Its always good to have some well-grounded facts. If you are going to argue these kinds of things on the fly one day with opposition barristers, its easier to do when you are on firm footing. Still someone's perception is someone's perception, and sorting out someone's perception from opinion or fact is never easy. I'm inclined to think he flew to the van with the credit card. But in court I would just say 'he went really quickly'. Its different styles for different venues. You'd be a good person to test an argument on, to see if it is Judge Proof :/

My friend had the same thing with SheerFarce. I even showed her photos of suspects taken straight off the website. It was none of them, and the name on some paperwork is not listed on the AHCEO website either.

Hahahaha! Thats so funny! Well then, they won't mind if you pay your creditor direct. They can always ask the creditor for their fees. I suspect, once the creditors are on the recieving end of demands from their own bailiffs, it will be an interesting learning experience for them. Sorry I can't help you with the charges all that much. I'm in a similar situation myself and would love a definitive answer.

I edited my message above to include more information. A miscarriage of justice can generally be undone. I was serious about the law books, BTW. Does your son read at all? He needs to know how to defend himself from this kind of thing. I know whereof I speak. I had about 20 years where the police were always after me for something or other because I lived in a part of town where they assume everyone is a criminal. Plus I like to thump sex pests instead of running away. Police like to charge the winner. Which is always me. The police were a bigger problem than the sex pests. If they don't get you, they try even harder next time. They make stuff up and they get personally offended if you know the law. I've had judges seriously tear into these 'people'. In the end, it gets to be fun. Your day in court. The opposition always assume you will plead guilty - then when they have to explain themselves - ooh how things change! Another precaution I have taken these days is to get myself a pair of recording sunglasses. You can get them off a well-known auction site. They record sound and vision through a pinhole camera. This means I no longer have to prove what happened or beg for CCTV footage. If your son is under sustained attack by the local plod, I suggest he gets a pair. If he'd had a set when the police officer started abusing him, things would be a whole lot different right now.

(3) It is a defence for the accused to prove— (a) that he had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress, or (b) that he was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that the words or behaviour used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation displayed, would be heard or seen by a person outside that or any other dwelling, or © that his conduct was reasonable. If you make the wrongful conviction go away, so will the bailiffs, and this will avoid those tricky liability issues. A police officer behaving this way cannot possible be distressed when he gets what he gives, and your son's behaviour was reasonable. If anyone saw the incident, they need to swear in a statement - perhaps at this late stage because they 'have only just been located'. Then use whatever appeal proceedures there are. It should be the state paying *you* for this, not the other way round. The law is there as a boundary. You can't prosecute someone for being close to the boundary, they have to cross it otherwise there is no point having laws in the first place. If the speed limit in an area is 40 mph, you can't be prosecuted for going 20.

It sounds to me like he was not guilty in the first place. Any police officer behaving like that could not possibly have been distressed by being told what he is. Was he pressurised into 'pleading guilty to get it over with'? If hes the sort of rebel who just likes being a pain, tell him from me he can make a far bigger pain of himself if he reads law books

Unless you are able to record your calls, don't phone. Email.

The bailiff will be coming back no matter who you pay. Sort of like a playground bully. But this way you pay less. First thing to remember is bailiffs lie. All the time. They are after the most fees possible. A nice shiny car wouldn't go amiss either. Even if you pay them for the next ten years, they'll stuff up their proceedures then claim you defaulted, stick on bogus fees etc. They are not interested in you paying off the debt, they are interested in you stuffing up. And they take their fees first. They do all this because you have a debt. They are on far more shaky ground if you do not. So clear it direct with the company. Photocopy the log books or whatever else you have that proves your sister owns the cars. Hand this through your letterbox next time they call. Personally, I'd also stick photocopies of these next to the tax disc. This will make the bailiff very sad. He will probably have a tantrum. Do have a video camera ready as many people will find this entertaining. If fact, I think we ought to run a competition for the best tantrum by a bailiff caught on camera. Don't open your door though, film through a closed window.

Then send your creditor a cheque for £750 or anything really, and don't tell them what its for till after they cash it. Could you explain more about the panic, I don't really get it. Like what exactly had you panicking and how ringing the bailiffs will help. Sorry if that seems like a rude question, but I've seen people panic a bit over the years but I'm never quite sure what is going on. Most people on here are quite desperate when they arrive, but after a bit of research and counselling they sort of know the process for getting bailliffs off their back and they stick to it because thats what they want and the process works. Once in a while it doesn't happen but its usually because they weren't in and someone else answered the door or a similar cockup. Is there anything we could have said that would have stopped you picking up the phone and offering your money to the bailiffs? Feel free to ignore this question.

