Fake car park attendant at Bristol Zoo ‘swindled visitors out of money for TWENTY YEARS’

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.

“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.”