Episode 6 The Sheriffs Are Coming

-Meet the sheriffs.

-My name's Mr Grix, my colleague and I are enforcement agents.

It's to do with a High Court order.

They work for the High Court.

And if it says you're owed money, it's their job to go and get it.

I'm here for £6,072.18.

They can demand payment on the spot...

I'm here for the full balance.

-How're you going to pay it?

-..or remove assets instead.

The car will be going unless you can pay it.

You'll have a week to pay in full before it gets sold at auction.

Obstructing their work can be a criminal offence.

I wouldn't do that if I were you.

The door needs to stay open.

Every year in England and Wales,

unpaid debts totalling more than £80 million are recovered by the sheriffs.

Coming up - Rob Gallon took his car in for a repair and hasn't seen it since.

The car's very important.

It's a big part of my life, it's a hell of a big part of my life.

He's now owed thousands of pounds.

But will the sheriffs be able to get it?

-Can you keep it shut, please?

-I've got every legal right.

-Diligent search, they call it.

-No, you can't.

-Yes, I can.

An airline hasn't paid compensation it owes to a passenger.

His family were each entitled to 600 euros, but, unfortunately, there was

no response.

Now the sheriffs are on the case.

Are you going to come and open the door?

And Lawrence puts the squeeze on a finance company which hasn't paid its rent.

You had a turnover - last time you submitted books - of 1.8 million,

so I can't believe that you can't come up with £16,000.

Today, sheriff Craig Wild is flying solo without his trusted partner,

Tommy Coyle. He's going to visit the director of a car garage,

specialising in engine refurbishments.

We're off to go and see Nitin Kareer

in the centre of Birmingham. It's to do with a car, just over £6,000.

It all stems from a dispute over the repair of a 4x4, a Mitsubishi L200

owned by Rob Gallon, who needs an off-road vehicle for work.

Good boy. We install water mains and water services,

it's a family-run business

and it does require going off onto sites where I have to go off-road,

across fields. My personal life, I do some shooting,

so the Mitsubishi L200 was absolutely perfect.

But when the turbo failed, causing piston damage,

Rob decided to get the engine replaced and started looking for a garage to

-do the work.

-Quality Engine Services from Birmingham,

sounded like a company that knew what they were doing.

I did explain to the guy that I would prefer another engine in the

car and not to rebuild the one that I've got.

And he convinced me that he was the one to put this car right.

The man he dealt with called himself Nick.

A week later, the repair was complete and Rob went to take a look.

Started it up and it didn't sound right.

And he said, "Oh, it just needs running in."

Anyway, I drove the car home, down the motorway...

Half a mile away from home it broke down and spilt all the oil all over the road.

After handing over £2,000, Rob wasn't best pleased,

especially when he inspected the engine and found it was still the

same one. Nick was apologetic and took the car back for a second time.

The car, again, was supposed to be in the garage for no more than seven days.

I contacted Nick after nine days and he said they were having a few

problems with a few of the belts and the auxiliaries,

it should be ready for the weekend.

I rang again at the weekend and it was Monday it was going to be finished,

and then I rang on Monday and it would be Wednesday, and it just continued

on and on and on.

For weeks, Rob chased it up, but still no car.

He told me that he wasn't the big boss,

that he'd have to speak to the big boss to get things sorted.

He gave me three different names, with three different numbers,

which, speaking to him on the phone, I know is the same guy,

I know it's this Nick.

But some of Nick's reasons for the delay were difficult to

argue with.

He can't do anything for me at the minute because his wife had died

over the last two weeks and that's why the car hadn't been

delivered back.

So Rob gave him some time.

But as weeks became months,

he got increasingly worried he was never going to get the car back.

And it wasn't just about the money. It also had sentimental value.

I owned a Mitsubishi L200 prior to this one that I had

an accident in, in 2008, and it saved my life.

If I was in any other vehicle, I wouldn't be here today.

And I didn't drive from 2008 to 2012,

and my wife went and bought me this L200 to get me back out on the road,

get me driving again. So the car is very important.

It's a big part of my life, it's a hell of a big part of my life.

That was the vehicle that got me back on track,

it started getting our life back together.

As Rob's hopes of ever seeing his beloved car again faded,

he began to get desperate.

I contacted Staffordshire Police and West Midlands Police a number of

times to see if they would accompany me to the garage in Birmingham,

so as I could recover my vehicle.

At this point I was told by the police there was nothing they can do

because this is a civil matter,

and unless Nick hands over the keys to that car,

I legally cannot take that car out of that garage, or else I'll be

charged with theft.

