Spitting mad over parking

12:44pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

A motorist has been convicted for spitting at a parking attendant as she gave him a ticket.

Daniel Porter, 29, told magistrates his life had been ruined by parking fines and claimed he had received scores of penalty tickets after being targeted by parking attendants in Brighton and Hove.

Porter was yesterday convicted of common assault for spitting at the female attendant.

He was cleared of racially aggravated harassment after being accused of giving another attendant a Nazi salute and making an anti- Semitic remark.

After a two-day trial at Brighton Magistrates’ Court, sentencing was adjourned until December 23.

Magistrates told Porter, who denied both charges, they were considering ordering him to carry out unpaid work in the community and getting him help for his anger problems.

The court was told attendant Agata Sznura was left in tears after he spat at her in Adelaide Crescent, Hove, where he was living at the time, on February 28.

In March he received another ticket after a visitor’s parking permit he left on his dashboard was defaced with the swastika symbol and abusive words. He was given a ticket as the parking warden decided it was no longer valid.

On May 21 he was accused of giving the Nazi salute to parking attendant Gavin Marshall in Sackville Road, Hove.

Porter, who now lives in Portland Road, Hove, has a previous conviction for making racist comments at a football match in 2005.

He told the court he had received at least 50 penalty tickets after moving to Adelaide Crescent and not being able to get a resident’s parking permit because of a waiting list.

Porter, now unemployed, said: “Traffic wardens have made my life an absolute misery. I have mountains of parking tickets.”

He said one £30 penalty ticket had now grown to a £400 debt and debt collectors were calling at his home.

He denied being racist and said 48 visitors’ parking permits he bought had been defaced by a friend and he could not afford to replace them.

Porter said he knew someone who worked as an attendant and had been told he was being targeted. He said: “They have wrecked my life and I have had to move out of my flat and I have had to sell my car because I have been targeted.”

Porter said: “I have been made out to be some sort of lunatic. I have had half of my family wiped out by Nazis.”