Sutton Council has apologised for a fine mess created after clocks on 18 parking ticket machines in the borough were put back a day early.

Several motorists were left bamboozled on Saturday afternoon as a computer system switched to Greenwich Mean Time before the rest of the nation.

Stuart Duthie, of Wellfield Gardens in Carshalton, was among the wrongfooted residents who paid double for a ticket, because the time shown on pay and display machines was an hour early.

Other drivers were relieved to learn that parking fines incurred because of the temporal confusion will be unenforceable.

The Conservative group said the untimely error, which was corrected by Monday morning, was simply the latest parking fiasco to beset the local authority.

On New Year's Day 53 fines were issued, despite assurances no charges would be levied on public holidays.

Councillor Tim Crowley, opposition transport spokesman, said: "Councillor Colin Hall should explain to motorists why this kind of blunder continues on his watch.

"We all knew that Sutton's Lib Dem administration doesn't know the time of day but this takes the biscuit."

The council expressed regret for its out-of-synch clocks, set remotely by Metro Group, the firm which maintains the 160 ticket machines in Sutton borough.

Annette Madden, executive head of business services, said parking attendants from its contractor NCP Services had spotted the fault on Saturday.

"We immediately instructed NCP to be vigilant when checking pay and display tickets and not to issue any that were incorrect."

"We are really sorry that this error occurred and have done our best to solve the problem as soon as we could.

"We will of course be cancelling any tickets issued incorrectly."