Car clamper faces ASBO

A car clamper accused of "aggressive and intimidating behaviour" is facing an anti-social behaviour order, a council said today.

Carstoppers' employee George McDicken, 38, is the subject of hundreds of complaints over his conduct at car parks in the picturesque village of Haworth on the edge of the Pennine moors in West Yorkshire.

Local traders have complained over many years that excessive clamping was hitting tourism in the area, which was made famous by the Bronte sisters.

In 2003 Carstoppers won the RAC Dick Turpin Award for the nation's worst clamper.

The company reportedly immobilised one car while the driver was asleep inside and showed no sympathy to a wheelchair user and her husband who arrived late after struggling up a hill.

An interim hearing at Leeds Magistrates Court tomorrow will hear evidence against McDicken, of Ling Park Approach in Wilsden, near Bradford, and decide whether or not to support the application.

A spokesman for Bradford Council said: "The Asbo application has been brought following numerous complaints to the police and ourselves over a long period of time.

"The case is not actually against the clamping, which is legal, it is the behaviour that goes with it."

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: "The application comes as a result of complaints against the man in relation to his activities as a wheel clamper in the Haworth area."

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