Car gets wrecked at impound

When Kelsey Dittmer finally got time off work to collect his car from impound, he found it in a ‘‘shocking state’’.

The 2000 Ford Focus stationwagon was damaged when it was moved by a front-end loader at Carterton District Council’s impound yard.

The council has admitted that the car was damaged while it was being relocated, and it had offered to buy the car for $400 – a price Dittmer called ‘‘insulting’’.

He paid $3000 for the vehicle last year and now thought that because the chassis was bent, it could be a write-off.

‘‘I will not be taking the offer. The car was in good condition before it ended up in their yard. It’s only done 200,000km, and if you look online for a similar car, they are around 2 or 3 grand.’’

The car was impounded on May 23 but Dittmer could not afford to take time off work to pick it up and the yard wasn’t open at weekends.

‘‘I couldn’t really believe it when I saw it. I know the car was legally towed but I was pretty pissed off to see the state it was in. The radiator was all bent and I looked underneath and the chassis was as well.

‘‘I got a real surprise when I looked inside and the stereo was gone.’’

The car had been towed because he parked it outside his garage, blocking the footpath outside his house, while he was at work.

Carterton District Council planning and regulatory manager Dave Gittings said they had received Dittmer’s complaint and he confirmed that mistakes had been made.

Gittings said they were reviewing their procedures and that shifting the car with a front-end loader was ‘‘a bit of a dumb move’’.

‘‘It looks like maybe our processes were a bit too loose.’’