A man who lives in a car has had his home seized by police and they are refusing to give it back.

Former mechanic Alan Dubery - known as Mad Al - usually spends the night in his L-reg Vauxhall Astra in a registered parking space by Brighton's West Pier.

But for the last four nights he has had to sleep anywhere he can because police have locked up his car in their pound.

Mr Dubery, who was raided by police in the early hours of Tuesday morning when he was parked in Whitehawk, has been told that the only officer who knows where the keys are is on holiday and will not be back until today (Sat).

In the meantime he has been forced to sleep some of the time in Brighton Sailing Club, where he works part time.

The 51-year-old said: "At the moment I am still homeless. The car is in Shoreham, the keys are apparently in a folder somewhere else and the policeman who is the only one who knows where they are is on holiday.

"I have had to walk up to a friend's house, and I slept in the sailing club."

Until 1999 Mr Dubery, a former car mechanic, lived in a council house with his French partner, but she moved back to France and he was left homeless. Since then he has been living in cars.

He works at the sailing club, looking after the boats and the cafe, and as the "Robin Hood of the computer world", fixing up computers to give to poor families in Whitehawk and Moulescoomb.

The police officer who raided him on Tuesday at 3am found three laptops and about 14 old mobile phones, given to him by friends. The officer also found knives, tools including bolt croppers and some cannabis.

Mr Dubery says he is sometimes affectionately called Mad Al because he chooses to use his skills to help others instead of taking a highly paid job with a computer firm.

He said: "On the raid our trusted boys in blue found a some cannabis, some knives, bolt croppers, a hammer, about 14 mobiles and three laptops.

"The sort of collection of things you may have at home if you work at the seafront with boats and locks. But the assumption must have been that I was going equipped. So they banged me in the cell and banged the car in the pound."

Mr Dubery said he was on hunger strike until police gave back his home. Although known to many people in the city, he believes the officer who detained him had not heard of him. Mr Dubery had fallen asleep with his TV, a 17in flat screen he runs in the passenger window from an old car battery, still on, which he thinks attracted police attention.

His car is regularly full of computer components, and he sometimes works through the night tinkering with hard drives and circuits.