The free ride for motorists who have escaped going to court for not paying parking tickets is about to end, can reveal.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid fines are owed to Government because motorists who do not pay their tickets have not been summonsed to appear in court since February, 2002.

But senior court administrator Tracey Kelley said yesterday that that is about to change and non-payers will receive a summons to appear in court.

?I expect it is going to happen, but it hasn?t happened yet. It is still under discussion,? said Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Kelly, whose department is responsible for issuing summons, said he could not comment on why non-payers have not been hauled before the courts since February, 2002.revealed in January that around 20 percent of people don?t pay their $50 fines and no one had been issued with a court summons for non-payment for two years.

Crown prosecutors were disclosed as among those with large bills owing, and one was reported to be the worst offender on the Island, allegedly owing more than $16,000.

A Government source said the lawyers had been issued with hundreds of tickets since 2001 for parking outside Global House on Church Street. But the Crown counsel said at the time the information was ?inaccurate? and ?gossip?.

Two days after the story, Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser said that all outstanding fines owed by his staff had been paid.

Mr. Ratneser said at the time that a ?mitigating? factor was that his staff had acquired the tickets in the course of their duties.

?The situation seems to be that all these prosecutors were given the tickets when they were parked outside the court during working hours. There is no other parking available,? he said.

And he pointed out that defence lawyers and other members of the public are among those on the list of the 30 worst offenders.

Prosecutors were criticised in the House of Assembly on Wednesday night for allegedly lowering public confidence in the judicial system by dodging their fines.

Shadow Whip John Barritt, who is a lawyer said the job of Crown counsel was to uphold the law with integrity, and ?their job, if there was an error was to bring it to the attention of someone in the department and have it corrected forthwith, not continue to take advantage of it?.

And Shadow Attorney General Trevor Moniz, saying the affair was a ?huge embarrassment? to the DPP?s chambers, said: ?Who is going to have respect for people who have the responsibility for enforcing the law if the people responsible for enforcing the law are not enforcing it themselves??