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Blackburn chemist clamped while delivering vital medicine

9:30am Saturday 13th March 2010 in


A BLACKBURN pharmacist has accused a clamping firm of holding him to ransom over the delivery of vital drugs for cancer-stricken patients.

Riaz Hinglotwala, 36, who runs Whalley Range Pharmacy, has hit out after claiming his delivery driver was clamped after parking for just two minutes on a car park owned by Twin Valley Homes.

The driver, Harun Saleh, had left his van with the pharmacy logo and sign-age parked outside Stonyhurst Close, off Montague Street, Blackburn at 3.18pm on Tuesday, while he dropped off ‘urgent medication’ for a psychiatric patient.

But he returned to find his van, which was parked in a residents-only bay, clamped by a National Clamps enforcer.

Mr Hinglotwala said: “My driver put the National Clamps man on the phone and I explained that he needed to be released to carry on his rounds.

“These are very urgent deliveries and he had another 20 in Blackburn to do.

"We are talking about people undergoing palli-ative care who are housebound, others who have cancer and need painkillers, some who need heart medication and also antibiotics.

“I explained all this to him and later complained to his supervisor, but they didn’t care.

“He wasn’t having any of it and just held me to ransom.”

Mr Hinglotwala, who has run the busy pharmacist for more than three years, said he paid the £83 release fee by credit card over the phone to prevent further delay.

Kevin Ruth, executive director of Twin Valley Homes, said: “This is a very unfortunate situation but one that could very easily have been avoided.

“The car parks are clearly marked as “permit parking only” but there is time-limited, on-street parking available as well as public car parks.

“But each household in this area, including non-drivers, is entitled to a visitor’s parking permit, which they can give to one visitor.

"We would advise the pharmacy to speak to their clients to ask them for a visitor’s pass to use in future.”

Trevor Whitehouse, the chairman of National Clamps declined to comment.

Comments(27)

moli says...
10:13am Sat 13 Mar 10

Someone should clamp the clampers car. The bloody moron

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Mikeee47 says...
10:37am Sat 13 Mar 10

These people are leeches on society, they have no brain just a clamp, common sense prevails, they sat park on a nearby st? idiot these vans carry all amounts of drugs, you need to keep an eye on the vehicle or keep it close by, The company who clamped the van should be named & shamed.
More mess the country is in, I thought it was illegal for someone to tamper with you vehicle including clamping or did the Govt' change that law too

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brfcrules says...
12:20pm Sat 13 Mar 10

lets hope when the clampers need urgent drugs, they get a taste of their own medicine. I bet the van would have been clamped by the time the driver got a permit. (no displaying a permit rule!)

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happycyclist says...
12:25pm Sat 13 Mar 10

It's stories like this that make you want to put all your chips on 'karma'.

I really hope the sort of brain-dead, jobsworth morons who do this sort of thing get it all back with interest.

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Michael@ClitheroeSince58 says...
12:36pm Sat 13 Mar 10

The Misery these Idiots cause to people it's a disgrace, also that the Government has done nothing to stop this behaviour. Not to mention how much it costs town centre shops etc. Many towns have become no go areas for motorists.

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lwg76 says...
1:03pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Do not just blame the clampers, The person to blame is the "RUTH"less Brainless Moron in charge of Twin Valley which, as a registered Social Landlord is supposed to be a CARING proffessional organisation.

Read his weasel words about visitors permits. How does a delivery driver get the permit from the resident if the vehicle is clamped in the time taken for the driver to go to the resident obtain a permit and return. Surely this is longer than it takes to make the delivery anyway.
What's next, clamping ambulances while the paramedics are treating residents.

Over to you Ruthless moron.

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Peckish says...
1:06pm Sat 13 Mar 10

was he delivering urgently required pain relief to some poor soul? This would be easy to prove if so, or maybe he was merely delivering "Repeat" perscriptions like many pharmacies do. In which case, he should be subject to the same parking enforcement rules as everyone else. The delivering of perscriptions to the home is a commercial venture not a NHS Service. Mr Hinglotwala I think, is over-stating thing to avoid penalty. Clampers are parasites but it is BwDBC that put clampers there. Maybe if the council didn't hog so may free parking spaces in the town centre and charge so much to the public there wouldn't be any need for a clamping zone in this area

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Scooby says...
1:07pm Sat 13 Mar 10

I'm a lil confused.. residents have visitors passes they can give for someone to use so they dont get clamped. But the car was only there for 2 mins and got clamped. Do Twin Valley expect people to run from their cars, to a house, collect a pass, run back to the car and display it in less than 2 minutes (god help any one with difficulties sprinting) or was there car there for a bit longer than the guy wants to admit?

