Certainly I believe the proposals in the Protection of Freedoms Bill to allow 'keepers' to be penalised to be outrageous. In my view the BPA and SIA have done little to control the 'rogue clampers' and sadly I'd have little confidence in them being sufficiently competent to properly and fairly police the sort of incident you describe. The Labour Govt. was planning to help clamping victims by tinkering with the Appeals Process. Sadly I doubt whether many victims would have bothered to appeal.

I had to deal with a couple who'd not realised that the Cedar Lane car park had changed hands in Dec. 2009 and was no longer offering 'two hours free'. Their Motability car was clamped. They did not have £125 to their name; the car was towed to the clampers depot in Newhaven; the eventual cost was some £600. Would they have appealed? I doubt it. Neither would the recently bereaved widow who was clamped when she visited the Frimley undertakers (on complaining she was told "people die, don't they?”).

Despite this I understand that the Governing Bodies have given a clean report to the Cedar Lane clampers. I'm asking our Trading Standards officers for their views on the proposals you describe below.