An owner/driver has described his attempts to retrieve his trailer after Midlands police mistakenly towed it away as an "utter nightmare", and is fighting for a refund. Chris Daniel says he was an innocent victim of DVLA heavy-handedness and is now demanding £1,030 back that he had to spend to retrieve his 30-foot tipping skeletal trailer.
The Redditch-based driver parked his vehicle on a local industrial estate, but another haulier later coupled an un-taxed ERF truck cab to it and left
it for the police to find. He has now disappeared. Daniel says it took him two weeks to establish what happened to his vehicle, then he had to pay for 58 days' storage charges, plus a £160 recovery fee.
He says: "I have paid for the recovery of the ERF and its storage. I don't think it's fair. I am pursuing the police to get my money back, but I'm fighting with one arm tied behind my back. I reported it stolen, but it took me two weeks to discover it hadn't been stolen at all, it had been recovered. Nobody bothered to tell me."
When CM contacted the DVLA and asked if Daniel would receive a refund, we were told it was a matter for West Mercia Police. A spokeswoman for West Mercia Police says: "It was hitched to an untaxed cab. We were acting as the DVLA's agent, as part of a recognised recovery scheme to recover untaxed vehicles from public roads. The matter of reclaiming is an issue for the DVLA. They need to take it up with the wheel clamping operator."
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