He’s the bad-tempered restaurant critic known for becoming involved in acrimonious rows. Now, broadcaster Giles Coren is embroiled in a furious dispute closer to home.
I can disclose that the former presenter of television programmes such as Amazing Hotels and The F-Word has been publicly accused of parking his car in a bay suspended while it is prepared for a disabled neighbour.
Writing on their neighbourhood website Next Door, a woman makes a string of allegations against the 54-year-old son of late humourist Alan Coren. ‘
You have repeatedly parked in a clearly marked suspended parking space on your street,’ she claims.
‘You know that the bay is suspended for a disabled neighbour of yours. Yesterday you parked in the bay again, which is stopping your disabled neighbour who also has disabled children from accessing their home safely.’
‘Somewhat ungallantly, Coren seems to blame his wife, the journalist Esther Walker, 43’
Giles Coren (right) at the Qasr Al Sarab hotel for the BBC show ‘Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby’
Somewhat ungallantly, Coren seems to blame his wife, the journalist Esther Walker, 43.
‘It is not a disabled bay,’ he tells me. ‘It is a general parking suspension. It wasn’t my car. It was my wife’s car. Yes, she parked there. And, yes, she got a parking ticket. I have never parked there because I don’t like getting tickets.’
Esther says she was unaware that the bay in their North London street was suspended because it was designated for a disabled motorist, who had applied to the local council.
‘I parked there overnight,’ she tells me. ‘This street is normally chocker-block. I didn’t look at the suspended sign because there are constantly suspensions all over the street. And you don’t pay attention to every single one. So it was a total error on my part.’
She adds: ‘I am baffled and really distressed at her claims that we parked ‘repeatedly’ in a disabled bay, which we absolutely have not. It was one single error.
‘It’s so important to get along with everyone and it’s really distressing to have my neighbours think that I’m parking on purpose, repeatedly, in a disabled bay.’
The woman who applied for the disabled bay declines to comment on the online post.
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