That will still be on file at the council, with any luck. 'Subject access request under the data protection act' time, I think. Don't tell them why you need it, just ask for everything they hold on you for the year you sent the letter.

Who is the bailiff company? What was the debt for? Did she sign anything? And no, you can't have two levies on the same sets of goods.

Hang on. You notified the council when you moved out?? Do you recall how?

I think a principle to bear in mind here is that Who Screws Up Pays. The council should have known your wife was disabled, the bailiffs screwed up the payments all by themselves. I was talking to a QC many years ago about stuff like this - things that might or might not be specifically legislated for but that appear to be contrary to certain overriding legal principles. He said that in effect you could just go to a judge, bring an 'action in tort' without even specifying what you think the specific things someone did wrong are. Tell the judge what happened and leave it up to their discretion as to what laws to apply. Thats your bottom line, thats your final defence. Working backwards from that, I'd say rather than battling every last little thing point by point in a courtroom - assuming you have already made a formal complaint to the council and its still not sorted out - it is time to call in the Ombudsman. None of this should have happened. Its a national disgrace. By all means send your letters to the council, but soon as you've done it, assuming you have proof of the bailifs system changes screwing up the payment schedule in writing off them, and proof in writing the council already knew your wife was disabled - write out the whole sorry tale and send it to the Ombudsman. You'll actually have all these people over a barrel. Then you can sit back and laugh at the sound of foot landing on ass all the way from the Town Hall. You may then wish to have a nice gloat in the press, and frame the story over your mantlepiece, for a trophy..

They aren't supposed to take a car on HP but I wouldn't trust them to behave within the letter of the law. Just move your car. Then ignore the door and deal direct with the council. I wonder if you would be classed as 'vulnerable'? Its a good thing to be classed as, in these situations..

Lets tackle this from the other end. They say you lived there till 2007, right? Do you have any evidence whatsoever of you living anywhere else after that first six months? Old bills, even old envelopes addressed to you at a new address if they have a dated postmark. The bailiffs and the council won't care about that, but a judge will. If they are making accusations in court, they have to prove them. Its called the 'burden of proof'. If you can show just once piece of evidence, just one, that you were somewhere else at any point in the disputed period, it casts doubts on their whole story. Oh and move your car and don't open your door. If you do open your door by accident, don't sign anything and don't let the prat in. Have a look through your stuff. Find the weakest piece of evidence you can and wait for them to go 'yeah but..' Save your strongest for the judge.

And he can't afford to keep making pointless visits. Don't worry. Keep your doors and windows shut and locked and pretend you are not home. I take it you haven't signed anything? He will want you to sign a 'walking possession agreement' I should think. Keep ignoring him, and I'm sure someone else will be along with more specific advice shortly, to do with council tax. You are doing the right thing though to deal with the council, not him. And move your car to another street if you have a car.

I propose we call them 'Sheerfarce' from now on

Thanks If you need me and I'm gone (I do that for months) PM me and I'll be notified. I still haven't worked out the link-posting rules so google the thing in bold.. Its a very long judgement. If you go through even one page of it you'll get the gist, but reading it all wouldn't be a bad idea. It was about someone booted out of her care home. She lost, but the reasons she did so are relevant because they go to the very heart of what is or is not a 'public authority' and it seems to me any bailiff granted special statutory powers would be one no matter who is paying them Judgments - YL (by her litigation friend the Official Solicitor) (FC) (Appellant) v. Birmingham City Council and others (Respondents) Theres a quote from Jack Straw in it. In case the point above is not quite clear, a public authority and its agents have to bear in mind human rights at all times. I think the fuss caused by Peter and others in this forum has helped remind certain individuals of this little fact. Having considered the matter - the fact that even bailiffs didn't want these powers - no-one did - and yet the idea went ahead anyway - and just look at the organisation that went into it - BBC propaganda going out for it just when it was being debated? Its proponent bribed with promotion to Solicitor General? Tabling it for when a prime minister left office? Who the hell has that sort of clout? There are some big guns behind this, make no mistake. I think the Plan was to create an unnaccountable private police force, and what that signifies worries me deeply. And yet again, I'm grateful for the blood sacrifice of previous generations that continues to protect us. It won't protect us forever. Technology will be the next battleground. Even the dumbest policeman knows now that if he murders someone in public, it'll be online before he can spit. We need similar stuff in and around the home. Concealed self-contained high-definintion video cameras with sound. Motion activated. I'm just off to find myself one. Felicity

