Police Apologise After Boasting About Towing Away Disabled Woman’s Van On Twitter

Police have apologised to a disabled woman after wrongly towing away her van and then took to Twitter to BOAST about their ‘achievement’.

Bumbling bobbies seized Leona Dickinson’s van after claiming it had not been taxed, but after she reported it missing they discovered they had taken the wrong vehicle.

However this was not before officers had posted a picture of Leona’s van with a large yellow “untaxed” sign on the windscreen.

Leona, who is registered disabled with crippling arthritis, said she came out of her house in Withernsea, East Yorks., on Friday to find her van was missing.

She was told by a neighbour she had seen it had been towed away and called the police to report her Vauxhall Combo missing.

An officer told her cops had seized the vehicle because it was untaxed, but when Leona, 59, explained her disability tax covered her until October 2017

Police then ran a check on their database and discovered their error.

Leona said: “When I rang the police they told me they had noted it as untaxed and so towed it away.

“I told them I had disability tax and that covered me until October 2017.

“The woman on the phone went to go and check and told me the police officer had towed the wrong car.”

She said after getting off the phone with police Leona was told by her daughter the picture of the car had been uploaded to Twitter.

The photo was tagged with the text: “#Withernsea another untaxed vehicle removed from our streets.”

Leona said: “I couldn’t believe they had put a picture up of my car and it was on Twitter and Facebook.”

“To tow the wrong car and then put it on social media is just beyond me.”

Leona said she had parked the car outside her home on Tuesday evening (January 24), but due to a flare up in her arthritis she didn’t leave the house until Friday lunchtime.

She said: “I went out to get the post and saw my van wasn’t where I’d left it.

“I looked around the street and started to walk out of my door when I saw my neighbour and asked him if he had seen anything.

“It was then he told me he had seen a tow truck and a police officer take the car away. I knew nothing about it.

“What I want to know is when they were going to tell me my car had been towed? I had no letter through the door or anything – it just disappeared.

“If my neighbour hadn’t been outside and told me what had happened I would have reported it to the police as stolen, but in fact it had been stolen by the police themselves.”

A spokesperson from Humberside Police said an error had been made and apology issued.

They said: “The silver Vauxhall Combo was towed away by mistake on Wednesday, January 25, and upon discovering the error we apologised to the owner.

“The car was returned as quickly as possible to prevent any further inconvenience and we are sorry this happened.”