Eventually, the garage offered to sell his car on and Rob reluctantly agreed,

thinking it was the only way out.

But he never received any money,

apart from a refund of the £2,000 he'd already spent on the repair.

His bank statement revealed the money came from

Rocco Motor Solutions Limited.

Presuming this to be the company behind the trading name

Quality Engine Services,

Rob took its director, Nitin Kareer, to court for the value of the car.

My initial thoughts were, "I can't wait to get this guy in court," but

that never happened because he never responded to any letter or any

correspondence from the courts at all.

Rob was awarded a County Court judgment in his favour by default,

and when Mr Kareer didn't pay it, put the matter in the hands of the sheriffs.

They're most certainly my last hope.

I don't think there's any other way that I can get this sorted.

I don't know any other way that I can get it resolved.

At the end of the day, you need back what's yours.

I work hard to make that sort of money,

it's not that I can just give it away.

In Birmingham, Craig is approaching the garage.

He's hopeful there'll be plenty of assets that can be removed if payment isn't forthcoming.

There's going to be sort of other vehicles or,

you know, lifts or mechanical tools of that nature.

There it is, over there.

Craig parks up opposite the premises and checks the paperwork.

A potential pitfall catches his eye.

The claimant has actually sued the actual individual, as opposed to a

limited company, so if he does trade from here as a limited company,

and he can provide evidence of that, then we're a bit stuffed.

We'll go and find out now.

There's no name above the door and no mention of Quality Engine Services.

But that's no concern to Craig.

There's only one name on his writ, a Mr Nitin Kareer,

and that's who he needs to find.

Hello. Is the boss about?

Can he be contacted at all?

Is it a Nitin Kareer or something?

If you can get him on the phone, mate, I'll have a chat with him.

I'm Mr Wild from the High Court.

While the staff member goes off to phone the boss,

Craig is pleased to have verification that this is indeed the

-debtor's business.

-He's confirmed that our guy is the boss.

It just depends what, who owns the assets here,

whether it's him personally or whether it's a limited company.

-We'll see how it goes.

-A few minutes later,

the man returns and says the boss is on his way.

-He's coming down.

-Oh, he's coming down.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

There's so far no indication of whether Mr Kareer is planning to

pay, but if he isn't, then Craig's best hope of persuading him to do so

will be threatening to remove his assets.

The problem is, anything here owned by his company, rather than by him

personally, would be off limits.

So while he waits for him to arrive, Craig turns detective.

I'm still going to try and look around the place,

try and get some evidence that our guy, as an individual, trades from

here, as opposed to his company.

And it doesn't take long before he stumbles across something of interest.

Not one, not two, not three,

not four, not five, not six,

but seven,

seven penalty charge notices.

The evidence seems to suggest the director is not keen to pay his debts.

Worse still, as Craig carries on searching,

he discovers exactly what he was afraid of.

I've located some of the invoices that they used for recent sort of

parts and it's all in the name of his limited company -

Rocco Motor Solutions Limited.

So, unfortunately, it's looking like our

guy trades under a limited company here, so not as an individual.

It's bad news for Craig,

as it looks like he'll need to persuade the debtor to pay up

without having any leverage to negotiate with.

Mr Kareer hasn't shown up yet either, and soon,

one of the mechanics hands Craig a phone.

Who's this? Nitin, yeah?

Yash?

I'm trying to get in contact with Nitin.

It's an outstanding High Court writ.

It's not Mr Kareer on the phone,

so Craig can't go into the case details unless they are authorised

by the defendant to do so.

Craig emphasises that someone, preferably Mr Kareer,

needs to come to the garage to sort it out.

And soon, a man arrives.

-Can you come outside?

-I'm not coming outside, I'm waiting here,

-I'll have a discussion with you in the office, yeah.

-Yeah, come inside my office.

-Yeah, yeah.

-What's up, mate?

-I don't know, mate. I'll find out.

-And what relation are you to Nitin?

-I'm his friend.

-You're his friend?

-Yeah.

-Right. My name's Mr Wild.

Have you been sent down to sort this situation out?

-Which situation?

-Well, the one they phoned you about.

-What?

-I'm here under a High Court writ for a balance outstanding of £6,072.18.

-The claimant is a Mr Robert Gallon.

-Oh, he's took us to court?

-That's right.

-I don't know nothing about it.

I have overtook from Nitin, and we are going to only just do parts,

-we've got nothing else to do.

-Right.

-Or anything like that.

