A 'Parking Ticket Santa' has brought the Christmas spirit to a city's motorists by paying their fines.
Ms Howard, 27, returned to her car after shopping in a city centre store to find a traffic warden had left a ticket on the windscreen. But when she peeled the ticket off her silver Renault Megane she found a Christmas card containing a £20 and £10 note underneath it.
A note in the card read, "Don’t let this ticket spoil your Christmas, and here is £30 to pay it off. Merry Christmas."
The card was addressed to "Christmas ticketing victim number 14," suggesting that the anonymous well wisher had spent at least £420 in paying off tickets.
"At first I thought it was a joke and kept looking around for the person who had left it there," she said.
"When I couldn’t see anyone, I was shocked but really happy.
"I still can’t believe it. It’s such a generous thought and goes to show there are kind-hearted people in the world.
"But then I thought that maybe Santa Claus really does exist after all. I saw no evidence of him having visited, no sleighs or reindeer droppings. But on Christmas eve before I go to bed I am definitely going to leave out a couple of mince pies and a nice glass of sherry, just in case.
"I really wish I could thank the person who left the card. You hear all these stories of the ways traffic wardens catch people out well, I have got one over on them."
Yesterday, as word of the Good Samaritan got round in Birmingham, close to the huge Mailbox shopping centre, other drivers were glancing around in anticipation.
Stock control manager Julian Robins, 28,said, "I have been here Christmas shopping for the last couple of days and have been parking on this street. There seem to be a lot of jolly men with beards wandering around with red cheeks and noses. It might be because of the cold weather or seasonal festivities.
"Perhaps I should just let my parking ticket run out then hide near my car with my camera."
Max Smith, 39, said, "Long may it continue. It’s not unknown for rosy faced old men to be seen trundling around this time of year, but they have usually just fallen out of the pub.
"I have never ever seen any of them go home with the help of a reindeer, although I have seen some of them leave the pub with the odd moose…"
A spokesman for Control Plus, the company in charge of imposing parking tickets in the city, said, "There is no way that our traffic wardens would put money in envelopes at Christmas. If I knew it was happening I would put my car on double yellows more often."
Motorists parking in Granville Street yesterday said they were keeping an eye out for the Parking Ticket Santa.
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