Furious grandmother reveals the extraordinary sequence of events that saw rangers tow her legally parked, fully registered Toyota Camry and CRUSH it into a cube
- Grandmother’s car mistakenly crushed by local council who haven’t paid up
- Warning came two days after the car, and everything in it, had been destroyed
- The car was legally parked a few doors away from where her daughter lives
- Her possessions were inside the car and council refuse to say where they are
- Council even went to extraordinary length of hiring a lawyer to fight her
A devastated grandmother was dealt a crushing blow when her local council towed her car and smashed it into a cube, despite it being legally parked and properly registered.
Wendy Tucker, 61, parked her 1997 burgundy Toyota Camry Conquest near her daughter’s home on a quiet street at Point Clare on the New South Wales Central Coast for eight weeks during lockdown.
Assuming it had been abandoned, the Central Coast Council – dubbed the most incompetent local government in Australia – took it off the street after a complaint from neighbours and destroyed it, without even bothering to contact its owner until it was too late.
The high school lab technician is still waiting for compensation and has not even been offered an apology three months after the incident.
‘I just thought the council would have been more forthcoming,’ Mrs Tucker told A Current Affair.
‘It was my only car, and it had things in it – personal belongings, emotional things – you get attached to your vehicles regardless of how good or bad they are.’
At first Ms Tucker thought it had been stolen after her son-in-law arrived, didn’t see the car and asked her where it was.
She called the police and was eventually informed the vehicle had been towed even though it was legally parked and fully registered.
Mrs Tucker claims the council told her to wait for a letter in the mail which would notify her of how to the car could be returned.
The following day the council called back and said the vehicle had been crushed.
Several days later she then received the warning letter.
Wendy Tucker, 61, was dealt a crushing blow when her local council mistakenly towed her car and smashed it into a cube
‘I thought they were exaggerating but apparently it had been crushed completely,’ she said.
Ratepayers say they’re not surprised by the ’embarrassing’ blunder after the Central Coast Council racked up the largest local government deficit in Australian history.
The council’s debt shot up to $565million, forcing them to slash 300 jobs and raise rates by about 15 per cent rate.
Central Coast councillor Greg Best, who resigned along with his colleagues last year when the local government went into administration has described the council as ‘a perfect storm of incompetence’.
He told the Channel Nine program that ‘heads should roll’ over the heartless way council destroyed Mrs Tucker’s car.
Mrs Tucker is now having to borrow her daughter’s car to get to and from work after her own was crushed (pictured)
‘Surely they should have just sat down with Mrs Tucker over a cup of tea and said “sorry, here’s what we’re going to do”,’ he said.
Instead, the council even decided to hire lawyers to dispute the compensation pay out, before eventually performing a u-turn.
‘To add insult to injury they’re now going to use Mrs Tucker’s money as a ratepayer to take her to the lawyers to demand a reduction in their compensation payout,’ Mr Best said.
‘These people sit back in their ivory tower with their drawbridge up and fortify against Mrs Tucker, she’s now the enemy because she said “come on guys fair go, I want something for my car”.’
Mrs Tucker in the meantime now having to borrow her daughter’s car to get to and from work.
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