Saturday, March 19, 2011

Parking tickets? Why Kate doesn't have to worry about them any more

By RICHARD SIMPSON and FAY SCHLESINGER

Hassle-free: Kate Middleton returns to her Audi A3 yesterday after escaping a parking ticket
Instead, she left it to a police protection officer watching from another car to send the wardens packing.


The family she is marrying into famously doesn’t carry money. So perhaps Kate Middleton was just getting a little practice.

Certainly, she’ll have needed an exceptional excuse to escape London’s traffic wardens.

For when Prince William’s fiancée made a trip to a London store this week, she didn’t pay the £4 it should have cost to park her Audi A3 in the pay-and-display bay.

According to onlookers, Kate pulled into a the pay and display bay, directly below a warning sign, and jumped out of her car to duck into the Peter Jones store in fashionable Chelsea.

Fifteen minutes later a traffic warden ambled on by and, noticing Miss Middleton's failure to pay, began taking down the details of her car.


Warned off: A police protection officer has a word with a traffic warden who let Kate off without a fine


But a police protection officer, who was following Kate, quickly hurried over to explain to the traffic warden who the VIP driver was.

An onlooker said: ‘I saw a warden arrive and he started to take down the car’s details. Then an officer arrived, flashed his badge and had a chat.

'Whatever he said persuaded the warden not to issue a ticket.’


This one hasn't paid and displayed? A traffic warden homes in on Kate Middleton's Audi


Witnesses report that two separate parking officers approached the car, but both times were shooed away by Kate's minders.

Miss Middleton later returned to her car with a female protection officer in tow, perhaps none the wiser to all the fuss.

The bride-to-be had had security detail since the announcement of her engagement in November.

source: dailymail