Notorious car clamper facing Asbo An employee of a car-clamping outfit which has "brought misery to visitors to a Yorkshire tourist village" looks likely to be immobilised himself - by an Asbo. According to the Yorkshire Post, George Albert McDicken, 38, of Wilsden, near Bradford, is due in Leeds magistrates court today accused of "intimidating and aggressive …
This piece of *^&% clamped us being a couple of minutes late back. Left Haworth with very, very bitter feelings. Put a real damper on what had been a lovely day out. Not been back since.
Losing a days wages for a few minutes overdue is punitive aand not proportional to costs involved... hmm... isn't that the line we are taking with the banks?
The real question is, why is clamping legal -- except in very severe cases?
If a vehicle is in a dangerous position, clamping it doesn't change that in any way. The only thing it stops is the owner taking the vehicle away before the exhortionist's own service gets there.
Clamping should be limited to extreme cases, where the owner very persistently ignores fines and a court order for payment of those fines has gone unfulfilled for more than a month.
Similarly, towing away should be limited by law to cases of extreme danger or extreme inconvenience to others, and not simply used as a bogus means of boosting the pay packed of the warden and/or bumping up the cost to the owner.
This people are nothing more than licensed thugs and thieves and it is high time this Government cancelled the licenses of all these private car clampers. This is yet another sign of how this Government is both allowing, contributing to and encouraging this Country into becoming a police state. Note also the fact that under this Government very soon the bailiffs (also licensed thugs) are going to be allowed to actually break in to your house !!!. This "Labour" Government bears no resemblance to a true Labour party and should be given the boot asap.
I think they should sack him, or prosecute him if he's threatened physical violence, or outlaw private clamping, but not give him an ASBO.
An ASBO, is an arbitrary penalty that can be issued on hearsay and anonymous testimony. You may be correct, he may be an asshole, but he still has the right to face his accusers and not face penalties based on hearsay. He's entitled not to be prejudged in whining BBC reports that present a one sided case.
It's a Blair abomination.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if a town like Haworth had 1000 or so beaten up cars left on the streets - and whether it would influence the town council enough to do something about allowing crooks to clamp the cars of tourists.
Just a thought, but if you do have a knackered vehicle you were going to take to a breakers yard anyway...
We have limited clamping in the US. I did see one occasion of the local mayor coming out of an eatery to find his car clamped. He raised a commotion with the police and had it removed while i was there. My suggestion is that some of you procure clamping devices and place them on the cars owned by local politicians and etc. Of course you will have to be very discreet about it.
"This is yet another sign of how this Government is both allowing, contributing to and encouraging this Country into becoming a police state. Note also the fact that under this Government very soon the bailiffs (also licensed thugs) are going to be allowed to actually break in to your house !!!."
Unfortunately, lot's of people owe money, and are unable to pay it back. Whether this is their own fault, or the logical extension of the current inflationary economy of "Buy now - Pay later" remains to be argued.
But - the end result is that the government gets to remain in power.
If you want to vote, you must be on the electoral role. If you are on the electoral role, and you owe money, then the bastards ^H^H^H^H^H bailiffs can come round and steal the few things you do own.
So, you don't register to vote, you don't get a say, the government rides roughshod over the public with no fear of retribution. Only the rich get to partake in the electoral process. Reminds me of Britain in the 1700's.
Why private details from the electoral role are available to third parties like bailiffs is beyond me. I thought voting was supposed to be a right, not hindered by social standing, financial ability, race, religion or gender.
And just to continue the political rant, with the increasing visibility of armed police, ID cards, road pricing, the "coronation" of Gordon Brown, and increasing bureaucracy in the health service and other departments, not to mention "The Ministry of Justice"**, it's all going down the pan quicker than last nights curry.
(** For some reason that term offends me - If it were the Department of Justice, or the Justice Department, it wouldn't rankle, but Ministry of Justice sounds like it is theirs to dispense. Not to mention being far too close to Ministry of Truth !)
It's interesting that a so called socialist government is bringing us closer to Orwells vision of what essentially was the state of play in communist Russia - secret police, huge bureaucracy, diminishment of rights, papers please, etc etc.
Just remember, we are at war with $enemy[0], we have always been at war with $enemy[0].
I agree with the poster about ASBOs.
There should be specific laws and people should be prosecuted under those laws.
If private clamping is a problem it should be banned (as it is, I think, in Scotland) and instead an offence introduced of parking on private land without permission. Then car park owners could call the council to get unwanted cars towed/ticketed/clamped.
Are you parked if you're asleep in your car?
My understanding is, while you're in the vehicle you are "waiting".
How legal is it to remove a clamp, without damaging it of course, and leave it at the side of the road?
Or bring 4 clamps, and clamp your car there, lets see your man clamp you then. (Maybe cutting off your nose to spite your face)
George McScrooge, sorry "McDicken", has got off - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/6690759.stm, and your correspondent managed to miss the best bit - this a*****e actually went and clamped a police van!
Rich: you're quite correct. Private clamping is illegal in Scotland - so the only folks who (afaik) can clamp a car are the police or their authorised agents. Interestingly enough the 1992 act that outlawed it claims that subject practices are "extortion".
And I agree with the others who are saying that an ASBO is not the correct solution - why not use the Scottish act as a precedent (if possible?) and charge both McScrooge AND HIS COMPANY with attempted extortion - I realise car clamping is legal, but surely there's ways to impose controls on the way it's being done.
Thanks for the tip - I'll avoid Howarth for the meantime....
Don't get back to your car late. Don't park anywhere with any time restrictions.
The main cause of all this clamping is councils and landowners letting security companies manage their site. They get paid for doing so, but clamping is the icing on the case. They want you to get clamped and won't be sympathetic when they can earn a few extra quid a day.
If you aren't sure about any piece of land, don't park on it.
> Michael
> Similar to the new "don't tax your car and you might get it crushed" it sounds
> draconian, but there's no reason for anyone to fall foul of it. Of course they will
> and the excuses they'll trot out after the fact were well known to them before it
> too.
like the i believe 5 cases where the wrong car was crushed, silver bmw is very similar to red ford easy mistake to make, maybe if they had an unique registration plate the company could check?. Or maybe the rare classic car that they crushed by accident because the council didn't realise that classic cars didn't need tax
thats the problem with authoritarianism and draconianism it doesn't allow for humanity to make mistakes (from both sides). But thats something i guess you've never done, like estimated something will take 5 minutes but actually took 6, walked up the wrong street because something looked interesting which then ruined a fully regimented day out.
Maybe have fun once in a while by not planning everything in the minutest detail and you'll see the world in a whole new light.
The first comment is very interesting; does this have any similarity to the situation with reclaiming penalty charges from the banks? The clamp removal fee must surely be much higher than the costs involved. Perhaps someone who has been clamped and fined should take this to court, then the private clampers would have to reveal their costs to the court....
A simple solution to car clamping (and I've seen this done) is to get some liquid nitrogen (the same stuff overclockers use to cool their insanely-pumped CPUs) and thoroughly douse the clamp with it. Then give it a good solid smack with a brick hammer and the damn thing will shatter like glass!
I saw a bloke do exactly this at a LAN party I went to a couple of years ago; he'd parked his car in an EMPTY shopping centre car park across the road from the party, it was duly clamped, and the LiN2 he'd been using to show off his uber PC at the party worked a treat on the clamp... I wish I could have seen the clamper's face when he found his tungsten-reinforced extortion-machine smashed like a bone china cup!
Just make sure you don't get the stuff on your car... or yourself...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
