A WAR veteran is demanding police 'do their job' by taking action against illegal wheel-clampers targeting disabled drivers.

Des Dodd, 53, was incensed after seeing a disabled couple in their 70s being clamped while visiting Northgate Medical Centre.

Mr Dodd, registered disabled due to Gulf War syndrome, knew from researching the law - after he was clamped at the surgery - that immobilising a blue badge holder was illegal.

He had difficulty persuading passing police officers - who at first didn't want to get involved - to get the clamp removed under the Private Security Industry Act 2001.

Mr Dodd, formerly of Blacon, said: 'I had to swear at the officer, it was the only way I could think of to get him to act. He threatened to arrest me but I said I would pay that price if it made them do their job.'

Mr Dodd says if Cheshire police won't take action against the clampers, who charge a £70 release fee, then land owners Chester City Council or leaseholders Watkin Jones should refuse to allow them to operate there in future.

Victim Raymond McGrail, 71, of Westminster Park, Chester, said he was 'terribly grateful' to Mr Dodd. He said the clampers must have been 'lying in wait' since he and his wife, the blue badge holder, were only in the surgery 10 to 15 minutes.

He said: 'I have never liked clampers and I like them even less now. When they came to take the clamp off they were bolshy and quite surly. They were not nice.'

Sergeant Andy Pickup of Cheshire police said city centre officers were aware of clamping legislation but not necessarily all officers called into Chester were. He confirmed the clampers had acted 'outside the SIA (Security Industry Authority) regulations'.

He did not have enough information to say why further action was not taken against the clampers.

The medical centre has just four spaces within a larger car park and has had concerns for years that vulnerable patients, doctors and nurses have been victims.

Practice manager Clare Farr said a daughter rushed her elderly mum, on Warfarin with a bleeding leg, to the surgery and had her car clamped.

'When she came crying back into the surgery the receptionists watched as two clampers sat there laughing their heads off,' said Mrs Farr.

A district nurse nipped in to the pharmacy to collect a prescription for a terminally-ill patient and was deliberately blocked by the clamper van as they struck on another occasion.

Chester MP Christine Russell is aware of one 'appalling' case where a woman on crutches passed a clamper who did not advise her she could not park there and she returned to find her car clamped.

Gill Williams, sales director with Watkin Jones, who employ the clampers, said: 'We need the space for our staff and we have a lot of meetings to do with the Gorse Stacks development. We took the clampers off once but within two days we couldn't park.' Landowners Chester City Council said it was Watkin Jones responsibility as they have a 200-year lease.

North West Clamping, who operate at the site, do not take calls from The Chronicle.