A driver was left baffled after police threatened to impound her car because it was parked illegally.

Julia Keddle

The vehicle had been moved by city council staff, who had forgotten to put it back.

Officers woke freelance writer Julia Keddle, pictured below, at her home in Crescent Road, Temple Cowley, Oxford, at 11.30pm.

Bewildered and still in her nightie, Ms Keddle, 42, told the police she had parked legally in nearby Leafield Road, under a tree.

But she was dumbfounded to discover the Rover 214 had mysteriously moved into a neighbour's driveway and was blocking the entrance to his home.

Police refused to believe her protests.

She said: "I got quite upset and thought I was going mad.

"When I got home I cried. I had thought something terrible had happened to my mother when the police knocked on my door so late."

But a neighbour confirmed she had seen the car under the tree that afternoon.

Ms Keddle noticed sawdust on the road and signs that a branch had been lopped off the tree under which she had parked.

At first, Oxford City Council denied carrying out work in Leafield Road.

But later the authority admitted staff had moved the car and forgotten to put it back.

Andrew Parsons, parks and green spaces manager, said his staff would be advised to make more effort in future to identify a car's owner before moving it, and reminded that they also had to follow rules under the Road Traffic Act.

He said: "Our first priority was the tree, which had a dangerous branch that needed to come down.

"We're able for health and safety reasons to move a car.

"But the reality is we should have made more efforts to find out who it belonged to."