A BUSINESSMAN who stored a vehicle for Lancashire police for five years without payment has been awarded almost £50,000 including costs after taking the force to court.

Raymond Stansfield agreed to take the stolen Mitsubishi Shogun and store it in his three-storey mill off Farholme Lane, Stacksteads, after it was recovered by officers in 1995.

He said he sent his original bill of £12,000 for storage and towing costs of the vehicle and two trailers to Lancashire Constabulary more than two years ago but when the force refused to pay he took legal action to reclaim the debt which had risen to more than £38,000.

At Preston County Court this week a judge awarded him £38,587 plus interest of £7,717 and costs. Lancashire police bosses are considering an appeal against the ruling and have 28 days to make their decision.

Today Ribble Valley MP Tory Nigel Evans slammed the mix-up which led to the pay-out and said: "Everybody is going to have to pay for this. This is tax-payers' money that could have been better spent on policing the rural areas of East Lancashire. "Somebody is to blame, somebody has to be carpeted. I shall be contacting the Chief Constable to find out what went wrong and what is being done to prevent it happening again."

Mr Stansfield, of Rawtenstall, who was operating his vehicle recovery business from Stacksteads when he took the vehicle, said: "In 1995 the police seized a large number of vehicles in Norden, near Rochdale, and a large number of them were stolen.

"People were prosecuted and went to jail and it took us two days to remove the vehicles from the site. There were six or seven vehicles and a lot of goods and one of the vehicles -- a Mitsubishi Shogun is still in our garage today."

Mr Stansfield said he had a further five cases of a similar nature against Lancashire Police and unless he received payments he would be instituting more court proceeding to reclaim the £80,000 he has incurred storing the vehicles.

He now runs his business R & M Stansfield from Tile Street, Bury, after a series of vandalism and arson attacks on his Rossendale premises.

It is understood Lancashire Police bosses believed Mr Stansfield was storing the vehicle voluntarily and they did not believe there was any agreement to pay him.

Mr Stansfield said: "Some of the vehicles that we removed for the police we would store in our premises for half the cost, but we made it clear when we removed the ones from Norden we would be charging for them."