28/11/2011 Inside Out West

Tonight we are in Yeovil, tracking down a man who calls himself the

Debt Doctor. Jeremy Topley claims he could help sort out your

finances but ended up costing his clients thousands of pounds --

Jeremy Hockley. The tea is beyond belief what this man has done. I am

basically penniless because of the Debt Doctor. All so in the

programme, controversial proposals to drill for gas in the Mendips.

And claims from America that it could even make your tap water

flammable. And 30 years of Bristol's communications aid centre

and a pioneering piece of work to give people a voice. I love my mum

and dad. The that is the first time you have been able to say that with

a voice. With hard-hitting stories from close to home, this is Inside

The high street is busy, but does anyone actually have the cash to

spend? Today the average man in the street owes almost �30,000. It is

no wonder that debt management has become big business. But what

happens when a company that helps people pay off their debts leaves

them tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket? I am helpless. I

don't think I will ever see my money and I don't think anybody

else will. Personally, I hope they lock him away and throw away the

key. Simple as that. I am one at the trial of a self-styled Debt

Doctor whose treatment left his clients feeling worse. Can I ask

what you have done with your clients' money, Mr Hockley? The way

things are making no longer use it as an escape. This is Jeremy

Hockley. It is the height of the credit crunch, but for this man,

business is good. We are seeing greater numbers of people in the

office, whether it be personal loans or for businesses. He runs

Debt Doctor, a company helping people try to pay off their debts.

Based on the Somerset potato farm, the company flourished when times

were tough. It meant Mr Hockley, a former bankrupt with a string of

failed companies behind him, could now enjoy the high life, living in

a smart home and even sponsoring his favourite football team, Oxford

United. And all thanks to other people's money. Our number one

client has gone up to 8.2 million and we have half a dozen people

over �1 million, but Our typical client is over �60,000, and this is

unsecured. It really is starting to affect everyone of every background.

One of those affected his this lady. For when you are after your

eyeballs in debt it is a horrible feeling. It hangs over you and

becomes a terrible burden, and emotional and physical burden.

Despite years as a successful television executive, Carol saw her

finances hard hit by the failure of her own business and the economic

downturn. My endowments did not pay out, like a lot of people in

Britain. My pension didn't turn out the way I thought it would, so in

my 50s I found myself when I should have had no mortgage, insolvent and

facing a very happy early retirement but ended up in a

mountain of debt. As her debts grew, her health deteriorated and she was

diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer and her

illness meant she could not work. If I try to use the computer, the

90s when the pain gets worse. Always. If you are self-employed

and you get ill, that is a fatal combination. Ironically, Caro's

sickness was to find her -- provide her with a financial lifeline. In

2009 her health insurers paid out a lump sum of �21,500. Now she could

face their creditors and with the Debt Doctor she thought she had

found a specialist to could help. It was wonderful to have money that

was mine. It was something I had paid in four years and I gave it to

Debt Doctor to continue paying my monthly credit to bills and at that

point I thought Debt Doctor was super. They got the creditors to

stop phoning me. I was not well. The money seemed to be safe and all

right. Debt management is a regulated industry, and there are

excepted standards whether a service is charging a fee, like

Debt Doctor, or a charity like the Citizen's Advice Bureau. People in

debt should be cautious before handing over any management to a

debt management company. They should be clear that any money they

handover is properly protected so in the event of something else

ralph -- going wrong, the fund will be safe. For Debt Doctor, things

went wrong. Earlier this year the company told clients it was going

bust. The first thing I thought was, oh my God, my �21,500, all the

money I haven't the world. As soon as I heard that Debt Doctor had

gone bust, I wrote immediately to them, demanding my money to be put

into my bank account and sent it recorded delivery. Lo and behold,

two weeks later, he came back refused. Refused and an open. That

was my letter to Debt Doctor, which was to let me have my cancer money

back. We have spoken to several former clients of the company and

they had a similar story to tell. In many cases they borrowed tens of

thousands of pounds from family and friends to give to the Debt Doctor

and it has almost disappeared. Yet the company's clients had every

reason to believe their money should have been safe. Debt Doctor

operated through a network of 60 affiliated financial advisers

across the country, advisers like Robin seely. I had somewhere

between 30 and 40 clients at the time. A client account would be

opened in the name of the client and the client was assured that the

money was safe and they are purely and simply for the purpose of

resolving their financial difficulties. And that, in fact,

he's in the word of the agreement in the letter signed by them.

the company went bust, the independent advisers were shocked

as their clients. A website went down and any attempt to contact the

head office either by e-mail or telephone was met with no response.

