked on some double yellow lines.

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Mr Stickley said: “What normally happens when it’s a child’s badge is that it is checked with the school.

“However the defendant returned to the vehicle, the officer asked to inspect the badge and asked where her child was.

“She said that she was in school so clearly the badge was used when it oughtn’t have been.

“The defendant said that she was performing an errand for the benefit of her child but instead she could have parked in a normal car parking space.”

Mr Stickley told magistrates that fraudulent use of blue badges are costing a loss of £46m per year in lost parking revenues.

He added: “The financial impact to local authority revenues is that when people are parking and not paying it does affect the ability of the council to provide these services.

“Blue badge fraud may appear to be a victimless crime but for every person who doesn’t need the badge they are taking up a space that ought to be available for people with a genuine need.”

Ahamed, who spoke via a Kurdish interpreter, told magistrates: “I’m a mum and I have a responsibility for my children.

“At the time she was at school and I had no option but to go to the pharmacy and collect her medication.”

Ahamed, of Navigation Gardens in Thornhill Lees, said she was only parked there for five minutes but would not repeat the offence again.

But magistrates told her that her actions prevented a somebody less able that herself from parking in the spot.

They said that she should have parked in a normal space and walked to the pharmacy.

Ahamed was fined £40 and ordered to pay £100 prosecution costs and £30 victim surcharge.