THE CCTV car designed to catch motorists parking illegally in Basildon has itself been caught out.

A friend of Echo reader Kelly O’Keeffe, of Great Gregorie, Basildon, snapped the notorious Smart car – nicknamed the Beast of Basildon – sitting in a layby in Upper Mayne, marked as being for police vehicles only.

Basildon Council, which operates the car, says it had broken down. However, Mrs O’Keeffe said its hazard lights were off and a couple of minutes after she took her picture it was seen driving off along Upper Mayne.

Mrs O’Keeffe, 37, has never been ticketed by the car, but was nevertheless annoyed to have caught it parked where it should not have been.

She said: “I was coming past from B&Q and saw it parked in a layby which says ‘police vehicles only’. I thought ‘that can’t be right’ so I decided to go round again and my friend took a picture as we were passing. When I saw it, I thought ‘what a cheek’.

“We’d get a ticket from the council or the police if we parked there.”

The car was bought to target drivers parking illegally outside schools, in bus lanes, on grass verges and any other roads with parking restrictions.

It uses a camera, mounted on a telescopic mast on its roof, to photograph offenders, who are then sent fixed penalty fine notices, Brian Boyce, manager of enforcement and technology for Basildon Council, said: “The officer driving the CCTV Smart car was forced to pull into a layby because he experienced some problems with the car’s gearbox.

“As the driver was on a clearway at the time, the layby was the safest place to stop momentarily to resolve the problem.

“The driver was there for less than a minute, enough time to turn off the ignition and move the gearbox to neutral.

“The CCTV smart car was already booked in to be seen by mechanics about this intermittent problem.”

Mrs O’Keeffe commented: “There weren’t any hazard lights on. If you had a problem you would put the lights on.”