Man guilty of racially assaulting parking warden

Thursday August 4, 2011

A man who physically assaulted and racially abused a council parking enforcement officer will have to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work.

Vytautas Valinevicius parked his vehicle illegally on Australia Road, White City Estate on Friday, February 11 and returned to find that a parking warden was putting a ticket on the window.

Valinevicius of demanded that the warden cancelled the ticket and was told to appeal to the council via the usual channels. It was then that he lost his temper and lashed out at the warden, pushing him and attempting to grab his camera. Valinevicius also hurled racist abuse towards the warden.

The warden called the police and Valinevicius was apprehended after running away from the scene.

In his statement to his council bosses, the warden said: “The assault was completely uncalled for as I was merely doing my job.”

At West London Magistrates Court, on Friday, June 24, Valinevicius pleaded guilty to racially aggravated assault by beating and assault by beating.

Cllr Nick Botterill, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment, said: “This kind of racist incident is absolutely abhorrent and will not be tolerated in Hammersmith & Fulham. Parking wardens, like everyone else, have a right to go about their job without fearing for their safety and I hope that Valinevicius takes a long look at himself when he is scrubbing graffiti off a wall or cleaning rubbish off the pavements.”

In addition to the unpaid work he was told to pay £50 compensation to the warden and £85 in costs.