Harry Potter star Emma Watson was having a quiet night out with a woman believed to be her mother before it was ruined when her car was towed away by police.

The actress, who played Hermione Granger in the hit films, came into bother after she left her £30,000 Audi A3 ‘illegally’ parked while she drank.

Watson, 33, had apparently failed to spot a ‘no parking’ sign and didn’t realise she had left the vehicle outside a car park entrance in the historic town centre of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire.

A staff member of the pub, who declined to be named, said: ‘She just came in for a few drinks with another person who we believe was her mother.

‘We thought “What is Emma Watson doing in a Greene King pub” – there are nicer, more upmarket places to go in town!

Harry Potter actress Emma Watson’s vehicle was impounded in Stratford-upon-Avon

Watson is said to have pleaded with police not to take her car away during the incident

Watson had been wearing a hat and sitting at a table in the empty section in the front of the pub to keep a low profile. She came in around 9.30pm and left about 11pm

‘Some of the staff were a bit star-struck that she had come in here. We’ve never seen her here before.’

The actress, reported to be worth £67million, is understood to have stuck to a few soft drinks – orange juice.

Her parking oversight led to a furious pizza restaurant manager’s own vehicle being trapped inside the gated compound for three-and-a-half hours.

The frustrated manager – who had finished a 12-hour shift at the Red Hot Mamma pizzeria – trawled local restaurants in a failed bid to locate the owner before calling in police who summoned a tow truck to remove the offending car.

It was only when the blue Audi was being hauled onto a low loader that Watson was alerted to the real-life drama close to the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

Eyewitnesses told how she came ‘flying out’ of the nearby Rose and Crown pub when she realised what was going on before pleading with police not to take her car away.

The millionaire actress and Oxford University student was having a quiet night out with a woman believed to be her mother. Picture shows Watson and her mother Jacqueline Luesby at her graduation ceremony from Brown University in Rhode Island in 2014

Her parking oversight led to a furious pizza restaurant manager’s own vehicle being trapped inside the gated compound for three-and-a-half hours

Watson was photographed when she came out of the pub to try and save her car

Eyewitnesses told how Watson came ‘flying out’ of the nearby Rose and Crown pub where she had been drinking soft drinks – orange juice

Another bartender, who had cleared the glasses from her table, told MailOnline: ‘She had been sitting at the table by the window at the front with her back to the door.

‘Suddenly there was all this commotion outside and she ran out. We weren’t aware at the time but her car was being towed and she must have seen it happening through the window.

‘We felt sorry for her, parking around here is a nightmare and the traffic wardens are the worst.

‘She had only come in for a quiet drink and we later found out that when she in the street pleading for her car not to be taken a big crowd had gathered and people were taking her picture and filming her.’

Photographs obtained by MailOnline show the actress – who was wearing a black French beret and a long dark coat – at the scene with a police officer standing by and the tow-truck driver dressed in high-visibility overalls.

But it appears that no amount of wizardry was going to prevent her car being towed off to the compound as her appeals to be allowed to take back possession of the car fell on deaf ears.

Watson left the vehicle outside a car park entrance in the town centre while she was in the pub