A man fears a van full of his personal belongings was crushed after being towed way for being illegally parked.

Mounthou M'Baye, 32, a chef, was storing items worth about £5,000 in the van while he was moving house.

Among them were two Zulu spears and a statue of Tutankhamun which he bought as mementos from travelling the world.

Two stereos, a television, his girlfriend's jewellery and photographs of his family were also among the items inside the vehicle.

The van had been parked in the Enterprise Point car park, Lewes Road, Brighton, for four months after breaking down.

Mounthou and the van's owner Mick Kinton, 42, are in a band together and use Enterprise Point to rehearse.

They say they had been assured by people in the building that the van would be safe even though signs warned vehicles could be clamped.

But when Mick went to the car park last week, the van had disappeared.

Mounthou called scrap yards in the area and tracked it down to Jordan's in North Quay Road, Newhaven.

It had been brought in the previous Thursday and flattened.

Mounthou has lived in Brighton for 13 years but is originally from Senegal, where much of his family still live.

He said: "I feel cheated, as if I have been burgled. I have no idea where the stuff is. It might have been crushed.

"It's not the stereos or television I am worried about, because I can always buy new ones. It's the other things that would be of no value to anyone else but me.

"You could give me a million pounds but it would never give me back those photographs of my family or the things I picked up in Egypt and Africa."

Nobody at Jordan's or Enterprise Point knows if Mounthou's belongings were inside the vehicle when it was crushed or who was responsible for towing it away.

Jordan's manager Alan Johnson said: "We do not check through all the vehicles brought into us because that is not our job."

Oakley Commercial, which manages Enterprise Point, did not authorise the towing of the van and is looking into who was responsible.

A spokesman said: "We did not authorise the removal of this vehicle. However, the car park is for tenants and visitors to Enterprise Point so the van should not have been there. We will investigate further."

Mick said he would have removed it had he been warned it would be destroyed.

He said: "I was never warned it was going to be crushed. I admit the van's insurance and MOT had run out and it would have cost me a lot to get back on the road.

"But the priority is not the van, it's getting Mounthou's stuff back."

Police have confirmed they recorded the van as stolen.