Priest will pay his flocks parking fines
Monday, October 29, 2001
A Dutch priest is paying the parking fines of his congregation.

Police ticketed hundreds of churchgoers while they were hearing a special anniversary mass.

Wim van der Valk, the pastor of St Martinus Church in Weert, will pay more than 200 of the £25 fines. He says the police should be catching criminals not ticketing church goers on a Sunday morning.

The pastor will pay the 91 guilder parking fees out of his own pocket after 200 out of his 1,400 congregation were fined by traffic police. The final bill will be for more than £4000.

"Is this event so important for the police to go about writing out parking-tickets as the highest priority?" the Pastor said.

"If you call the police at night to tell them about drug addicts or people beating others up, you hardly see anyone. But at Sunday morning they want to put everything in order. Mainly for a group of people who never disturb anyone.

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