There's nothing more likely to get you in trouble with the police these days than the wanton use of asterisks. No, seriously. For about half an hour yesterday I was on the verge of major criminal charges.

I wrote an e-mail on Saturday to the parking department at Brighton & Hove City Council about their response to my PCN (that's a parking ticket to you and me). I wanted to point out to them the problem of traffic wardens walking down the middle of Lisa's road and therefore failing to check the side windows closest to the kerb, and I decided that the best way of explaining the situation would be to send them the link to my original blog post about it. Which is what I did.

So imagine my delight when I received this reply yesterday from Terry Wilson at Brighton council:

"Dear Mr. Gardner,

First of all: I note in your website that you appear to have confronted the female attendant and used offensive language to her. This behaviour is not acceptable and a note of this has been made against your records. If you use intimidating or threatening behaviour towards a parking attendant again, you will be on the receiving end of a police investigation and may face charges, so I would advise you to pursue any issue such as this through the correct channels and not use aggression towards the attendant."

Ah yes, there's nothing like a light-hearted blog post to make you the subject of a major police investigation. You may want to pause at this point, click on the link above, and search for the evidence of offensive language, intimidation, and threatening behaviour. Let me know if you find it.

In the meantime, Terry continues...

"To address the points in your email:

I have attempted to obtain photographs of the vehicle taken by the Parking Attendant that day but they are unavailable because although 4 were taken, it appears that they were not downloaded properly and are lost. But obviously this evidence would have been very useful in determining exactly what happened. In the absence of these, I have checked The Parking Attendant's notes which state "All Windows Checked". They also include details of exactly where the vehicle was, the tyre valve positions, the distance to the nearest sign, the registration number etc. and she took four shots of the car, all of which indicate to me that they attendant spent some time inspecting the vehicle before issuing the Penalty Charge. You state that the permit was clearly displayed, and our appeals team have to weigh this against the parking attendant’s observations, and she states that she did not see a valid permit on display."

Oooh, the traffic warden took four photos of my car! Marvellous! They would PROVE beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm telling the truth... but miraculously they failed to download and have been lost. Which is convenient to say the least. And she was obviously too busy looking at my tyre valves to check the nearside window.

But going back to that first paragraph...

I replied to our Tel, with this:

"Dear Terry,

Please could you tell me where it states on my website that I used "offensive language" and "intimidating or threatening behaviour" towards the parking attendant. I did no such thing, I did not swear, threaten, or lose my temper in any way, and I would very much like to know how you have got this impression from my website.

I will add the full text of my website entry below, for your convenience, and look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Phil."

And to his credit, he got back to me ten minutes later with this:

"Hi.

I'm very sorry, I misunderstood the asterisks. I took them to be used in place of swear words which throws different light on things.

I will delete the note I put on the PCN records. As I'm sure you appreciate, aggression towards Parking Attendants is all too common and we take a firm line with it. But I accept that you were in no way aggressive to her, and I was wrong to suggest that you were.

My apologies to you,

Terry."

Which possibly makes him the first member of Brighton & Hove City Council ever to admit their own mistakes.