Yes, her and that other dimwit are whats known as 'useful idiots' in the trade. And thats a technical term, not a personal attack. Its standard operating proceedure. You get someone a bit dim, promote them beyond their ability, then they have to follow even illegal orders without question because they do not know which questions to ask. Should the merde hit the air conditioning device they can be sacrified without undue interruption to One's Plans. For the American equivalent see Alberto Gonzalez. He tried firing any district attorney likely to prosecute vote rigging. Damn near ended up on a 'quail hunt' with Cheney if I'm any judge.. I'm thinking Vera was also chosen because it was thought she might know how to get around the Human Rights Act. Which would mean they anticipated the problem already. Now it is on the back burner awaiting a solution. [update] I think I found the specific spanner in the works. YL v. Birmingham city council. You can get round the HRA act if you are a private company contracted by the council. However if you have special powers defined by statute, you are then a public authority. So you can either be.. a) a private thug with no special powers and thus prone to being hit over the head by people who dislike being assualted or b) a state sponsored thug with special powers who has to behave themselves or get hit over the head with a writ. Hahahaha. I like law. Felicity

So, this is on the statute books already, taken through paliament on a Good Day to Bury Bad News, by a woman who was rewarded with promotion for it and the whole notion was promoted by some dimwit who was told just enough by his bosses to fool the odd committee but not enough to answer questions in depth. The devil, as we know is in the detail, and 15 pages of this detail were censored. I smell a very large rat. Orders came down for this one from upon very high indeed, and I don't mean the prime minister. Who the hell would have both Jack Straw and Vera whats-her-name in their pocket? Hm.. didn't I hear mention of the Privy Council somewhere? Never a bad place to start when looking for rats. I wish I'd been aware of this before it passed, but I wasn't. For the record, and for when this all blows up again, as it surely will, both the people who want to narrow the focus of the campaign and the people who want to broaden it are right. Its called 'targeting'. I spent a long time in marketing Poor people need to be aware they are going to be restrained and beaten up after one of those disasters that happens that makes them prioritise their bills or when the benefits agency stuffs up - for that you target the programs they watch the MPs they vote for, the newspapers they get. They have better things to worry about than what happens to the middle classes. Middle classes same but in reverse. You aren't going to get very far going on about poor people, who many of them believe to be layabouts and scroungers. Don't even mention single mothers in any press release designed to target them. You have to point out this could happen to *them* if they ever had a parking ticket go to the wrong address etc.. Do they want their daughter pinned to the floor by a six foot bailiff because someone in the communal student household forgot to buy a TV license? Its no good appealing to people's better instincts, you need to appeal to their sense of self-preservation. That stealing Fido thing is excellent. You can unite every social group in the land with that one. I'm pleased they left it in. Its their undoing. Don't campaign too hard against it till a general civil rights movement finally decides on some specific goals, then hits critical mass. [update] I just had a nice long think. The Human Rights Act is generally portrayed in the media as something drummed up by liberal do-gooders to protect 'terrorists'. This is so very very far from the truth. It has its basis in the incredulous horror felt by those who liberated the concentration camps in Nazi Europe and the waste of a hundred and twenty million lives in the conflict worldwide. It has taken 50 years to get it on the statute books, Europe-wide but the process was set in motion by, I think, the Council of Europe. Don't be distracted by thoughts of left wing vs. right wing politics. Its just a puppet show. There is another dimension to politics - anarchy vs. authoritarianism. Every government I remember has been more authoritarian than the last. 'Governments' are middle management for corporations - never forget that. The corporation who ran the filing system in the concentration camps is still in business - and no-one ever got fired for buying from it. These people hate the Human Rights Act. It guarantees certain rights merely by the fact you are human. It is a very special piece of legislation. It is not a statue or a precedent (well its a statute as well now) - it is whats known as a 'living instrument' - that is.. Statue is trumped by precedent ('precedent' tells the judge how to interpret the statute by looking at how previous judges interpreted it). Statute and precedent are trumped by a living instrument. Nothing can overrule it. Got that? Nothing. So, the wording of any law must now be interpreted to be in keeping with the Human Rights Act regardless of what precedent says. If no such interpretation is possible, the statute must be returned to parliament for revision. If this is not done we become the laughing stock of Europe. This is not just for new laws, it is old ones too. Centuries of common law thrown out, and good riddance. It didn't protect us from the poll tax. We need something more robust. That, I think, is what is behind Jack Straw's sudden conversion to sainthood. They've been doing business as usual in parliament, always figuring theres some fix. Find a slow news day, slip in a 'loophole' closure where it won't be noticed, put it up for discussion at 1am then - lie, lie, lie then lie some more. Legalised home invasions and beatings are on the statute book already. But they can't use them! Oops a minor flaw in the plan - the Human Rights Act. And thats whats stopped them. A process put in motion by our grandfathers. You can't provoke the population beyond endurance, cause a bunch of civil unrest, use it as an excuse to bring in your Fourth Reich ("its a matter of internal security") while certain inalienable human rights that cost 120 million dead bodies are still in effect. A concerted attack on the HRA is therefore coming. Expect more 'pedophiles hiding behind HRA' 'terrorist sheltering under HRA' type headlines. The idea, of course - being to make the population start screaming to have fewer rights! Felicity

