Sussex drivers have to pay £1 million a year to recover their stolen or crashed vehicles from police pounds.

Police say people can recover the cash from insurance companies and that they carry out forensic tests while the cars are in the pound.

If such checks help catch criminals then they are undoubtedly worthwhile.

However, this is of little comfort to victims such as Ben Reeves, who had to pay £117 to get back his stolen moped which was impounded by police who recovered it following its theft on Christmas Day.

Ben felt he had been dealt a double blow, first by the thieves then by police who made him fork out his Christmas money to pay the fees to recover his moped - which had been left a wreck anyway.

It is bad enough drivers have to suffer the loss of their possessions but paying out again makes them feel doubly aggrieved, whatever the reason for impounding their vehicles.