Tow truck workers get into a mess with a Merc

It's the moment every towaway worker - and vehicle owner - dreads.

Right in the middle of being hoisted on to the truck, something goes wrong with the delicate operation.

The front end of the car plunges and it is left dangling inches above the ground.

And this is no old banger - it's a £55,000 Mercedes S-Class.

The drama took place in London Road, Morden. Contractors from Transport for London were called to the scene by a parking attendant who spotted an illegally parked car during rush-hour.

The towaway team, in dayglo vests, arrived minutes later and began what appeared to be a routine operation - before it all went horribly wrong.

The silver Mercedes was feet above the ground when the vehicle overbalancedand it nosedived towards the road. As it hung in mid-air and frantic workers tried to find out what had gone wrong, a crowd gathered to watch the spectacle - and traffic piled up behind the obstruction.

Peter Sutton, who was passing by, said: "They didn't have a clue what to do - it was just hanging there. Everyone was waiting to see if it would slip out of the hoist and crash down altogether.

"Because of the crazy angle of the car they couldn't put it on the tow-truck without damaging it. But they couldn't put it on the road either in case it crashed down."

Half an hour later, a second tow-truck arrived, sparking heated debate between the two crews. "By now there was chaos on the roads," said Mr Sutton. "These guys are meant to prevent congestion but they were blocking off an entire lane. There was gridlock and lots of annoyed drivers. No one could believe it."

After an hour the towaway teams managed to nudge the Mercedes upright by resting its underside on one of their trucks as the hoists were hastily readjusted. "After all that they didn't even take it away - they just put it back where it was parked in the first place," said Mr Sutton. "There was no visible damage but who knows what happened under the bonnet? It's likely the oil and petrol would have run into the air filters - cars aren't meant to be dangled like that." A TfL spokesman said: "Regretfully, operator error caused the vehicle load to overbalance. The car was returned, undamaged, to its owner at the scene and the operator concerned has undergone retraining."