THE POLICE have advised that persons who feel that their vehicles were illegally towed away by wreckers in the presence of the police, to register their complaints with the Police Public Complaints Authority (PPCA).
Constable Jean McDonald of the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) said the PPCA would investigate the legality of such actions done in the presence of the police.
A motorist complained to The Gleaner on Saturday that his car was towed from Princess Street, downtown Kingston, by a wrecker with a policeman seated in it. The motorist said he was in his vehicle at the time.
Richard Oxford, the motorist, who paid the $4,400 fine at the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation's (KSAC) pound, said that after leaving a store on Princess Street, he saw a wrecker near his car and quickly got in the car to prevent it being towed.
"The wrecker operator told me to go ahead inside and sit," he said. "At this time nothing had been attached to my car yet. He went up to the policeman and then returned and told me that $3,000 'would settle it'. I told him that I didn't have it, so they dragged the car with me in there to the KSAC pound. At the pound, the person in charge said that as long as there was a police officer present, there was nothing they could do."
He said that he had been advised by a police officer that, as long as a policeman was present, he should have been issued with a ticket for parking in a no-parking zone and face the court thereafter, if he decided not to pay the fine.
A similar incident was reported on Wednesday in Montego Bay, where a couple and their sick baby were left stranded in the rain after operators of a police wrecker ordered the woman from the vehicle before towing it away.
The newspaper reported that though the car was in a no-parking zone, the owner felt that he should have been issued with a traffic ticket rather than having the mother and child ordered from the car. He had to pay $2000 to have it released. Constable McDonald said that she had never heard of such an incident, and thus didn't know whether it was illegal or not (to tow away the vehicle).
"It's not something that is usually practised, and I'm sure that the other side would have another explanation," she said. "However, if something like that truly happened, the PPCA can find fault and do justice where necessary."
The 10-year-old PPCA was set up as an independent body with powers to investigate allegations of misconduct by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and its auxiliaries against members of the public.
