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Philip Collins made this Freedom of Information request to Home Office
Waiting for an internal review by Home Office of their handling of this request.
From: Philip Collins
28 December 2009
Dear Home Office,
I recently had my car clamped and subsequently appropriated, by an
agent of a private landowner, It was claimed by the agent of the
landowner that he had a contractual right to clamp and subsequently
tow away and keep my car.
What course of action, do you consider, can be taken by someone who
find themselves in the same position, assuming that they dispute
that a contract has been lawfully and or legally formed, which will
prevent the landowners agent from towing and keeping the car until
the issue is resolved,
This issue is important to me because I am not in a position to pay
the clamp release fee and then seek recompense, my ability to earn
my living and subsequently my quality of life has been severely
reduced as a result of the loss of my car and length of time and
money it will take me to pursue the matter through the civil courts
Yours faithfully,
Philip Collins
Home Office
15 January 2010
Reference : T23358/9
Thank you for your e-mail enquiry of 28/12/2009 5:30:24 PM
A reply is attached.
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From: Philip Collins
15 January 2010
Dear Home Office,
Many thanks for your response, however you have not given me the
information requested. With all due repect, you seem to have simply
skirted around the question.
Should I take this too mean that, there is no way for someone to
prevent his private property being taken against his will, because
he is unable/unwilling to pay without prior chance to dispute the
formation of the 'contract' to park ?
Or should I take it too mean that the 'additional primary or
secondary legislation' will provide the means to prevent the
companies taking the vehicle before an independant adjudicator
assess the validity of any supposed contract.
Surely, the home office is not suggesting that the only recourse is
too first pay the fine and then seek recompense, because that would
obviously pose a significant problem for people who cannot pay and
rely on their mode of transportation for work etc. Especially
considering that any legal actions would also incur expense before
a result could be obtained.
Could I therefore request another response?
Yours faithfully,
Philip Collins
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Philip Collins left an annotation (27 January 2010)
In that other request I have received the following statement, relating to this request
Information Access Team
Home Office
Ground Floor, Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
E-mail: [email address]
As part of any internal review the Department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. If you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you would have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.
In response to your e-mail of 15 January 2010, the e-mail you received from us was in response to your e-mail of 28 December 2009. The information you requested on 29 December is provided in the annex below.
With regard to your email of 15 January, this letter and the previous responses that you have received have addressed all the issues that you have raised. We have no further comments to add to the information we have provided.
Yours sincerely
Justina Emanuel Annex
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As will be concluded by anyone that cares to look into these issues, the government is failing in its promise to regulate private clamping. The reason it is failing to do so is the refusal of the police forces to uphold a common law charge. There is no statutory equivalent and as such there is no justice for people against rogue clamping who use confusing signage and then hold cars hostage. For 15 years the government have been promising to take action on this. First they promised us that they would regulate it with the introduction of the Private Security Industry Act, many months after its introduction, they promised to regulate it by introducing licencing requirements for those involved in clamping, now years later they promise to regulate it by introducing the requirement for licences by companies as well as individuals. All these licenses are doing is providing limited liability for the holders.
In reality the only thing that will work is when they advise the police to accept criminal charges against these extortionists. However they are under instruction ( I presume ) not too, because in my experience, they certainly are unwilling to do so.
Why is is that when our police swear an oath to uphold the common law, that they then fail to take action to prevent people being extorted out of their cars ?
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