His forms are his own affair. He can write what he likes on his forms. He can write he saw Elvis riding Shergar in your driveway and 'seized' the pair of them. What his forms say are his problem, not yours. Unless you sign them. Have you any idea on what legal basis he thinks he can get your house? Because I'm mystified. Did you see any charging order? Here is what I would do. In this order.. 1) Move any cars. 2) Pay the builders merchants if you can. Just the original amount. This must go direct to the builder. Do you have a way of paying them that they cannot refuse? Such as an account number you can pay into or online payment facilities. Perhaps they would take a credit card payment over the phone? (Might be best to not go into too much detail about what you are paying till after they've accepted it). Whatever you do, you must not deal with the bailiff or his company directly unless someone with more experienced than me round here tells you you must. If you want to prove they are not your cars, the advice above is good, but I'd hand photocopies of the document through the letterbox without comment. 3) After the original debt is sorted out, you deal with the bailiff. His fees and charges are very likely illegal as this started out in the County Court. You did not consent to it being bumped upwards. All communication must be in writing - recorded delivery letter or email. Also the Data Protection Act is your Friend and you can get them to disclose all the information they have on you. You might wish to wait on that until they have well and truly incriminated themselves then see about getting some licenses revoked. Once you have your hands on the info, it will be easier to see where to go from there. There are people here better than me at remembering what specific fees for CCJ collection and things are. I know they are laid down in law, and a lot less that what you seem to be being charged. Which would make your bailiff a fraudster. Think of it like this.. Its Open Season on someone shortly, but possibly not the person you suppose.

If he wants to 'seize' someone else's cars let him. However 'seizing' them and 'nabbing' them are two different things. Move the cars a few streets away or some place he can't see them. If he finds them nevertheless, your sister can apply to the court and get them back. Was your initial credit secured on your house, and did you consent to having the matter bumped up to the High Court? Just a stab in the dark here, but are the bailiffs Sherforce?

Is it just me or does that sound like a 419 advanced fee fraud? You know, those [problem] emails you get where theres always millions waiting for you but you have to pay fee after fee after fee.. I love winding those people up. ('scambaiting'). They get extra annoyed if they think at the last minute you spent 'their' money on something else (I like to send pictures of expensive cars and large piles of talc). If I were you, I'd tell then that you had all their money, but sadly, you just spent it on a large dog. You are not able to afford food for it and when did you say you were coming round again Mr Bailiff?

Sherforce here too. Excess fees for something that as far as I can tell didn't even have a proper court case - just some secret tribunal. Taken to County Court for a rubber stamp then to the High Court for another rubber stamp. Put some paper through the door saying they had a walking possession agreement, and according to the woman who went down to the communal doorway to speak to the first one, claimed to be a Sheriff. The Fake walking possession claim lists as an enforcement officer someone who is not of the register and the fees are as bogus as usual. Reported as a crime under the Fraud Act.

I think you should also do what I did today, call the data protection people.. Call us on 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45. Our helpline is open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. I spoke to a nice man there today and he really knew his stuff. Even reminded me of certain common law ideas that should have occurred to me and didn't. I've just been through the Data Protection Act too, with a fine tooth comb. I didn't see any exemption for bailiffs. There are two basic approaches - asking them what sort of information they hold on you and asking for the information itself. I see no reason why both the bailiff company and the council should be refusing to answer either question. If a fee applies they are to tell you about it in a timely fashion and then they have 40 days to give up the info. You can also request that they cease automated processing of your data. I take that to mean by computer. I don't know what practical good it would do, but they won't be happy. [update] It occurs to me that as the matter was possibly criminal initially, the bailiffs think they can hide behind some prevention and detection of crime disclosure exclusion in the data protection act. But the crime of displaying a poster is no longer under investigation, so I'm thinking those exclusions should not apply. Not that the bailiffs were doing much crime detection. It was already irrelevant by the time they got involved.