Clampers chief's 'fire bomb terror'

The boss of a Cannock car clamping company accused of blackmailing motorists wept as she told jurors how an angry driver tried to burn her alive.

Mother-of-one Rebecca Meakin said she hated her job from the first day, suffered abuse on a daily basis and was attacked.

"It was absolutely awful. I can understand people are going to be angry when they are clamped. I was clamped myself in Taunton, but it was my job," she told Stafford Crown Court.

"To sit in your car and have someone try to smash your windscreen and pour petrol in my car and light it, just because they have been clamped – that was an attempt on my life."

She said trading standards officers went to one of the car parks she was operating in Rugeley but only requested another sign.

The prosecution alleges the clamping operation by Rowencroft Immobilisers, run by Meakin, was a scam with motorists "blackmailed" into paying up to £295 to get cars released.

Meakin, aged 27, of Millers Vale, Heath Hayes, denies conspiracy to blackmail. She said she started working as a clamper in January 2006. At first the police were co-operative but, she claimed, things changed after the girlfriend of an officer was clamped.

The trial continues.