That was the first inkling that any of us had but perhaps things were

not as they should have been. I had no contact whatsoever from Jeremy

Topley or anyone at Debt Doctor. And no -- neither did any of my

fellow consultants. It seemed that we, along with the clients, had

been somewhat abandoned. So what happened to all the money? Debt

Doctor was a trading name for Jeremy Hockley's company Hermes

Financial Solutions, which showed it had a �490,000 hole in its

assets. And we discovered a month before Debt Doctor ceased trading,

all the money held in supposedly protected client accounts was moved

into a single company account. In total, about �600,000 from more

than 80 clients is missing. To find out if anything was left of his

clients' money, Robyn took Hermes financial solutions to court on

their behalf. I believe Mr Hockley was of the opinion that because

they were financially disadvantaged, no one would be able to do anything

about it. So there for all he needed to do was to lie low for a

couple of months and he would be free to pursue whatever future he

wanted. However, we have gone to the court and we have got a company

that has been put into liquidation and there will be questions for him

to answer. But finding Jeremy Hockley to answer those questions

is not easy. Nobody at Debt Doctor's former headquarters knows

where he is. He is no longer here. The business ended just before

Easter. Any idea where he has gone? And no idea at all. The 80 leave

owing rent? Yes. A lot? Yes. So we tried his home. Jeremy Hockley is

not here, and he sold his house in the last few weeks for �400,000.

But we have managed to track down him to Yeovil where he has started

a new life helping run a nightclub. Mr Hockley? Can we have a word with

you? Hello, Mr Hockley, I'm from the BBC. We want to ask you what

has happened to your client macro - - clients' money? Can I ask you

what has happened to your clients' Mr Hockley? Do you have anything to

say? Do you have anything else to say, Mr Hockley? Well, it seems Mr

Hockley is unwilling to talk to us, and quite where his clients' money

has gone is anyone's guess. Liquidators are still investigating

Debt Doctor's books. In the meantime, it is clear that this is

one doctor who has made his patience can be shown a lot worse.

It is beyond belief that this man has done this. I am basically

penniless because of Debt Doctor. So I'm afraid I have to say, in a

way, they wrecked my life. And if there is something you would

like us to investigate, why not The later on the program, life

without speech. How new technology Your voice gets drowned out and

it's difficult to hear you. Next, a controversial way of extracting

energy which could be coming to the Mendips. It is called fracking, and

it involves drilling deep underground to try and uncover new

reserves of natural gas. Controversial, because of fears it

could lead to water pollution or even of earth tremors. Here is

Scott Ellis. In America, fracking for gas is a

one trillion dollar industry. It is highly profitable and highly

And before long, fracking could come here to the West Country. This

170 square mile area in Somerset is licensed for drilling, and one

operator, UK Methane, has already sunk in a test drill with plans for

two more. Fracking is one option If I said fracking to you, do you

Know What I Mean? For a king? Know. I think I heard it somewhere. It

sounds rude. I suspect it means something quite unusual and you are

Hydraulic fracturing involves drilling thousands of feet to gas

that is trapped in deep Shale frocks. Small explosions open up

cracks, followed by the fracked itself. -- the fracking itself. You

take water, sand and a few chemicals, force them into the

ground and the gas comes up to the service. -- surface. Fracked gas is

now all the rage in America. It has revolutionised their energy sector.

15 years ago, the US was building liquified natural gas terminals

around the coast. They felt they were running short of gas supplies.

