A pensioner was handed eight parking tickets in a matter of weeks despite displaying her disabled badge which allows her to park on yellow lines.

Joyce Rose, 70, of Grand Avenue, Hove, says she feels persecuted after receiving one ticket after another from parking attendants who have ignored her badge.

Once she received three tickets in a week.

Council officers revoked each £30 ticket immediately, telling Mrs Rose they should never have been issued.

But on Wednesday she received her eighth notice while parked outside Hove Library, this time with the threat that her car would be towed away.

Mrs Rose said: "When I saw that notice it nearly gave me a heart attack. I got a real fright when I saw that my car could be towed. How many more tickets am I going to get?"

She said: "I have had my disabled badge for about seven years now. I have two hip replacements and a spinal condition which means I can't walk very far, apart from having asthma.

"The badge is quite clearly displayed in my windscreen."

Mrs Rose added: "I have been driving for 50 years and I am perfectly aware of exactly where I can and cannot park. And I know where I can park with my badge.

"But I have been getting tickets one after another.

"The man in the office was so fed up seeing me that he just filled out the forms for me in the end because he said they should never have been issued.

"The ticket I got yesterday was the first one I have had that says my car could be towed. I don't park where I shouldn't. I do feel persecuted by this and I don't know why it's happening to me.

"Hove is getting a name for giving out tickets and I don't even go into Brighton because it's impossible to park.

Mrs Rose said: "My family usually come down in the car for the Brighton Festival but this year they are not because of the parking problems.

"I have the badge because I find it very difficult to walk anywhere. I can't climb on or off a bus."

Another Hove resident has complained to the council after receiving a parking ticket despite displaying her disabled badge and parking legally.

Evelyn Gladstone, 81, of Nizells Avenue, Hove, said: "My ticket has not been revoked but I have no intention of paying it. I will quite happily go to court over it as I was parked legally. It's so stupid."

She said a penalty notice had been issued, then withdrawn for an identical offence a couple of years ago. "I was quite upset when I got the ticket and plenty of older people would be quite frightened and just pay it. I think it's disgusting that this happens."

"We have the distinction of having the highest number of parking fines, which is not a great thing to be important for."

Brighton and Hove has recently come top in league tables for being one of the cities to issue the greatest number of parking fines in the country.

A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: "We proactively support the blue badge scheme.

She said individual parking attendants are not fined for issuing tickets incorrectly but NCP, the company which employs them, is charged for the cost of a wrongly issued parking ticket.

Badges allow people to park in disabled parking spaces and on yellow lines for up to three hours if there is no loading ban.