Intrepid yourfannitinnit newshound Tom Betts has emailed me a link to this video he's put on BoobTube. It appears to show a firm of private clampers preying on an old lady who has had the temerity to leave her vehicle in the Dreamland car park. We know she's over 60 'cos we hear her plead 'The only form of identification I've got is my bus pass' as they ask her to prove whether she's good for the 120 sovs they want to rinse out of her. What makes this seem even more like legalised mugging is the opening shot of the ticket machine - clearly out of order and wrapped in plastic and gaffer tape. Where was she supposed to buy a ticket in the first place?
Tom has obviously filmed this clandestinely, hence the rather Roger Cook style of camerawork. In the clip he is repeatedly told to go away by the irate clamping operative, but manfully stands his ground. Good on yer Tom!
I wonder if the clampdown is run by Probe, the people who are responsible for Dreamland security? If so, it looks like another nice little earner for cat-killing ex-Tory Councillor Ted Watt-Ruffell, and his absentee boss, ex-Tory Councillor Panama Steve Broadhurst!
Update: This story is on the front page of today's (Wednesday's) yourfannitinnit. According to the paper, the clampers are a company called CSS Parking Solutions about whom very little seems to be know, except that they have a postal address at the Kent Innovation Centre in Broadstairs.
Click here to read yourfannitinnit online.
10 comments:
Or some other 'common purpose' graduate within the council, maybe ?
Doesn't ex-Conservative councillor, Watt-Ruffell, work for a clamping company as well as for Probe Security although the clamper filmed doesn't look much like the ex-mayor of Margate. Perhaps he was too busy supporting his former fellow colleagues at the Mayor-making.
This has a smell of deliberate entrapment. As characters like this at Dreamland run a nice little scam to deter visitors to a dying town, please remember that the owners of this set-up ( a derelict Dreamland) have failed to comply with TDC requirements to repair and restore at their cost, a Grade 2 listed Scenic Railway and the whole set up is now in receipt of almost £3,500,000 of tax-payer's money to kick start regeneration and a new Heritage Park (and presumably repair of the Scenic railway. Time for TDC and Trading Standards to investigate?
The story has gone up on YourThanet's website...
http://bit.ly/9z1lWN
have angle grinder, will happily travel.
turn the tables people, chop the clamp into little pieces and pass back to the clampers and let them take you to court for damages.
You are spot on about entrapment and they target older people. They clamped me (age 72!) in the Northdown Pub (redundant) Car Park just before Christmas. The operative was not showing his licence which is against the SIA's conditions and the owner/Agent said he had not authorised the company to clamp on his land. They initially said I could give them a cheque then demanded more and more identification. I had to go to an ATM in a snowstorm. If it happens to you, the important thing is to say that you did not see the Notices and of course you won't have done so because they put them in obscure places. If you did not see the Notices then no legal contract exists between you and the landowner. So watch what you say. I am in the process of taking my case to the Small Claims Court. The company fail to meet most of the provisions of the clamping Code published by the BPA. And now we are getting to the heart of this sleazy operation: those in high places?? Highway Robbery 21st Century style. Only in Thanet.........
24 February 2010 09:44
We can only wonder how low can the insects at Margate crawl. They (the clamper's) need a good probing. Where is a UFO when you need one?
A good probing is one way of putting it!
A good slapping would be another!
I expect all of this is being done with Uncle Jimmy's consent, on the Dreamland site.
That man has no shame.
if you machines has been burnt out i could imagine it was him!
as ted watt-ruffell (cruelty to animals ex mayor) was running dreamland he had been taking 60 pound from each fine given, ted would sit in the blue security container looking out the window waiting for someone to go out without a ticket then he would ring his little unlicenced buddys to clamp the vehicle, he did this for 2 years and never handed over a penny to dreamland owners, he has been asked to leave the site along with the security firm he is involved in, dreamland has been plagued with dodgy behaviour as mr ruffell could often be seen selling bootleg alchohol from the car park, isntit about time this man was removed from thanet ?
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