A MOTHER’S joy at giving birth to triplets was marred after a three-month battle with council officials over parking fines.

Catherine Beckett, 44, of Holland Road, Maidstone, gave birth to Bethany, Grace and Ryan at Maidstone Hospital in September.

But instead of being able to celebrate their arrival, Miss Becket became embroiled in a row with Maidstone council after forgetting to renew her resident’s parking permit.

It had been a difficult pregnancy. The triplets were born three weeks premature and weighed no more than 10 pounds between them. Ryan and Grace had breathing difficulties and had to be rushed to St George’s hospital in London, where they stayed for 10 days.

When Miss Beckett left hospital the last thing on her mind was renewing a resident’s parking permit for her car that had expired shortly after she went into hospital.

She said: "It was an awful time, the last thing I was thinking about was my car and bills. All that mattered was the health of my babies."

The car, stationary in front of her house, accrued four tickets and a total fine of £120, which Miss Beckett then appealed against with a letter and a certificate from the maternity ward.

She added: "They told me they couldn’t do anything about it, and I’d have to lodge another appeal by December 14, by which time the fine would have doubled. It’s disgusting that I had to be put through this."

A Maidstone Borough Council spokesman said: "The tickets were correctly issued because the car was parked without a valid permit.

"Although the penalty charges were upheld at the informal review, I am pleased to say that we quashed them at the formal review, in line with our policy to consider exceptional mitigating circumstances such as these."