Despite a staff member telling Craig that Nitin Kareer was the boss,

this man is claiming HE'S in charge and Nitin no longer works here.

If so, then Craig will have difficulty enforcing the debt.

But later, he finds more clues which cast doubt on the man's story.

I've got invoices proving that he's trading from here.

I'll always try and help people out.

But what I don't like being is being mugged off, do you know what I mean?

In the capital, Lawrence and Kev are slogging through the mid-morning

traffic on their way to collect another unpaid debt.

We're in central London, actually, just near Earls Court.

We're going to Berkeley Credit & Guarantee Limited.

I think it's some sort of finance company.

They owe £16,251.

Berkeley Credit & Guarantee Limited was taken to court by their landlord

for unpaid rent.

The company defended the case in court, but lost, and was ordered to

pay their debt plus costs.

Six months later, it still hasn't done so.

Now it's down to the sheriffs to collect.

It's a tough one to call, this.

It's going to be in an office, we're in the middle of London.

At a guess, you'd say they're not going to have too many assets.

It's quite a lot of money we're after as well, but...

ever hopeful.

There it is, there.

-Yeah.

-It looks like one of these money express places.

Well, at least there should be some cash on site.

Whether it'll stretch to £16,000 is another matter.

The sheriffs are about to find out.

Morning, I'm looking for Berkeley Credit & Guarantee Limited.

Berkeley Credit & Guarantee Limited.

Bizarrely, despite branding everywhere which suggests they're in the right place,

the cashier says that's not who he works for.

Is there anyone here from them, then?

No? This is their registered office.

The man thinks it isn't, so Lawrence sets him straight.

There you are, it says so on this door.

It says there on the door.

It does.

So, have you got contact with them upstairs?

There's no buzzer, no intercom?

Lawrence tries a different tack.

I've got a number on the file, um...

So I'm going to give it a ring.

See if it goes through to them.

But that doesn't get him anywhere either.

Sounds like it's a non-existent number.

Do you want to just go and ask them next-door for us, mate?

No, it's not looking good at the moment.

This chap says he's only been here two months,

but in all that time, he's never seen anybody in or out of the offices.

As you look through the door, you can just see a mop and a bucket,

and I very much doubt we'd actually find anything here.

So if Kev comes back with a negative as well, I'll just leave paperwork,

I'll just slide it under the door and we'll see what happens.

But, in fact, Kev comes back with a new lead.

Give this number a ring, Lawrence.

-Oh, you've got another number.

-Yeah.

This woman should be something to do with them, apparently.

Hello there. My name's Mr Grix, I'm an enforcement agent.

I'm looking for Berkeley Credit & Guarantee Limited.

I've been told, been given your number.

He is indeed through to someone who works for the debtor.

So, what are you to do with the company?

You're an administrator.

Right, well, I'm basically here with a High Court writ,

which orders me to take control of the goods of the company which can

be sold at auction to clear a debt.

The total outstanding at the moment is £16,251.96.

And as this is commercial premises,

I can force entry with a locksmith if necessary...

..to search for company assets and remove them.

The administrator says she'll need to talk to someone else, so Lawrence

makes sure she understands the urgency of the situation.

They need to ring me back within the next ten minutes or I'll be getting

a locksmith and forcing entry.

It seems to do the trick.

Yeah, if somebody wants to come here and pay in cash, yes, that's fine.

Right, bye-bye.

She's asked for half an hour to get it sorted.

So, who knows?

From what had seemed like a bit of a dead-end,

suddenly this job's looking up.

A few minutes later, the cashier beckons Lawrence over.

A call from head office and...

have your number, please?

Whose head office is this, yours?

Or the company I'm looking for?

Once again, communication is difficult.

Oh, whatever.

One way or another, though, head office does get through.

MOBILE RINGS

Hello, Mr Grix speaking.

Hello, there. No, it needs to be full payment,

I can't believe that a company such as yourselves can't rustle up £16,000,

to be honest.

Well, you had a turnover - last time you submitted books - of £1.8 million.

So I can't believe that you can't come up with £16,000.

I know what you're saying, it's short notice, but it's not short notice

because it's been all through the County Court.

We've sent a notice of enforcement, there's been plenty of paperwork to do with this, but somebody's either

ignored it or buried their heads in the sand and it's now crunch day.

OK.

Bye-bye.

She's spoken to somebody and they can pay half the money now

and the balance on Friday.

But at the moment, I've said no to that because they've managed to come

up with half the money very, very quickly,

so I don't see how a company with that sort of turnover could fail to

come up with £16,000.

