A RETIRED factory worker from Clitheroe is helping to spearhead a national campaign targeting cowboy car clampers.

Alan Smith's experiences have been highlighted by motoring organisation the RAC, and the firm involved is in the running for a Dick Turpin Award for highway robbery.

Alan, 60, of Chatburn Road, claimed clampers demanded £140 from him, even though a notice on his car stated the fee for its release was £80.

He left the car on spare land in Clayton Street, Blackburn, in June. He admitted seeing the clamping sign, but thought he would be safe because it was late at night.

He said: "They must have been waiting, because I was clamped within 15 minutes."

A notice on the window of Mr Smith's Renault Megane asked for £80 to free the car and gave a number for a clamping firm.

Mr Smith continued: "I rang the number and a man turned up, but asked me for £140 cash. When I remonstrated, he said it would go up to £200 in 10 minutes.

"I was staggered, but he wasn't a bloke to argue with and I had no choice but to go to a cash machine and get the money.

"He could have asked for what he liked and there was nothing I could have done.

"My heart goes out to anyone in this situation."

The clamping firm is listed by Companies House at an address in Duckworth Street, Darwen, but there was no-one at the office today and a nearby trader said, as far as she knew, the company had moved.

The firm has also failed to respond to letters, or phone calls, from Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans, who has taken up the matter, and the Lancashire Evening Telegraph.

The recent clamping of a police car while officers were on a missing person hunt has prompted the RAC to canvas the nation's motorists for their tales of suffering.

Nightmare cases include a clamper in London who impounded a car without notifying the owner then gave it to his daughter to drive, a hearse clamped with a dead body in the back, and clampers in Doncaster who threatened to hold a mother's three-year-old daughter ransom until she collect £60 from the bank.

Mr Smith's case is to be included in a dossier being compiled by the RAC for presentation to the Government's Security Industry Authority.

RAC executive director Edmund King said: "Cowboy clampers have been getting away with legalised mugging for too long. We want to find the UK's worst clamper to expose the merciless and mercenary tactics used by some of these individuals.

"These companies are often a one-man band with a mobile phone and a couple of clamps, and therefore hard to trace."

Mr Evans MP said: "Mr Smith is one of the many victims who have fallen completely at the mercy of clampers and it is simply unacceptable."