An insurance company blunder led to mum Mandy Worthen having her car clamped and being fined £1,300.

However, when a crown court appeal judge heard her plight he sympathised and slashed her penalty by almost £1,000.

Gloucester Crown Court heard that Mrs Worthen, of York Close, Monmouth, was clamped on 6th January this year when she parked her car in Gloucester street, Coleford without a tax disc.

She had tried twice in the previous two days to tax the Citroen Picasso car on line after arranging insurance for it. But the DVLA had not received confirmation of insurance and 'the computer said No' when she tried to tax it, the court was told.

Prosecutor Tim Hills said that on January 6th Mrs Worthen took a risk and parked in Coleford knowing she had not been able to get it taxed.

Council enforcement officer Darren Collier saw there was no tax disc and clamped her. When she arrived at the car she told him what had happened.

He was able to see on his hand-held computer that she had indeed made two applications for tax," said Mr Hills.

"Unfortunately she had committed the offence and there was nothing Mr Collier could do."

Mrs Worthen told the court it had cost her £100 to get the vehicle unclamped. She had then had to pay a further £250 because she did not produce a tax disc to the clamping authority within the next 10 days.

The case went before magistrates and, when she did not attend the hearing, the court fined her £600 for having no tax in force for the car and also ordered her to pay back duty of £340 for the period since it had last been taxed.

Mrs Worthen told the court that she had not taxed the car since April 2010 because it was off road and she was using another vehicle.

However, the other car broke down so she decided to transfer the insurance to the Picasso and tax it, she said.

However, because the insurance change was not notified to the DVLA she was refused tax.

Allowing her appeal against sentence, Judge Jamie Tabor QC said: "This is an object lesson in why people should go to the magistrates court when they are summonsed otherwise the full facts are not made known.

"In this case the magistrates could only go by what they read and they passed sentence accordingly. All they knew was there was a lady driving a car without tax and they took a very dim view."