Man fined £650 for abusing traffic warden

Gary Stunell, 41, of Allez Street, St Peter Port, admitted behaving in a disorderly manner.

Footage from the traffic warden’s body-worn camera was shown to the court.

It was 11.40am one day in December when the defendant drove his van into an unloading bay. When the traffic warden asked if he was unloading anything, the defendant was instantly abusive and confrontational.

He asked the warden why he was not putting parking tickets on other vehicles in the area and accused him of being a ‘jobsworth’. His rant continued after the traffic warden also told him that the insurance disc on his van was out of date.

The traffic warden terminated the conversation and spoke to a colleague.

When police spoke to the defendant the next day and told him he would have to produce his driving documents he became agitated again, though not to the same extent.

Representing himself, Stunell told the court he had been having a bad day and he accused the traffic warden of ‘picking on tradies’.

He said all unloading on the Bridge was done by 10.30am each day and he had only been stopping there to get his lunch. He admitted overreacting and apologised, but said he had done it because of the traffic warden’s petulance.

Judge Gary Perry said much of what the defendant was saying was just reinforcing what he had seen on the body-worn camera footage. He was not prepared to listen to a character assassination of the traffic warden.

Where was the defendant’s apology for parking illegally, he asked? He was one of those people who would not want anybody coming to his work and abusing him, yet he was quite happy to do it to the traffic warden who had only been doing his job.

‘You have just made the whole thing worse for yourself,’ he told him before imposing the fine.