An unaware traffic warden ticketed a minvan containing a dead body that was parked in a taxi rank outside of Jury's Hotel on Great Victoria street in Belfast last Tuesday.

A spokesperson for NSL, the company that manages the traffic wardens in Northern Ireland, extended the company's sympathies to the deceased man's family in a statement released on Monday.

In the statement, the spokesperson said that "a minivan was issued a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) on Tuesday morning because it was parked in a taxi rank, without the traffic attendant being aware that a person within had passed away."

As soon as the traffic warden became aware of what had transpired inside the minivan, the Department for Regional Development was notified and the ticket was cancelled.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that an eyewitness saw what happened from inside of Jury's Hotel. "The person who died was sitting quite close to the driver's seat at the front. Eventually, a blanket was brought and put over the body. But before that, a traffic warden approached the minibus. He rapped the window of the minibus, and when the dead person didn't move, he put a parking ticket on the minibus."

This is not the first public relations fudging that NSL has experienced. In 2012, another traffic warden issued a ticket to a blood transfusion van parked so that citizens could give "vital blood donations."

That ticket was also later retracted.