These were at terminals for importing natural gas from places

like Qatar but now they are export terminals, so it America is

exporting gas to other countries. It is a phenomenal turn around.

a lack of regulation in America has caused a backlash over fears that

fracked Gas has escaped into underground water supplies. The

industry denies that fracking is the only possible cause, but this

year controversy came here to the UK when a high pressure fracking

operation near Blackpool was followed by two earthquakes. On the

day the earthquake report was released, protesters should things

up, taking this footage as they occupied the site. The company has

admitted it is highly probable their fracking contributed to the

earthquakes. They have stopped the process while they improve

underground monitoring. It does not help oil production, it is time

consuming, so we are trying to put everything in place to make sure

nothing like this can happen again. Fears about water supplies being

poisoned and triggering earthquakes - it has not been a great first

year for fracking in the UK. Or is everybody just exaggerating? What

do the experts think? Bristol has its own earthquake Studies Centre,

where they can recreate seismic activity. Here is the brittle

earthquake which shook Christchurch in New Zealand in February, killing

181 people. -- brutal. They also monitored the two earthquakes in

Lancashire leagues to the fracking process. What we are seeing it is a

simulation similar to the fracking earthquake. It is every about three

seconds at a very low amplitude. The earth moves about one

centimetre - not enough to cause any structural damage or injury.

From an earthquake point of view, the a vast amount of evidence that

is out there from the fracking processes around the world is that

the earthquakes generated by it are very small, and insignificant from

a structural engineering point of view. Not everyone is convinced.

Richard set up an anti- fracking group in the Mendips, of which is

an area where fracking could be used to unlock gas reserves. But it

is not earthquakes that bother him. The issue I have got is that the

chemicals they pumped underground to create this effect. They pump a

mix of chemical brine at very high pressure into loose rock, called

Shale, and the gas fizzes out of the Shale. The problem is that

these chemicals are really noxious. Hundreds of thousands of people get

their water from the Mendips. If you look over there, you can see a

reservoir. That is fed by a river which goes underground and pops out

again. What if you get chemicals leaking into there? It is too big a

whisker, for what is a very small gain. What else goes into the well?

This chemical... And the industry makes no secret that chemicals are

added to the water used for fracking. In the UK, every additive

has to be approved by the Environment Agency. It is in the

City of Bath where fracking is feared most. The hot spring waters

is sustain the leisure and tourism industry, which employs thousands.

It is water which falls first as rain in the Mendips. This is from

the bowels of the Earth, is it? OK. Cheers.

Yes, an acquired taste. It is an unusual taste. The council leader,

and some MPs, are worried. If fracking comes to the Mendips, Mike

the rush for gas disrupt Bath's vitals brings? -- might have.

worst-case scenario, you could have the water going elsewhere. To be

truthful, we don't know the journey that the water takes to get here,

other than the fact that it takes thousands of years from falling on

the Mendips to arriving at our springs. We would like to see no

fracking in any area that effect sow water supply, until someone has

proven to us that there is no risk. -- that affects a our water supply.

That is an irreversible decision. The government does not think a

moratorium is necessary, all that fracking poses a direct threat to

water aquifers. But politicians in Bath want stronger guarantees that

the city's water supply will be protected from drilling miles away

on the Mendips. So, how soon before fracking comes

here to the Mendips? UK Methane have told us it could be years away.

They are more interested in fracking first in South Wales and

then Kent, but this is the energy business and things can change

quickly. The director of UK Methane has told

us that fracking will only be used as a last resort in the Mendips.

But many remain sceptical, including Mendip quarry manager

Nigel Taylor. Canal Bristol seismologist allay his fears? --

cannot our. We know that there is water which is essential for human

life up to 700 ft down into the Mendips. Who says this water will

not go down into the case and brushed back into the systems,

poisoning the aquifers for millennia? If we went for the

unregulated approach, where companies had gone in with us a lot

of studying, we should not do that. We could drill some test wells and

see what is happening and slowly built up a picture of what is going

on. I agree we should do it in a very different way to what has been

done in the USA. The government wants to win over the public so it

can expand fracking operations in the UK. Gas burns more cleanly than

Cole, said it helped to reduce emissions. It is all a question of

balancing the benefits against the risks. -- so it could help.

Scott Ellis on the hunt for gas in the Mendips.

