A FUROIUS mother says parking wardens are creeping around villages in the early hours trying to catch out car owners after her daughter was issued with a £70 fine at 6.29 in the morning.

Vanessa Roberts said her daughter Emma had just moved into a new home in Osmotherley, near Northallerton, and had eventually partly parked on broken and damaged yellow lines at North End because the space outside her nearby home was taken.

She was astonished when the next morning she left the house for work at 6.45am to find the parking ticket on her windscreen. "She just couldn’t believe it," said mum Vanessa Roberts. "Having just moved in a few days before she thought she was not blocking anyone in and would be leaving first thing so it would not be a problem, or cause issues for anyone else. She had been so excited to move into a new cottage and a new home.

"It’s absolutely horrendous and makes no sense. What on earth are they doing? they are just creeping around small villages trying to catch out motorists, it’s not about road safety or keeping roads clear it’s just about trying to make money. Emma was actually driving my car but whatever car it was it would have been obvious that it was a local resident at that time of the morning.

"It’s hard enough when you work all hours to come home, find your parking space gone and then get up early the next morning to start work again only to find a parking ticket on your car penalising you for not being able to park outside your own house through no fault of your own in the first place” added Mrs Roberts.

The ticket was issued by Scarborough Borough Council traffic officers acting on behalf of North Yorkshire County council. It said the car had been observed between 06.19am and 06.29am in a restricted street during prescribed hours on September 4. The family have appealed against the penalty notice.

"It just seems ridiculous that they would potentially come all the way from Scarborough at that hour of the day to cause problems for local people. At any other time you might have thought it was understandable Emma would not have dreamed of parking there during the day, but this is madness," said Mrs Roberts.

North Yorkshire County council did not respond before the paper went to press to requests for a comment.