A furious motorist is demanding compensation from the DVLA after contractors wrongly clamped her car for being untaxed.

Debbie Southfield, 44, was due to set off early for work on Sunday morning from her home in Dickens Avenue, Canterbury, when she found her vehicle being immobilised.

Despite remonstrating with the clampers and insisting her Vauxhall Zafira was legal, they refused to budge and demanded £260 to release it, plus a £100 fine and the “unpaid” tax.

They even warned her it would be towed away if she did not paid within 24 hours.

"It’s cost me two days’ wages amounting to £136 and a whole load of stress. The least the DVLA can do is compensate me for loss of earnings" - Mrs Southfield

Because it was a weekend, she couldn’t contact the DVLA to get through to officials to confirm she had paid her road fund licence .

It meant Mrs Southfield, who works as a kitchen assistant in Dungeness, had to make an embarrassing call to her employer to apologise for not coming in.

She said: “It’s made me angry and upset because I knew I had paid and offered to show the clampers the proof but they weren’t interested.”

On Monday the mother-of-three called the DVLA and claims that she was passed “from pillar to post”.

She said: “Finally they admitted my car was taxed after all and said the contractors would be back to remove the clamp that morning.

“They came and did it really quickly and then just shot off in their van without a word.

“It’s cost me two days’ wages amounting to £136 and a whole load of stress. The least the DVLA can do is compensate me for loss of earnings for their mistake, but I haven’t even had an apology.”

A DVLA spokesman said: "We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to Mrs Southfield who did exactly the right thing in taxing the vehicle as soon as she bought it.

"We process 44 million vehicle tax transactions each year and cases like this are very rare.”