A man's car was clamped after he popped in to a chemist's to buy painkillers for his terminally-ill wife.

John Bishop, of Wilmington Road, Seaford, was distraught when doctors told him his wife of just a year, Catherine, 69, had cancer of the brain and lung.

He dropped her off at home after being told the devastating news and drove into Seaford town centre to pick up her prescription for painkillers.

Mr Bishop, 70, returned to his car in Seaford Health Centre car park 15 minutes later to find it was being clamped.

He explained why he had had to go to the chemist but the two men from Eastbourne-based Clampdown Security still charged him £79 to free his car.

Mr Bishop said he had burst into tears.

He said: "I'm not normally a man of tears but on top of everything else it was just too much. I told them I had to go to the chemist's because the hospital hadn't been able to give my wife the drugs she needed but it made no difference."

Seaford Health Centre, which was shut when the car was clamped on a Saturday, has notices warning motorists about clamping but Mr Bishop said he had asked a woman driver in the car park to tell any guards where he was.

He said: "There was a lady there when I parked and she said she had been clamped. I told her I was nipping to the chemist's and she said she'd tell them where I was. I got back and she had told the security guards but they clamped me anyway."

Mr Bishop has received a letter of support from Lewes MP Norman Baker.

In it, he wrote: "The whole operation looks to me to have become less about keeping the car park clear for the centre users but more about raising money for the trust and security by catching motorists unaware at weekends."

A spokesman for Clampdown Security said Mr Bishop had been warned about clamping but had chosen not to take notice.

He said: "There are seven signs up at the site, ours and the medical centre's.

"When he arrived, there was another vehicle there that had been clamped. The lady whose vehicle was clamped told him not to park there or he would be clamped as well."