by Keyan Milanian

A coastguard boss is fuming after receiving a parking ticket while searching for a missing person, even though photographs appear to show his vehicle’s emergency lights on.

Colin Ingram, sector manager for north Kent, received his ticket in the post on Saturday, May 29, after being captured on cameras in Staples car park in Chatham almost three weeks earlier.

It is the second time in a year the coastguards have been ticketed at the same car park – despite being on jobs on both occasions.

The ticket has since been cancelled but Mr Ingram, who has worked for the coastguard for 14 years and been sector manager for four, is unhappy.

He said: “I could not believe they had issued a ticket to an emergency vehicle doing its job.”

The coastguard manager was with a number of colleagues when he was photographed by cameras operated by G24 Parking Solutions, which manages the car park, off Medway Street.

They were conducting a river search on May 10, after clothes were discovered on Sun Pier.

Medway Coastguard and the Sheerness lifeboat, along with police officers and a helicopter, searched for a person thought to be in the water, but the search was later called off until low tide. A second search also proved fruitless.

Police cars were parked in the same car park, but it is unclear whether they were issued tickets. Simon Jones, Staples’ sales manger, said the £95 ticket had been cancelled.

Mr Ingram added: “It does feel as though we are not taken seriously. The manager at Staples has been excellent and has quashed the ticket, but we are an emergency vehicle and we are on a job and still received this ticket.”

KentOnline has tried to speak to someone at G24 Parking Solutions, but has so far been unable to do so.