The Rochdale Herald can reveal that Julian Assange’s camper van has run up £19,700 in parking ticket charges.

The van was left on Cadogan Place a few streets away from the Ecuadorian Embassy. Mr Assange who was voted Britain’s favourite Ecuadorian last week told the Herald, “It’s not my camper van. It’s registered to me but that was an error. They just want me to claim it so they can extradite me to America in it.”

Martin William’s who owns a flat on Cadogan Place said, “I pay £2500 a month for that flat. I have a parking permit but cannot park outside my flat because Assange’s camper van is there.

I had to carry 40kg of Waitrose shopping up 5 flights of stairs the other night because the delivery driver refused due to the distance he had to walk. It’s a bloody disgrace.”

It has also been revealed that Mr Assange, who bought the van a couple of weeks before seeking refuge in the Embassy also owes the Victoria Library £11.50 in fines for an un-returned copy of “The Internet for Dummies.” Mr Assange disputes the Libraries claim and says he has never been to the library in his life.

Mr Assange, who will be arrested if he leaves the embassy said, “If I leave it’ll take me until about next Thursday to scrape off enough of the parking tickets to be able to see out of the front window to be able to drive. It’s ridiculous. I’ve tried to phone the automated number but the voice recognition system doesn’t recognise my accent. If only Swedish women were the same I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

It’s understood by the Herald that Mr Assange’s camper is a 1998 VW Autosleeper T4 and only worth £1000.

In other Julian Assange related news Mr Assange has been declared the subject of the UK’s favourite phrase of 2017. ‘About as much use as Julian Assange’s tent” is thought to be amongst the favourite phrases of people in Britain who wish to express how useless something is.

Fact checked by Snopes; Plagiarised by Andrew Neil; Nancy Sinatra's favourite Rochdale satirist; sued by Chris Froome and winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.* *Not all of these necessarily true.