So I'm playing hardball at the moment, I've said no,

and we'll see what she comes back with in half an hour.

In fact, he only has to wait a few minutes for an improved offer.

MOBILE RINGS

Hello, Mr Grix speaking.

It's not for the full amount, but it's enough.

Yeah, if you make that by immediate payment and just give me a buzz when

it's done. And providing the balance hits the account by close of

business Friday, then that will be the matter dealt with.

OK, thanks. Bye-bye.

They're going to make £10,000 payment in the next couple of minutes

and then the balance on Friday.

It's Wednesday, so I can live with that.

Lawrence soon gets confirmation that the first payment's been made...

-£10,000 is in.

-..leaves a receipt...

They know I'm leaving it with you. I'm presuming somebody will come and collect it at some point.

..and is on his way, pleasantly surprised.

They offered half the debt initially.

I insisted on full payment.

They came back sort of ten minutes later with an offer of £10,000 and,

really, in the situation where I hadn't even got into the office, and

it looks like they don't even use the office,

so I'd have to use locksmiths to get in,

I think that's a pretty good result, really.

So, £10,000 today by transfer,

which they did very quickly, and I've no doubt that the other just

over £6,000 will be transferred in on Friday.

Berkeley Credit & Guarantee Limited later made the second payment,

and their landlord finally got the money they were owed.

In Birmingham, Craig's chasing more than £6,000 at a garage.

A customer, Rob Gallon, put his car in for repair but never got it back.

When he first arrived, Craig thought he had confirmed that the man he's

looking for is in charge here.

Is the boss about?

Is it a Nitin Kareer or something?

-Come inside.

-Yeah, yeah.

But this man has since arrived, saying he's the boss and he's

called Mr Ali.

I have overtook from Nitin and we are just going to do parts.

And now someone else is on the phone.

-Is that Nitin?

-It's Ash.

-This is Ash?

-Yeah.

Hello, Ash. You're taking over the premises, yeah, to sell parts?

Ash says he's Nitin's cousin and, along with Mr Ali, took over the

business six months ago.

But as Craig flicks through the paperwork on the desk,

he finds Nitin Kareer's name is all over it.

-Old letters?

-Yeah, old letters, they're old letters.

-How many other letters have they got?

-They are old letters.

We haven't got any new letters coming in here.

-That's for the water.

-That's old.

It's for the water, isn't it?

Their story isn't adding up.

Everything I'm looking at now at the moment is obviously

your cousin's details on it.

I know, I appreciate you're saying he's not, but if you're going to

take over a premises, you'd change the water, you'd change the gas,

you'd change the electric as a matter of course, wouldn't you?

Ash, I'm looking at an invoice here, 27th of September, addressed to your cousin's company.

That isn't April, is it? You took over in April,

he shouldn't even be trading from here. Yet, I've got invoices

proving that he's trading from here.

Although he still hasn't got any proof there are assets here in the

debtor's name personally,

he has at least got the people he's dealing with on the back foot.

Perhaps that'll be enough to ramp up the pressure and get a payment.

You need to get your cousin,

talk to me and then hopefully I can try and help him out.

I'll always try and help people out,

but what I don't like being is being mugged off. Do you know what I mean?

It appears without his right-hand man, Tommy, by his side,

Craig's taking on both roles of good cop and bad cop.

He's going to call me.

While Craig waits to finally hear from Mr Kareer,

he decides to do a bit more investigating.

I've got every legal right.

Legal rights for what?

-Diligent search, they call it.

-No, you can't.

-Yes, I can.

-No, you can't.

-Yes, I can.

-Can't.

-Yes, I can.

Craig does have the law on his side, and any attempts to stop his

diligent search could quickly become a matter for the police.

Luckily, the situation calms down,

Mr Ali let's Craig carry on, before again handing him his phone.

Is he on the phone, is he?

But he is NOT the elusive Mr Kareer.

Once more, it's his cousin, Ash.

Hiya, Ash.

He's still saying the debt's got nothing to do with him and he doesn't want to pay.

As I explained, Ash, and as I explained to your business partner here, Mr Ali,

I'm here with a court order for six grand, mate, and my job today is

to collect that money under the terms of the High Court writ of control.

Because money talks, that's the thing.

Finally, Craig's persuasive techniques land on target.

Perhaps realising that he isn't going to go away,

Ash says he owes his cousin some money.

He says he's willing to pay part of the debt for him and offers £1,000.

Yeah, I'll make a phone call first, yeah, and I'll come back to you.

