Richmond Council is considering paying back more than £1m in wrongfully issued parking fines, as the authority’s surveillance cars remain off the road for a second week.

Council leader Lord True said a full investigation would take place after it was claimed cameras on the council’s two CCTV cars were not correctly certified and fines had been issued illegally since 2009.

In 2009-10 the council issued a reported 12,305 tickets, totalling more than £573,000, according to pressure group Big Brother Watch.

A council spokesman said: “We are taking advice and are considering the question [of refunding motorists].”

Whitton resident Nigel Wise, who uncovered the administrative error, has demanded the council pay back motorists who were penalised by the vehicles.

He said: “Tens of thousands of people who have been subjected to these unlawful penalties will be interested in obtaining refunds. It is an absolute scandal.”

The 59-year-old carer contacted Lord True this week, asking him for assurances the council would “act humanely” and offer full refunds to anyone who had been subjected to “unlawful penalties”.

In an email to Mr Wise, seen by the Richmond and Twickenham Times, Lord True confirmed he had asked for a “full investigation”.

Campaign group No To Mob, whose members carry out regular hunts to track down CCTV cars in London, plan to protest outside the council’s headquarters, York House, in Twickenham, later this month.

A spokesman from the London Motorists’ Action Group called the situation “scandalous” and said the council had “unlawfully derived income”.

Mr Wise discovered discrepancies in the registration of cameras on the borough’s two Smart cars after being fined for parking in Powder Mill Lane, Whitton, last August.

He successfully had his £100 fine overturned at a parking tribunal hearing last month after he revealed the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) had not declared the camera that snapped him parked in the road as an “approved device”.

Following the hearing the council blamed the VCA for the administrative error and said all the council’s camera cars were “correctly licensed”.

However, it was forced to make a u-turn and pull the cars off the road last week for officers to check documentation.

A council spokesman said officers would now go through documents with “a fine-toothed comb” and were looking into whether they would need to refund motorists.

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