FORMER SAS soldier Nigel Ely put his hands up to the parking ticket slapped on his UKIP “battlebus”.

A Herefordshire Council parking officer had the former troop carrier in his sights when the UKIP parliamentary candidate for the Hereford and South Herefordshire seat stopped in a loading bay last weekend.

Busted in Hereford’s Broad Street last Saturday, Mr Ely paid up in time to earn a 50 per cent discount on the £70 penalty.

UKIP confirmed that the fine had been paid as an election expense.

Mr Ely, who served with the Parachute Regiment and the SAS, took his “Believe in Britain” message to the streets in a Second World War troop carrier loaned to his campaign by a local UKIP supporter.