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burger face says...
3:48pm Sat 13 Mar 10

im glad they got clamped, they should clamp more people who dont know how to park properly,well done clampers you deserve a pay rise

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Stone Island says...
4:04pm Sat 13 Mar 10

burger face wrote:
im glad they got clamped, they should clamp more people who dont know how to park properly,well done clampers you deserve a pay rise
You don't half come out with some rubbish, you do. Are you in competition with Gayzer?

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lwg76 says...
4:07pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Notice the ads for car clampers on this page, does this newspaper get a cut for allowing this

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enoch-powell says...
4:40pm Sat 13 Mar 10

burger face wrote:
im glad they got clamped, they should clamp more people who dont know how to park properly,well done clampers you deserve a pay rise
Totally agree , park within the rules and there will be no problems , more clampers please !!!

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AnimalReid says...
6:30pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Why on earth are we slagging off the clampers??
...
Lots of people make thousands of 'urgent deliveries' every day but they dont abandon cars in the middle of the street or park illegally to do it do they??
...
Where do we stop? - Next it will be 'well I know I was exceeding the speed limit when I ran over the child but I was making an 'urgent delivery' - it was err cancer drugs you know.... - oh thats ok then sir off you go..!!??
...
This sicko pharmacist shouldnt be using his unfortunate clients medical situation to justify him doing whatever he wants. If its that urgent give him a blue light and call him an ambulance.

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retired one says...
6:38pm Sat 13 Mar 10

Has any one else noticed that this article contradicts itself? First of all it says that he was held to ransom over the delivery of vital drugs to cancer patients and then further down it says that he was delivering urgent medication for a psychiatric patient.

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markdown micky says...
7:56pm Sat 13 Mar 10

does an ambulance driver need to get a parking permit too. this is getting too stupid.

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brfcrules says...
9:58pm Sat 13 Mar 10

AnimalReid wrote:
Why on earth are we slagging off the clampers??
...
Lots of people make thousands of 'urgent deliveries' every day but they dont abandon cars in the middle of the street or park illegally to do it do they??
...
Where do we stop? - Next it will be 'well I know I was exceeding the speed limit when I ran over the child but I was making an 'urgent delivery' - it was err cancer drugs you know.... - oh thats ok then sir off you go..!!??
...
This sicko pharmacist shouldnt be using his unfortunate clients medical situation to justify him doing whatever he wants. If its that urgent give him a blue light and call him an ambulance.
It was a residential car park, not the middle of the road, and not parked illegally. The clampers work privately and they wait for people including delivery vans to leave the vehicle even to obtain a permit and then clamp the van. They know that the van has to move so they know they will pay, easy money. I hope the people who make comments such as sicko or they deserved clamping are on the receiving end of requiring urgent meds and its delayed, or been sexually violated by mentally ill patients because they didn't get their meds on time. I know this pharmacy and they deliver meds for free without getting paid privately or by the nhs for this service.

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Whats the Matta says...
1:46am Sun 14 Mar 10

This is one of the reasons why people don't get their parcels. However, a professional delivery driver would've done a proper job and parked on public land (the road) and told any warden to go and find a posi drive to help them insert a 6 inch suitable fixing.

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woodyads says...
1:37pm Sun 14 Mar 10

Good.
I'm glad they got clamped. I'm sick and tired of irresponsible people thinking they can abandon their vehicles anywhere without thinking about other road users. The fact that these parasites have tried to excuse their misdemeanor by carting out the word 'cancer' makes this all the more inexcusable.
How much longer would it have taken to have found somewhere nearby to park? As the guy from Twin Valley said, there was on-street and public parking nearby...
I know which chemist I won't be using in future.

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brfcrules says...
1:49pm Sun 14 Mar 10

woodyads, the van was not abandoned or in the middle of the road, it was in twin valley car park delivering to one of their residents. You try walking around in that area with prescription drugs on you. you will soon get mugged, beaten or worse.

