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A man was stunned to be fined for not paying the Mersey Gateway toll - because he has never even crossed the bridge.

Adam Fellows, 22, an IT engineer from Ellesmere Port, said he was “fuming” after a letter ordered him to fork out £40 for a penalty charge.

It claimed he had crossed the bridge heading southbound on October 19, but he said was at work at the time.

He said he phoned officials at Merseyflow to ask for more evidence it was his car, as he initially feared his number plates might have been cloned and used by another vehicle.

He claimed he was told the vehicle involved was a Vauxhall Astra estate with a red roof, whereas his car was the smaller hatchback model and silver all over.

He also said they could only provide one blurry black-and-white image of the vehicle on the bridge, which left him frustrated as he did not know how to prove it was not him.

Adam expected to have to fight a long battle by appealing or even refusing to pay the fine - but received some welcome news shortly after the ECHO contacted the authorities.

(Image: Adam Fellows)

Merseyflow admitted it had made an error today, and apologised to the driver over the mix-up.

Mr Fellows said: “I’m obviously relieved - but I’m fuming at the fact it happened at all, and I’ve had to fight it.

“It’s such a waste of my time and theirs. I’ve never crossed that bridge once.

“I got the penalty charge notice from the Mersey Gateway bridge earlier this month, saying I failed to pay. I looked at the vehicle in the photo and it had a different shape to my car.

“Mine’s silver whereas it had a red roof and red wing mirrors. And they said it’s a Vaxhall Mark 5 Astra estate, but mine is a Mark 7 hatchback.

“I actually called the police in case my number plates had been cloned. I then rang the penalty charge notice hotline, who said they normally have three images but they only had one blurry one for me.

“How am I meant to fight something if they won’t show me the evidence? And if the image is blurry, why have they charged me at all?

“They have definitely resolved it because the ECHO contacted them - that would have been on my head for a while otherwise.”

A spokesman for Merseyflow said such mix-ups were rare, but apologised over the incident.

He said: “We’ve written to Mr Fellows to apologise to him and to cancel this PCN – it was sent in error and we’ll review the case for any wider lessons to be learned.

“If anyone receives a PCN which they think is unjustified they should follow the instructions on it and make a representation to Merseyflow as quickly as possible so we can review it.

“Over two million trips were made across the new bridge in the first month and over 95% of people are registered with Merseyflow or paying on time.”