Cowboys clampers to be given the boot under new legislation

Cowboy wheel clampers - who will soon be outlawed - could turn their attention to illegal parking tickets instead, the AA have found.

From Monday, it will become a criminal offence to clamp on private land as the Protection of Freedoms Act comes into force.

However, motoring organisations are warning drivers could face bogus parking tickets instead.

Daybreak's Angela Corpe reports.

Cowboy clampers to be outlawed

Transport Minister Norman Baker will announce a ban on clamping and towing away on private land in England and Wales today.

The wheel clamping ban - which will apply in England and Wales, but not Northern Ireland or Scotland - will apply to parking offences on private land only.

Clamping and other means of traffic enforcement carried out on highways and public land by local authorities or the police - or other statutory bodies, such as the DVLA - will remain in place.

The British Parking Association said that for motorists to be able to appeal their parking tickets to the new Parking Appeals Service, the parking operator who gave them a ticket has to be registered to the BPA. However this is not compulsory so often motorists will not be able to appeal.

The ban will mean that anyone who clamps a vehicle or tows it away when it has been parked, wrongly or not, on private land without specific legal permission to do so, is likely to face criminal proceedings or civil sanctions.

The penalties could include fines or jail terms.

However the AA is warning drivers to be particularly vigilant as illegal clampers might try to shift their business to bogus parking tickets on private land.