If that's acceptable, then I'll leave a letter here for your cousin,

but he has to deal with it. This is a personal liability.

He needs to get in contact with our office and then he can sort an

arrangement out to pay the balance off over a period of time, if he can't pay it in one go.

Craig checks with his office, and the offer is accepted.

Mr Ali makes the payment on a card, and Craig issues a receipt, along

with the letter for Mr Kareer, asking him to contact the sheriffs

to pay the remainder of the debt.

-Thank you very much.

-Sorry for your...

-No problem at all.

It's not the perfect outcome, but given that neither the

debtor nor any sign of his assets were present,

Craig's satisfied he's done the best he can.

All in all, I think it's a good result for the claimant at the moment.

I never met the debtor, claims not to be trading from here at all.

Most of the assets there are in the limited company name,

not personal to our guy.

However, took the £1,000 and best result we could get out of that.

Back in Staffordshire,

Rob Gallon is disappointed that the sheriffs weren't able to recover the

full amount. But is at least glad to see things moving in the right direction.

It's something I've been fighting this guy for for well over 12 months.

We have had some luck.

We've recovered £1,000, so we are getting somewhere with it.

It's 10:30 in the morning and enforcement agents Lawrence Grix and Kev McNally are

in West London. They're on their way to enforce an unpaid debt,

owed by a large international company.

We are in Brentford.

We're going to Pakistan International Airlines Corporation.

They owe us £1,088, this is relating to a delayed flight,

so it's compensation.

Since an EU ruling came into force in 2005,

flight delay compensation has provided a steady stream of work for

the sheriffs. Under the rules,

passengers on delayed flights in and out of the UK could be entitled to

compensation of up to 600 euros, and it's estimated around 900,000

passengers are eligible every year.

But all too often, airlines are reluctant to pay out.

Nicholas Parkinson is the solicitor acting on behalf of today's claimant.

There are some airlines that are good at paying claims.

Unfortunately, with other airlines, it's very much the opposite.

They've been fighting these claims ferociously for several years.

They simply don't like the idea of paying people compensation.

That means many eligible passengers end up having to take the airlines

to court and ultimately, engaging the sheriffs.

Lawrence and Kev's job today is on behalf of a Mr Uzman Rafique.

Mr Rafique and his family flew from London Heathrow to Lahore Airport in

Pakistan. Their flight was delayed by over five hours, so Mr Rafique

and his family were each entitled to 600 euros compensation.

Several letters were sent chasing for payments,

but, unfortunately, there was no response.

So the solicitors went to court and won a CCJ,

which still hasn't been paid.

Now it's down to Lawrence and Kev to get the £1,088 Mr Rafique's owed.

Kev is feeling confident.

We're heading to their offices now, and I can't see this being a problem.

20 minutes, paid...

..out we go.

They locate the block where Pakistan International Airlines has its UK

office and head in.

Here we are, we're in anyway.

-All right, mate.

-But their attempt to breeze past security doesn't go unnoticed.

-Go on, you go and sign in for us, then.

-I'll sign in, yeah.

HE KNOCKS ON DOOR

Are you going to come and open the door?

Our cameraman's also asked to leave.

Inside, the sheriffs show the airline their writ and demand payment.

Sadly, Kev's prediction of being out in 20 minutes doesn't come good.

But when he does make an appearance after half an hour,

it sounds like things are going more or less to plan.

Literally come to get the card machine, they're going to pay.

They're struggling to find the debt and the judgment, but they know they've got to

pay it, so... It's such a minimal amount,

they're going to get rid of us and pay that and then sort the details out later.

That is exactly what happens, and the sheriffs are soon heading back to the van.

That went as well as could be expected, really.

Payment in less than an hour, walked straight past the security guard,

who wasn't too happy and came and sort of chased us down.

So Kev had to go and sign us in,

but the airline company themselves just let me straight in.

They phoned up their boss,

who's not in the office today, and he got a bit shirty with me at one

point, "I haven't had this, I haven't had that,"

but, basically, I talked him down and they paid on a card.

It's a scenario the sheriffs have seen time and time again.

After months of fighting or brushing off a compensation claim,

a brief visit by the sheriffs is suddenly enough to make them reach

for their wallets.

Mr Rafique has finally got the money he's legally entitled to.

His solicitor's delighted and hopes it sends out a clear message.

We were pleased that we got the result we needed for ourselves,

for our client and also to, you know,

set an example as such to the airline to let them know, you know,

there's nowhere to hide.

These are court orders, you must pay these, and hopefully in the future,

this won't be a repeat occurrence.