COWBOY clamper firm LBS could be charged with demanding money with menaces, after being exposed on BBC consumer show, Watchdog.

The programme, broadcast last night, included film of Southend-based LBS Enforce-ment being caught out by Watchdog’s Rogue Traders team. The team regularly works undercover and is secretly filmed exposing dodgy practices.

In an ironic twist, the team not only caught LBS apparently using illegal clamping tactics, but went on to clamp LBS boss Matthew Boosey’s own car.

The programme invited victims of the clampers to a meeting at St Michael and All Angels church hall in St Walter Raleigh Drive, Rayleigh, to hear their experiences at the heavy hand of the clampers.

They filmed one of the programme’s researchers leaving her car in a private car park in Chadwell Heath,which is monitored by LBS.

Like many other victims across Essex, her car was blocked in by the company’s red van. She was then told she’d have to pay £435 before the firm would let her drive off.

Watchdog showed its footage to solicitor Tim Cary, who specialises in this area of the law. He said the excessive fee demanded by LBS meant it could be regarded as demanding money with menaces – a form of blackmail.

He told Watchdog viewers: “I’m appalled by what I’ve just seen. It’s wrong. Clampers have been prosecuted and quite rightly have gone to prison for blackmail.”

Mr Cary was referring to a 2005 case in Bristol in which two clampers were convicted under the blackmail laws.

They trapped motorists by blocking them in with a van, and then demanding up to £300 to be released. In the past, the Echo has reported cases in which LBS has demanded as much as £900 from south Essex drivers to have their vehicles freed.

Watchdog presenter Matt Allwright said: “It’s unbelievable a firm like this is allowed to practice what looks very much like blackmail.

“Clamping on private land has gone on for too long and it’s time for it to stop.”

The BBC team also turned the tables on LBS director Matthew Boosey, who lives in Wickford. Undercover reporters pretended to be interested in hiring his company and met him in a pub near Chelmsford.

Mr Boosey left his car in the pub car park – ignoring signs put up by the team, warning it was private land and parking was not allowed. The team then hired another clamping company to clamp his car.

Mr Boosey was furious when he returned to his clamped car, after reporters had revealed their true identities and questioned him about LBS’s practices. He reportedly called the police to complain about his treatment and the team gave him a key.

On the show, Mr Boosey denied the allegations of blackmail. When the Echo contacted LBS, a staff member refused to comment.