Parking tickets for RNLI heroes

TWO lifeboatmen returned to shore after a battling stormy seas on a lifesaving mission to find their cars had been slapped with parking tickets.

The volunteer crew members at Fowey were called out to find a father and son who failed to returned home after a fishing trip.

The pair were eventually discovered, huddled and hypothermic, on an inaccessible beach at Gorran Haven, where they had used tips from survival expert Ray Mears to make it through the night.

Decorator John Burns, 38, who was with his 20-year-old son Bradley, said afterwards: "We are lucky to be alive."

The men were just a few minutes in to their mackerel fishing trip off the Cornish coast when their 6ft inflatable had engine trouble and eventually overturned.

The pair, who set out from Gorran Haven on Monday evening, were wet through when they made it ashore to a nearby beach surrounded by cliffs.

"We tried to climb the cliffs, but it was too dangerous," said Mr Burns, from St Austell.

"We had been watching a lot of Ray Mears, so we collected all firewood we could and built a fire. We needed to get warm as quickly as possible," he said.

After the fire went out at around 2am, he and his son huddled together for warmth, and as storms and rain lashed the coast they crouched under the upturned dinghy for shelter."

Mr Burns's wife Karen expected the pair home by midnight, and she called Brixham Coastguard at 6am when they had not turned up.

The were located just over two hours later by Mevagissey Coastguard Rescue Team, who spotted the pair on the beach, and they were taken off by Fowey Inshore Lifeboat and transferred to the waiting ambulance where they were treated for hypothermia.

But when Fowey crew members returned to base after 9am, two volunteers found they had been handed parking tickets, despite leaving official signs on their car explaining they were on a shout.

That cut no ice with a Restormel Borough Council parking warden – who even ignored pleas from local residents. "He was just a jobsworth," one local resident told the WMN.

"People were coming out of their homes and saying that the cars belonged to crew from the RNLI.

"They were saying that the crewmen were out on a shout and could be saving someone's life."

The narrow streets of Fowey are notoriously difficult to navigate in high season when just one badly parked car can bring the entire town to a standstill.

The RNLI crew members had been called out just after 7am and it is understood that their route to the boathouse and their usual car parking spots was blocked by a bin lorry. In order to answer the shout quickly, the two volunteers parked at Caffa Mill car park – leaving their RNLI badges clearly displayed.

Sam Ellis, Fowey's RNLI volunteer lifeboat press officer, confirmed that two crewmen had received parking tickets. She said an appeal had been made: "We have appealed and we are now waiting for further information."

Parking in Restormel is controlled by the borough council on behalf of Cornwall County Council.

A spokeswoman for the latter confirmed that tickets had been given to two cars in Fowey which were displaying Lifeboat crew placards.

However, she said the RNLI and county council had agreed a procedure for dealing with such cases.

This means that cars would be issued with an enforcement notice, but then senior lifeboat officers submit a special form to the council which then cancels the ticket.