Its been many years since I worked for a bank, but back then the bank was responsible for verifying the signiature on a direct debit mandate was correct. A second check, that the DD looked believable, would probably not have flagged up this one, but under what rational system can the bank accept a DD without corroborated authorisation from the account holder?

And as for the DP act being blamed...rubbish. If its between the bank and its customer, its confidential between those two. If its anyone sles, its fraud, and since when did the DP act protect criminals?

I suggest Clarkson should start poking his bank with a big stick until they explain how it hapenned.