Writing to Private Clamping Company to Appeal

Coblcris

There is a Privy Council opinion on "controlling minds" that may be worth reading.

Paranoid

highguyuk wrote: »

LOL.

The clampers company themselves are registered - and the individual clamper provided his supposed licence number ... put only put his signature and not his name.

Clamping Companies are not licenced by the SIA. The actual clamper has to have what is known as a Front Line Licence. Anyone involved with the direct management of clamping activities has to have a "Non Front Line Licence"

Licensing infringements are a matter for the police. But don't hold your breath!

The current Home Office consultation paper to further regulate Vehicle Immobilisation suggests that the way forward would be to require clamping companies to have an SIA licence. The HO describe this as the prefered option. I cannot see that this would have any practical effect and would describe it as no more than 'spin'.

To refer to the thread directly I do not see much point in appealing to a clamping company. The chances of a refund are just about nil.

Got a good case? Go to court, but be aware that winning your case will also probably result in.....nil.

jkdd77

It really is absolutely sickening what the Government lets them get away with. :mad:

If you pay and sue, you won't ever see your money again, and will lose the court fees for good measure.

If you cut off the unlawfully applied clamp, you risk arrest for "criminal damage"- apparently case law says it is always unlawful to cut off a clamp even if it is unlawfully applied.

[I'd be tempted to cut the clamp off anyway- what else can you do?]

There must surely be human rights issues here ["right to property/ right to effective remedy"].

peter_the_piper

jkdd77 wrote: »

It really is absolutely sickening what the Government lets them get away with. :mad:

If you pay and sue, you won't ever see your money again, and will lose the court fees for good measure.

If you cut off the unlawfully applied clamp, you risk arrest for "criminal damage"- apparently case law says it is always unlawful to cut off a clamp even if it is unlawfully applied.

[I'd be tempted to cut the clamp off anyway- what else can you do?]

There must surely be human rights issues here ["right to property/ right to effective remedy"].

From what I understand there has yet to be a prosecution for criminal damage to a clamp put on by a ppc (its often said that the padlock is not a part of the clamp so is safe to remove). The ppc's and possibly BiB threaten to do so but its such a grey area that none have done so. Certainly its not lawful to cut the padlock off if the clamp is applied by a bailiff ir any official body.
The Scots have gone down the route that any unofficial clamping is extortion and have banned it, we should do the same imho.

Paranoid

jkdd77 wrote: »

It really is absolutely sickening what the Government lets them get away with. :mad:

If you pay and sue, you won't ever see your money again, and will lose the court fees for good measure.

If you cut off the unlawfully applied clamp, you risk arrest for "criminal damage"- apparently case law says it is always unlawful to cut off a clamp even if it is unlawfully applied.

[I'd be tempted to cut the clamp off anyway- what else can you do?]

There must surely be human rights issues here ["right to property/ right to effective remedy"].

jkdd77 Raises some interesting points here.

The RAC Foundation commisioned a barrister (Dr Chris Elliot) to write an appraisal of the whole clamping issue. Among many interesting observations he said;-

Concept of one citizen "punishing" another, alien in English law.

I believe the huge sums extorted from clamped motorists can only be seen as "punishment". Furthermore clamping is surely also a punishment?

Clamping is "perverse"

Clamping a vehicle on private land is perverse since it causes the harm to continue. Dr Elliot says it is in effect a "self inflicted wound".

The Human Rights Act demands that punishment should only come after a proper legal process.

If the motorist were "punished" by a proper legal process then the punishment could only be commensurate with the damage sustained by the owner/legal user of the land. This is clearly not going to be remotely like the grotesque sums demanded by the clampers.

The clampers are acting as agents of the landowners, irrespective of who profits.

These concepts need to be tested in the High Court and (hopefully) would put a stop to this insidious practice once and for all. Any such decisions would eclipse previous case law and any tinkering with the law currently being considered by the Home Office consultation.

jkdd77

In the case of Mitchell vs DPP (2004), the victim was unlawfully clamped by PPC clampers, (who refused to remove the clamp even after the victim pointed out that he had a wholly valid permit clearly on display) cut off the clamp , and was convicted of criminal damage to the clamp.

The Court of Appeal upholding the conviction on the basis that he should have paid and sued, regardless of the fact that the clamping was unlawful, and regardless of the vey strong probability that the PPC would have ignored any CCJ, as almost all cowboy clampers do (not to mention the time, stress and hassle involved in taking the case to court in the first place, which would never be reimbursed even if successful). The victim was even ordered to pay compensation to the clampers who had subjected him to an unlawful ransom demand!

IMO, this Court of Appeal ruling was one of the worst and most peverse judgments in the history of UK law, all the so as the test under 5(3) is supposed to be a "subjective test" of whether the defendant honestly believed that cutting off the clamp was reasonable [as was clearly the case], rather than whether it was "objectively" reasonable in the opinion of the judge.

The ruling has left cowboy clampers free to unlawfully clamp with absolute impunity and indeed full police support and protection for their criminal acts.

I would dearly love to see someone cut off an unlawfully applied PPC clamp, get convicted, and then take a human rights case to the European courts to get the conviction quashed and the utterly perverse case law overturned (and get suitable compensation, too).

