A frail granddad was left "hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably" after what his family said was equal to being "bullied" by bailiffs who clamped his car.
Gordon Seager, 94, was rushed to Arrowe Park Hospital on November 8 after being "hounded for weeks" by bailiffs who clamped his car over a parking ticket he said he did not know he had.
The retired steel worker, who suffers from angina and lives on a double-pacemaker, suffered a major panic attack after receiving a letter from Newlyn PLC, acting on behalf of Wirral Council, threatening legal action for removing the clamp - even though the device was still attached to his car. Wirral Council has since said the ticket was correctly issued but since evidence of Gordon's vulnerability was sent it has been cancelled.
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His daughter Rachael, 43, said: "We thought he was dead. His grandkids were sobbing. It was horrific."
Gordon's car was clamped outside his Rock Ferry home on October 28, with bailiffs citing an unpaid parking ticket dating back to March this year. The grandad-of-six has a disabled badge - vehicles with disability badges cannot legally be clamped.
Rachael said: "I came in and he was having a panic attack. He had gone to his car and there was a clamp put on it and a sign saying it was done at 7.18am. We'd had no knock on the door, no call at the house, nothing.
"He has his disabled badges under his visor. It's illegal to clamp a car with disabled badges.
"He was having an angina attack with the stress. He couldn't breathe. He was panicking. He was hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably. It was horrendous."
Gordon missed a routine blood test as a result of the clamp, and Rachael said she had to miss three days of work in order to drive him to hospital appointments.
She called Newlyn PLC, and said she was told a staff member had visited her father's house on a date in September to warn him about the clamp and the accompanying £424 fine - but she said when she checked his CCTV for that date, she found nobody had called.
She also got in touch with Wirral Council's parking department. She said: "We were ringing Wirral Council and the bailiffs and getting nowhere.
"My dad's got a double pacemaker. He can't walk very far. He's really not well. We messaged everything over and sent proof he was disabled. We were boomeranged back and forth between the council and bailiffs."
She got in touch with her local Traffic Enforcement Centre about obtaining a hold order to prevent the bailiffs taking further action while she tried to sort things out - but when she contacted Wirral Council on November 7, she was told they had not received it.
She said: "The next day we get a letter off the bailiffs saying my dad was being charged with criminal damage because he had the clamp cut off his car. At this point, my dad had a major issue because of the stress, got blue-lighted into Arrowe Park Hospital and he didn't come out until five days later.
"The hospital was amazing, the paramedics were amazing - I can't thank them enough because we literally thought we were going to lose him."
In desperation, Rachael turned to a support group for people struggling with bailiffs, and after sending Gordon's medical documents to Newlyn via WhatsApp, the clamp was finally removed on November 15.
She said: "My dad is the most old-fashioned, well-behaved man. He never misses a payment. If he had known anything about the ticket he would have paid it. But the fact that he has been put through this is unfair. It's bullying and scaring old people.
"If my dad didn't have his family around him, it would have taken his life away. His car is his last lifeline, his last link to independence, and to do that to him is cruel.
"All they did was bully and threaten an old man to try to pay £424. I don't want anybody to go through what my dad had to go through, ever. It's wrong."
A spokesperson for Wirral Council said: “The council followed the standard procedure after a parking penalty was correctly served. Once evidence of vulnerability was submitted and confirmed the penalty was cancelled.”
Newlyn PLC has been approached for comment.
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