MILLIONAIRE Stephen Vella was today celebrating "beating the bailiffs" by chaining his car to a digger.

The York property tycoon dramatically defied debt collectors in a tense stand-off after his failure to pay a £5 charge spiralled into a £2,000 bill and talk of prison.

Mr Vella, 47, thwarted the bailiffs by chaining his Vauxhall Zafira to a huge yellow digger, and then chaining himself to the car's steering wheel.

The bailiffs left empty-handed, and Mr Vella said he has not heard from them since.

Mr Vella has now sold his car to a friend for £100 and believes he has emerged victorious from his one-man protest.

The former Scout leader, who made his fortune revamping properties in run-down areas, was outraged when he received a fine for not paying a £5 congestion charge on a business trip to London.

He claimed the charge was not adequately signposted, and refused to pay. Eventually, bailiffs moved in to seize his car from outside his Askham Bryan home, but Mr Vella borrowed a digger from builders working on his property, and locked himself in his car.

For four hours police officers and bailiffs attempted to convince him to give up without success.

Mr Vella contacted the Evening Press on his mobile phone, and later spoke to a reporter through his car window.

Now Mr Vella says that so much time has passed since the stand-off, the bailiffs must have given up and moved on.

He said: "I haven't heard a bean from them. They've just let it die. After they left, I was expecting to hear from them again straight away.

"But it looks like as soon as they realised they had a fight on their hands, they simply gave up. I'm just annoyed about what a waste of time and public money the whole thing was."

Mr Vella has now sold his car to friend and colleague Tim Postgate, from Guisborough, Cleveland, so that bailiffs will no longer be able to seize it.

Mr Postgate said: "Stephen sold the car to me for £100, even though it's worth about £5,000. We helped each other. I took the car off his hands and he gave it to me at a knock-down price.

"I'm pretty chuffed about the whole business. To be honest, I couldn't believe my luck."

Meanwhile, Mr Vella has bought two new four- wheel-drive cars, one for him and one for his wife.

Updated: 11:02 Thursday, January 13, 2005