If someone does cut off an unlawfully applied clamp, they should probably do so carefully and discreetly, causing as little damage as possible, and should refuse to answer any questions from police (why incriminate oneself?). In such a case, they would have my full moral support (the moral argument for forceable removal of an unlawfully applied clamp is unchallengeable) and the police /CPS would find it very difficult to prove the identity of the "criminal" beyond reasonable doubt.

If the driver gets a friend to cut off the clamp, then the driver can truthfully state "not me, guv".

I am not knowingly advocating a criminal act, at least not in my own mind, because I don't believe that the case law has correctly interpreted the statute law on "lawful excuse" as actually written in the Criminal Damage Act. I also don't believe that the case law is compatible with human rights law [which takes precedence] and therefore don't believe that a person in these circumstances has truly committed an offence.

In practice, the police are extremely unlikely to be interested in any such case, as they are far too busy eating donuts and catching the "easy marks" that are speeding motorists. I am not aware of any conviction for damaging a PPC clamp where the defendant has kept silent.

In summary, I would in fact advocate cutting off an unlawfully applied clamp, and if that makes me a criminal, then so be it.

peter_the_piper wrote: »

From what I understand there has yet to be a prosecution for criminal damage to a clamp put on by a ppc (its often said that the padlock is not a part of the clamp so is safe to remove). The ppc's and possibly BiB threaten to do so but its such a grey area that none have done so. Certainly its not lawful to cut the padlock off if the clamp is applied by a bailiff ir any official body.
The Scots have gone down the route that any unofficial clamping is extortion and have banned it, we should do the same imho.

peter_the_piper

Most odd that the appeal failed, this is on the lines of :-
Blackmailer steals ipod, locks it in a box and demands money to unlock the box. BiB would get involved and tell them to give it back or else. They would not tell the victim to pay the thief and then sue them for the money back. This would negate the need for any police force/justice system as they would be redundant.
I want someone to clamp a judge and then see what happens.

Volcano

jkdd77 wrote: »

If the driver gets a friend to cut off the clamp, then the driver can truthfully state "not me, guv".

This guy will do it for you if you're in the south east: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQMq3hNv-g&feature=related

He used to have a website where he advised cutting off the clamp yourself, having it repaired (with some types, a simple welding of the chain followed by a bit of filing to make it smooth..) then waiting for your day in court when you could produce the undamaged clamp, no offence committed.

In summary, I would in fact advocate cutting off an unlawfully applied clamp, and if that makes me a criminal, then so be it.

I've never been clamped but my first stop would be the local tool hire shop as well.

These guys have a more mechanically involved method of removal that works all the same: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHwKLhIpa94 worth fast forwarding to around 6:45 when the clampers get upset and try and claim they're clamp has been damaged, idiots!

Forest_Child

We regularly work for our local county council and yesterday (5th Jan 2010) were clamped by 'National Clamps'. They claim we did not display a parking permit and have a photo to prove it yet we DID and we have a photo to prove it too.

Their photo is taken from such an angle that the permit is not visible. Their Front line officer did not display any sort of SIA licence at the time he issued the notice, clamped the vehicle or released it. Neither did he sign the notice or write his name in (only his SIA number) all of which are against SIE licencing rules.

I have written to them but thought I would share the information I have so far:

a) National Clamps is a front name for Lancashire Clamping Company Ltd (co no: 2432544).
b) they print the following on their immobilisation receipt:

All complaints must be directed to National Clamps, P.O. Box 208, Preston PR1 2AE DO NOT expect a reply to correspondence, we are not obligated, all emails are atuomatically deleted. All appeals must include a S.A.E. All photographic evidence, method of payments, will be destroyed after two months have elapsed.

Having spoken to the Post Office, they confirm that the PO box is bogus and no such PO box exists.

A search on Companies House reveals their true address as:
414 Blackpool Road
Ashton-on-Ribble
Preston
UK
PR2 2DX

Companies house also shows the CEO to be Mr Trevor Whitehouse who has listed his life story on naymz dot com and as a skin-head who saw an opportunity to legally extort money, his own words make interesting reading! His details on LinkedIn show that he invented the triangular wheel clamp.

The whole clamping business seems like a scam even the larger companies who 'claim' to be playing fair.

The Front line member of staff was agressive, confrontational and difficult to deal with, claiming he would tow the vehicle away (even though they had no grounds to do so) and he also kept saying things like "damage that clamp mate and that's a 10 year jail sentence" which is clearly incorrect and intended to intimidate.

Having been able to find not only the correct, registered address of the company and the name of the CEO as well as the details of the landowner, if they don't pay back the £80 release fee, taking them to SCC and enforcing a judgment should be relatively straight forward.

Coupon-mad

Forest_Child wrote: »

Having been able to find not only the correct, registered address of the company and the name of the CEO as well as the details of the landowner, if they don't pay back the £80 release fee, taking them to SCC and enforcing a judgment should be relatively straight forward.

Go for it! Did the landowner instruct the clampers or did a middle-man (leasehold retailer for example?). Include all those who are 'jointly and severally' liable, in your court action.

And make sure you also include your costs and expenses - County Court costs (which I think are about £30), lost work time, and if it drags on for months then interest on the money at 8% per annum (equivalent amount for the number of days you are deprived of your money).

Have you posted about this on pepipoo.com? Read a few threads about clamping and then register and start your own thread. They can help you see this through and have experience of successfully getting the money back in unlawful clamping cases:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

HTH