A FATHER-of-three was today battling with a clamping company to prevent his car being towed.

Steve Appleby parked in the privately owned Ringer Road car park in Bromley to go shopping for school shoes with his wife and oldest daughter.

His original ticket expired before they had finished so he bought another one to cover the remaining period.

But when they finally returned to his car he found it had been clamped and a tow truck was already there.

Mr Appleby, of Queensway, Coney Hall, left the ticket on the outside of his vehicle, as the car keys were in his wife's handbag.

He said: "I had put the new ticket under the windscreen wiper.

“I got back just before it expired but it wasn't there, and they had put a clamp on.”

The police were called to the car park to keep the peace and began investigating what had happened to his second ticket by reviewing CCTV footage.

He initially refused to pay the £350 charge to remove the clamp and told his wife and daughter to stay in the car so it could not be towed away.

But after a two hour protest the 46-year-old man agreed to pay so he could drive to collect his two other children from their first day back at Wickham Common School, West Wickham.

He added: "If I had been here by myself I would have stuck round here forever.

"This thing is going to be made illegal and it is diabolical that they can do it.

"I’m definitely going to appeal.

"The police are trying to prove that we walked down here by looking at the CCTV from TK Maxx."

A representative of the clamping company SEC and Associates dismissed claims it has acted unfairly.

He said: "If he puts a second ticket on the outside of the vehicle and it blows away or gets taken then it's his responsibility.

"All we know is that the ticket that was on the car was expired by over an hour.

"If the CCTV can prove he put the ticket on then he has the right to appeal."