“I have a persistently bad back and I am medically retired from the police. I genuinely need to be able to park in disabled bays. The offence occurred when I parked at Newcastle Civic Centre where I was working in January 2005.
“There are three disabled bays and I parked there for many months. Then, out of the blue I got a ticket.
“The badge was on clear display and I got a colleague to check they could see it clearly too.
“The next day I complained that I thought there had been a mistake, but later that same day I got yet another ticket.
“It was only then that I found out that the ticket was because the badge was expired.”
Mr Athey will now appear in court in October unless the council decide not to pursue the case.
He added: “I wasn’t trying to be deceitful, I genuinely thought the badge was in date.
“If I had known it was out of date I would have got a new one straight away.”
The council’s head of parking, Neil Cuthbert, said: “The council will of course give careful consideration to the judge’s comments and will review the position as soon as possible ahead of the appeal date in October.”
