A HAMPSHIRE FATHER was shocked when he returned home to find workmen had painted a disabled bay around his car.

Chef Stephen McGowan left his two-week-old Suzuki Alto parked close to his house.

But when the 30-year-old father-of-five returned home, he found his vehicle surrounded by broken white lines, and the word ‘disabled’ painted at the back of his car in capital letters.

Mr McGowan said his wife Natasha approached the workmen and asked if they wanted her to move the car utsided the family home in Lawrence Close, Popley.

Mrs McGowan, 32, said: “They said no. They had blatantly just started and had a blowtorch close to the car.”

Mr McGowan said he approached Sentinel Housing Association, which owns the land, and Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, to find out who was responsible for the line-painting.

Sophia Waite-King, senior media relations officer at the borough council, said it had wanted to paint a disabled bay for a resident and used a contractor, Bellstan Ltd, to carry out the work.

When asked if it was normal practice to paint a disabled bay around a car, Ray Westcott, commercial manager at Bellstan Ltd, said: “We are aware of Mr McGowan’s complaint, and we are in negotiations with him to resolve the issue.”