Fake car park attendant at Bristol Zoo ‘swindled visitors out of money for TWENTY YEARS’
A FAKE car park attendant reportedly swindled Bristol Zoo visitors out of money for 20 years.
A fraudster reportedly got away with the scam for two decades before taking his fortune and vanishing abroad.
At the time, Bristol Zoo believed the man was working for the council, while the local authority believed he worked for the zoo.
Bristol Zoo have consistently said this is not true, but a research group has now tried to explain where the urban myth came from.
Campaign group Downs for People has always objected to the zoo using the nearby Downs as an extra car park.
The group has said that some people would make their way onto the Downs and collect voluntary donations from visitors but nobody knows where the money went.
During their research, they also found the name of a man, Mr S W Barrett, who supervised parking from 1978.
POPULAR MYTH
They are now trying to trace the man or his relatives to find out more about his time there and about the popular myth.
Downs for People have been trying to stop the use of the Downs opposite the entrance to Bristol Zoo as an overflow car park.
The land has been leased to the zoo for temporary use on busy days for decades by the Downs Committee, reports.
The campaign group is preparing to take the Downs Committee and Bristol City Council to court to argue that the Downs should not be used for parking, but should be kept for people to use recreationally.
While doing research for the court case, said they found proof that some people collected parking money from motorists parking on the Downs to visit the zoo.
The archives, however, did not seem to clarify how the money was used or who it was given to.
The group’s spokesperson Susan Carter told Bristol Live: “There is truth behind the myth of Bristol’s phantom zoo parking attendant.
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“For almost thirty years, from 1958 until the mid-1980s, and quite likely for 30 years before that, people were able to make their living as parking attendants, collecting ‘voluntary’ donations from motorists parking on rough ground outside the zoo.
"It is unlikely that anyone made a fortune, and from 1958 onwards attendants were authorised either by the Downs Committee or, from 1983, the zoo (probably – that is when confusion may have arisen).
“It is not clear when the system of voluntary donations ended: attendants only started wearing uniforms in 1988, when a system of parking stickers was introduced.”