A dad-of-two who rushed his daughter to hospital was charged £100 after he accidentally underpaid at a parking meter - by just 10p.

Stephen Ellison, from Shepperton, was at work at a chemistry lab with his daughter when she became ill and he drove them to Kingston A&E.

As the 60-year-old and his 21-year-old daughter went to see doctors, Mr Ellison hurriedly paid the parking charge and rushed into hospital.

But he claims the parking machine only gave him a ticket for £3.20, ten pence less than the required parking fee.

MORE: Kingston Hospital bosses apologise for parking problems and promises to review fines

After four hours in hospital Mr Ellison says he was "under pressure" to get his daughter home and didn't realise his ticket was 10p short, and several weeks later car park management company ParkingEye insisted he cough up.

The chemist at laboratory and testing company LGC said: "We had gone to A&E after a minor illness at work but it turned out to be a false alarm.

"By the time my daughter had left A&E she was distressed and I was under pressure to get her home.

"It is pretty dark there and it was not terribly clear explicitly how much we had to pay.

"There are signs up but we could not find them.

"The time for two hours was £3.30, however either because the coins did not drop sufficiently enough in the machine or because I did not put enough in, the machine only registered £3.20."

MORE: Complaints over 'teething problems' with new Kingston Hospital parking regime

Mr Ellison and his daughter arrived at the hospital at around 6.10pm on November 10 and paid for two hours parking in line with ParkingEye's rules which demand payment between 8am and 8pm.

He added: "I got a parking notice a week or so later but it did not say how much the discrepancy was.

"When I appealed I said they had charged me for four hours instead of four hours due and they replied and said I had underpaid."

After a failed appeal with POPLA (Parking On Private Land Appeals) and fearing that ParkingEye might take him to court Mr Ellison, who also has a 22-year-old son, paid the fine last week.

But he insisted it was "completely disproportionate" to the 10p he failed to pay.

He said: "It is the feeling that if you do not pay you will be lumbered with a court appearance.

"You don't really feel you have any option.

"If I were a normal businessman and someone had underpaid by 10p I would not charge them £100.

"The reason for the £100 penalty is largely deterrent and when we are looking at one underpayment that can only have arisen by mistake.

"I appealed because I assumed they were charging me for four hours instead of two.

"It was only when I was collecting evidence for the POPLA appeal when I realised my receipt was wrong.

"If I had realised they were charging me for a ten pence under-spend it would have been a very different appeal.

"It is completely disproportionate. They should have at least reduced the penalty for a minor underpayment.

"It cost them more money in postage than they lost, it's trivial.

"It doesn't seem a sensible way of doing business."

A ParkingEye spokesman said: “The driver received a parking charge because he stayed in the car park for longer than the amount of time he paid for.

"ParkingEye operates an audited appeals process and encourages people to appeal if they feel there are mitigating circumstances.

"If a motorist disagrees with our decision they have the option to appeal to the independent appeals service.

"In this case the driver did appeal to POPLA, who upheld our original decision.”