Being able to talk to each other is something most of us take for

granted. But imagine for a moment if you weren't able to speak. For

the last 30 years, the Bristol communication aids centre has been

When it comes to hanging out with friends, 14-year-old Stefan

Clatworthy is in his element. Stefan has a particular type of

cerebral palsy and is unable to speak. But he has developed a way

With those closest to him. -- communicating with those closest to

him. Stefan has been using a book to communicate and it is very

effective for him because he can easily turn the pages. He knows the

book very well, and we understand how he uses the book and we can

understand his talk however, it does have limitations because other

people do not understand how to use the book so well.

Sometimes he has difficulty when he wants to communicate with strangers.

So, to make life a bit easier, Stephan has enlisted the help of

some old friends. I first met Stefan as they reveal little boy

and I was his speech language therapist. He was about four and

years old and he already had that look of determination in his eye.

He was a very engaging child, who really wanted to communicate.

Bristol Communication Aids Centre is based within the North Bristol

NHS Trust. The service was the first of its kind to open in the UK.

This year, it celebrates its 30th anniversary. Looking back 30 years

ago at what was available, which we had to wheel in, and what is

available now, we have come a long way. We want to get information to

people so they know what is available and what services they

can access. The centre sees around 150 patients every year. Another of

those is Marie Shields. She has been diagnosed with motor neurone

disease and is losing her ability to speak. She relies on written

communication. Everyday tasks like It is what makes us human beings,

being able to engage with another person, to have an element of

control of a our lives, and to participate in conversations - it

is such a huge part of what we do. To have that taken away is

devastating. You have got to try and look at the circle for as long

as it is there. Stefan is getting help from the children's

communication aids team in the Westbury-on-Trym. He is trying out

an eye based machine. The computer's character is following

his eye movements to make the words he would like to say. We need a few

more squares on the page. Excellent. Excellent. But he is finding it a

bit tricky. He, himself, actually communicated that he was not

feeling confident about it. And because he has some difficulties

controlling the motor movements of his eyes, I think that is why it

was not that successful. Instead, Stefan is trying a computer with a

touch screen. It is actually collaring it to read, and so the

red colour is showing you which one you on. Blackcurrant juice. The

water. The next one is talking in At the adult communications centre

at Frenchay Hospital, Marie is trying out a different touch screen

device. COMPUTER: Hello and welcome to the centre. It is whether you

would feel confident about getting this out at the supermarket. They

are quite...? Funky. Back at home, Stefan is trying out his touch-

screen communication aid. We have actually mirrored the vocabulary in

his communication book, because he knows that really well, so he does

not have a lot of learning to do. don't like you any more. You smell.

Who are you going to use that with? Hopefully not his teachers! It is

trying for Stefan to try the computer out at school. Stefan has

a plan in the summer holidays. is going to take a photograph, a

post some photographs of Bristol in different months of the year, and

he is going to make a calendar and try to make some money and sell it,

aren't you? Which month are you starting with? Can you use your

machine? COMPUTER are: August. you taken a photograph already?

In preparation for that money- making scheme, Stefan is using his

machine to improve his mathematical skills. I bet you know this one.

Well done. I thought you would know that one. Marie is also now able to

communicate, with an innovative new system. Computer: I find this more

portable and easier to tide on at the moment. Plus it does lots of

other things. I am a bit biased. I love my technology. When you are

diagnosed with a live faltering condition, it can be an incredibly

scary time. People want to know that there are technologies out

their that can support them participating. -- life-altering

condition. I am pleased they invest so much time to get the right

equipment for people. COMPUTER: Lemon squash. I want something to

drink. Stefan Cherise the machine that was easiest for him to use and

had the vest vocabulary. -- Stefan that shows. He will be able to

select what he wants and make statements and comments and

contribute to the conversation, without any intervention. I love

the... I love the... More muck. -- mother. I love, I loved mother,

That is where we bring things to a closed tonight. If you would like

to keep in touch with us, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Next week, we investigate why the police were slow to respond to a

week 999 call from a man threatening to kill himself. Bus,

an alternative view of his unbarred Kingdom Brunel. We need the