London’s Batman has been handing out fuel vouchers and paying hospital parking fines. Credit: officiallondonsbatman / Instagram
Drivers who pulled into a south-east London petrol station for a routine fill-up were handed £70 (€84) fuel vouchers by a man in a Batman mask. He’s also paid hospital parking fines and filled in potholes, yet nobody can say who he is.
Traffic backed up at a south-east London petrol station
Motorists who stopped at a Texaco petrol station near the Eltham Road and Sidcup Road junction on Friday October 16 weren’t expecting a superhero at the pumps. Instead they were handed £70 (€84) fuel vouchers by the masked man, who said fuel prices were too high.
The offer pulled in so many drivers that traffic built up around the junction. One local resident estimated he’d given away at least £3,500 (€4,180) worth, according to the Lee Manor Society, while a witness said he wanted to give something back to the community.
He says he’s trying to give London some hope
The man first appeared on Instagram on September 22, in a video filmed in front of the London Eye in which he announced: ‘London, I am your Batman.’ His account, @officiallondonsbatman, had almost 100,000 followers by this week.
He told ITV News he wants to give London hope for a better tomorrow and believes people need someone to stand up for them. He’s also invited followers to tell him their problems, with the promise that Batman will make them go away.
From hospital parking fines to potholes
The petrol vouchers aren’t his only stunt so far. In one video the Batman paid parking fines handed to patients who’d parked near Kingston Hospital in south-west London, arguing that people with health worries shouldn’t be hit with fines on top. He’s also filled in potholes outside a youth club, and other reported stunts include handing out hand-held fans to commuters in late September, leading a litter clear-up with four masked helpers and selling Freddo chocolate bars for just 5p.
Nobody knows who he is or where the money comes from
His identity hasn’t been confirmed, and neither has the source of the money. Online, followers have joked that he might be a real-life Bruce Wayne-type character, or at least a millionaire, with one asking whether he’d used his ‘bat-card’.
The man is arriving at a time when households across Britain are feeling the enormous squeeze from the cost of living. Drivers in Spain know the feeling too, and could perhaps do with their own Batman at a few petrol stations across the country as petrol recently crossed the €2 a litre mark in September.