Hi, I'm in Coventry and yes I had to pay as I had a customer ring me so needed to get to a job, I'm a self employed 24hr emergency locksmith! Had I of had the time I'd have picked the lock, removed the clamp & handed it back to him but I needed to get gone ASAP.

hi all, this is my first post on this forum, I have looked trhough to see if there is a similar thread, but mine is slightly different I think. Anyway this morning there was a knock at the door, a baliff was standing there saying he wanted to talk to my partner, she was out, but our car which I am using for business at the moment, was parked on the road in front of our drive, this guy had clamped it, which I wasnt too happy about as I am a 24 hr emergency locksmith and my tools and stock were in the boot. I told him to remove the clamp as I need to carry out my work, he refused and said that a tow truck will be coming to take the vehicle away unless my partner or I pay £365 over an unpaid parking ticket. Ok so I didnt know about this ticket as my partner had picked it up a few months ago, however I can understand why she may have forgoton about it as she was going through redundemcy and also both her parents had been taken into hospital, her father was in a bad way and is still in hospital after 6 weeks, so any letters she may have had from the local authority may have gone un-noticed. Also where she was parked, she had parked regulary and used the disabled badges, however the local authority had put in "blue bollards" it turns out these new items were charging points for electric cars and no-one can park there even with a disabled badge, aparently there is a sign there stating no parking but that is on the wall not at eye level and not right by the roadside or by these new charging points, it is on the wall of a building. In the meantime I had a customer call me who had a problem with their lock so I needed to go straight away, he would not remove the clamp until I paid the amount they wanted, even though I produced my business card and offered to show him my tools and stock in the boot. The car is registered in her name, he told me if I can produce a log sheet in my name he would remove the clamp but as the vehicle is in my partners name then she will have to pay it and the clamp stays on! Do I have any recourse with this at all?