Bus lane fine sent to woman by mistake almost broke up her marriage as husband thought she was having an affair

Louise Rowe was sent the ticket by Manchester Council but with the wrong registration on it, which showed it was in fact another driver who had committed the offence.

But it led husband Michael to believe she was seeing a secret lover after Louise said she was going out to a work party that night in their home town of Stoke-on-Trent,

"This ticket has just ruined everything,” the 34-year-old who has a seven-year-old son with Michael told the Manchester Evening News.

“I was at work when the ticket came through the post. My husband rang me and said 'Where were you on Tuesday when you were supposed to be at the works party?

"He said 'you went into Manchester city centre, you were in a bus lane'. It just caused a massive argument.


“He moved out. He went back to his mum's. It was a really horrific time. I was upset. I had to put so much effort into proving it wasn't me."

When Michael eventually  saw the council had got the wrong number plate the couple got back together

Manchester City Council  has now apologised for the mistake.

"We will be cancelling the ticket and apologise to Mrs Rowe for this mistake,” said a spokesman.

"Registration plate recognition errors are fortunately rare, but in cases where this has happened, we urge the affected motorist to appeal and the ticket will be cancelled without hesitation."

Figures from motoring body the RAC found Manchester was the single worst place for bus lane fines with 172,311 sent out last year – a dramatic 175 per cent increase on 2015.

The RAC found that more than a million tickets are issued by cameras every year in the UK's biggest cities.

In total, 3.4million penalty charge notices were issued between 2015 and 2017.

The fine varies between location but payouts are estimated to hit Brits in the pocket to the tune of £68million a year.



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