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chrislancs says...
2:05pm Sun 14 Mar 10

The main point here is clamping is illegall in scotland and soon to be outlawed in wales, but in England the first question the authorities ask is, how much can we make out of licenceing this extortian. This is highway robbery a free hand for dubious thugs to extort money from the motorist.
As an English Democrat I find attacks like this on any motorist unacceptable. I wonder how long it will be before we read of a clamper being beaten to death. As fpor the comments of Kevin Ruth perhaps his P45 should be sent to him urgently. He is the type of public servant we dont need. It is high time these people realised that they work for the public and should not be dictating their own agenda with this type of behaviour. Time to call them to account.
Chris Reid PPC
English Democrats
Hyndburn/Haslingden

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tenerc says...
3:56pm Sun 14 Mar 10

for this guy to get clamped he would have had to be in the parking spaces behind the flats, as for on street parking if you don`t park before 9am then forget it all the spaces are taken by college and town center workers (and town hall staff).

i just wish we could get clampers on our road, people park with 70% of there car on the footpath blocking the way for local wheelchair users, who have to use the road, police town hall PCSO look into it and do nothing!!! some days 20+ cars can be park on the road so residents can`t even park outside there own homes, just hope there isn`t an emergency or fire and ambulance would have no chance.

as for the resident, why not use the co-op chemist across the road??

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HarwoodBiker says...
8:46am Mon 15 Mar 10

I don't agree with clamping. It also seems a bit counter-productive - you don't want someone to park there, so you put a clamp on their car meaning they can't move? ...Yeah.

Just get an angle grinder and cut the padlock off. I've done it before and I simply replaced the lock. Cheaper than paying the clamper's fee.

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mak1207 says...
12:39pm Mon 15 Mar 10

i agree with you 100% the consultant

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ste.g says...
1:33pm Mon 15 Mar 10

theconsultant wrote:
Competition is good and im all in favor of it, but this i cannot say for all the new and recently opened local community pharmacies. Having worked within the medical fraternity for sometime now, i have nothing but criticisms regarding the many new local community pharmacies. the working ethic of most of these pharmacies is not in the interest of the patient but rather how many prescriptions can be procured, dispensed, deliverd and how much money can be made. within the medical grapevine i have heard pharmacist establishing liason with docters, doctors/GP's currying favour with particular pharmacies and getting backhand payout in return, pharmacist giving POM medicines in advance and getting a favoured doctor to write a follow up prescrition later without even medically assessing the patient. furthermore many of these new 100 hour pharmacies have little regard for time of day, an elderly patient i recently consulted had her medicnes delivered at 11pm at night! and so i am quite sure these pharmacies will be breaching many professional and ethical etiquttes in the manor in which they conduct there business. The east lancs health trust really need to curtail the amount of pharmacies to whom they are giving a licence and they should be scrutanised and audited vigourously. the purpose of a pharmacy within the community is to enhance the public health within the locality and not be concerned with the the bottom/profit line.
bravo.i could have put it better myself.the guy in question got clamped because you were parked illegally.stop looking for special treatment just because you deliver prescriptions.so do thousands of others.and for the rest of you sympathisers,stop falling for the sob story of his pitiful excuse.

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United!!United!! says...
2:03pm Mon 15 Mar 10

I've got an idea!! Driver should leave the van parked in the middle of the road for two mins with hazards on. The clampers can't do jack as it's not in a parking space. Someone would have to call the cops for that. By the time they arrive, the driver would have left anyway. Result!!.

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HarwoodBiker says...
3:43pm Mon 15 Mar 10

It's got nothing to do with "falling for a sob story" - I simply believe that clamping people is wrong. Why the hell shouldn't he park there? Is it really going to inconvenience anyone if he does? Clampers are all a load of tossers who are only interested in money - as I stated, surely having a van stuck in the space because it's clamped will cause more disruption and inconvenience than ever?

People need to start taking a stand against the kind of morons who think it's OK to immobilise someone's vehicle just because it happens to be parked in the wrong place for a while. Does anyone really care?

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brfcrules says...
10:16pm Tue 16 Mar 10

on speaking to a clamper, he said most social housing is now private (eg twin valley). Most of the residents don't have a car so the car parks are empty. The residents are given visitor passes. They employ private clamping companies as they are not illegal yet in england (illegal in scotland) and the owners get commission on payments. The clamper said that many people are not aware that if you stop on these car parks (not even parking) without displaying a permit (getting one from the resident is not a reason) they will clamp you. They will wait there and intimidate you until you pay. The clamper said he makes the most money on these spots, especially on delivery vehicles.

As for the "consultants" comments above, we know your the harold shipman of blackburn. your just jealous that these new businesses are better and more accessible than older always closed pharmacies around. You call yourself a consultant but I bet your a fake like your comments.....

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