A North Yorkshire father-of-three is furious after his stranded wife and young sons experienced "a total, unmitigated disaster" with the Automobile Association.

Thomas Ivison, 14, of Kirby Wharfe, holds the nail that punctured the tyre as mum Jacqui stands by the side of their car

Company director Stephen Ivison, of Kirby Wharfe, near Tadcaster, has slammed the AA's claim to be "the fourth emergency service" after his wife, Jacqui, and sons Thomas, 14, and Toby, 10, were left in limbo for almost two hours following the family's first ever breakdown callout of the service.

He is demanding a full refund of his £180 annual membership fee and is considering legal action.

He said: "This whole incident was a total nightmare and I am absolutely appalled by the way the AA dealt with it and the fact it took so long to get help."

His wife and sons were heading back from Selby on Tuesday when their Isuzu Trooper 4x4 got a flat tyre after it ran over a metal spike on a lane between Biggin and Church Fenton.

Mrs Ivison called the AA at 4.07pm and was told help would be with her within the hour.

She called her husband at his York office, who then rang the AA to see if help was on its way.

Despite sharing the same policy as his wife, he was told that no information could be released because of the Data Protection Act.

He then rang the AA's complaints line but got nowhere.

A passing traffic policeman, who came to Mrs Ivison's aid, got staff at his control room to phone the AA but was told the matter had been passed to a local recovery firm.

So when help arrived just before 6pm it was not the uniformed AA patrol Mrs Ivison had expected but a mechanic who struggled to change the wheel.

Mrs Ivison said: "It just threw me completely because as a woman on your own you feel comfortable with a uniformed AA man and that's who you expect. The whole thing was a fiasco."

Just weeks earlier when the couple's RAC membership lapsed, they had joined the AA after being impressed by the company's reassuring TV ads which said it was "the fourth emergency service" to its members and responded quickly, particularly to lone women.

Mr Ivison said: "We feel completely ripped off."

The AA apologised and blamed the delay on an administrative error, which it was investigating.

An AA spokesman said: "This is in no way typical of AA response times - our average arrival time for 1999 is 33.8 minutes.

"We make every effort to send an AA liveried patrol to our members, but this is not always possible if local AA patrols are assigned to other jobs. On these occasions we despatch an AA approved local garage agent."

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