Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

[bluebottle]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

Having reviewed this thread, if the letter was posted to you, the most Marstons are entitled to charge is the Compliance Fee of £85. They are not entitled to charge an Enforcement Fee of £215 because the debt had been satisfied. Under these circumstances, the bailiff's actions were unlawful, if not, illegal. Marstons have some explaining to do and some money to return to you. The bailiff may have some explaining to do as well, if not to you and Marstons, then, certainly, to the CJ or DJ at the court that issued his certificate, that is, if a letter to the CJ or DJ doesn't result in discharge of his certificate without a Form 4 or a hearing, as happened to a Ross & Roberts bailiff last year.

[BoroBoy1975]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

BB - Qpips has stated in my thread regarding her personal health problems & the effects the stress caused her - surely that should be taken into consideration as well & Marstons questioned over their behaviour on that front too along with any earnings she may have lost in having to take time off work because of it???

[bluebottle]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

BB - Qpips has stated in my thread regarding her personal health problems & the effects the stress caused her - surely that should be taken into consideration as well & Marstons questioned over their behaviour on that front too along with any earnings she may have lost in having to take time off work because of it???

If a doctor can link the behaviour of the bailiff to Qpips having to take time off work due to stress, then Marstons are liable for any loss of earnings, especially if the bailiff was acting ultra vires.

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

Having reviewed this thread, if the letter was posted to you, the most Marstons are entitled to charge is the Compliance Fee of £85. They are not entitled to charge an Enforcement Fee of £215 because the debt had been satisfied. Under these circumstances, the bailiff's actions were unlawful, if not, illegal. Marstons have some explaining to do and some money to return to you. The bailiff may have some explaining to do as well, if not to you and Marstons, then, certainly, to the CJ or DJ at the court that issued his certificate, that is, if a letter to the CJ or DJ doesn't result in discharge of his certificate without a Form 4 or a hearing, as happened to a Ross & Roberts bailiff last year.

Exactly, in effect, I was actually paying Mr Cox to turn up to my house on the actual day 03.04.13 to enforce a fine that was already settled.

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

If a doctor can link the behaviour of the bailiff to Qpips having to take time off work due to stress, then Marstons are liable for any loss of earnings, especially if the bailiff was acting ultra vires.

I have been provided with a sick note which obviously I had to hand in to work.

I suffer with Meniere's disease, which is basically Vertigo, hearing loss, raging Tinitus and pressure in the head, which can be aggravated by stress and bring on drop attacks. I was absent from work from 04.03.13 to 22.04.13.

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

Exactly, in effect, I was actually paying Mr Cox to turn up to my house on the actual day 03.04.13 to enforce a fine that was already settled.

Even the date of the letter from the mysterious Mr Munro was dated 28.01.13 (after payment) - although no details regarding him or his involvement have been mentioned by Marstons..

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

Still struggling with my letter, I will spend my lunch hour today composing not only it but myself. I wonder if I post it on here (when I finish it) if all you lovely folk would be kind enough to cast a critical eye over it?

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

How does this sound? Struggling with a conclusion.

"Dear Sr or Madam,
Formal Complaint regarding account reference *****

I write to you, following on from your communication dated ( ) and the lack of response from my email dated ( ).

on 03.08.12 I received a fine from () for the amount of £560, which I made arrangements to pay the court £50 pm, in September, I made two payments of £50 leaving a balance of £460

Unfortunately due to a discrepancy with my wages in December, I was unable to make a payment, however I paid the full outstanding balance of £460 on 16th January. (I hold receipts for this)

On 28th January, I received a letter from Marston Group (Mr Monro) advising me that I owed them £760, (which was £460 fine, £85 compliance fee, and £215 attendance fee. The following morning I called the courts who confirmed that they had received the payment and that I needed to contact Marston Group to sort it out.

On 1st February I called Mr Monro (call recorded) and advised him that we had contacted the court who advised that the payment had been recieved and asked him why he was endeavoring to collect a fine that had already been paid. He concluded the conversation, repeatedly telling me to "leave it" and advised that he would get back to me in a couple of days if there were any further issues - which I did.

In the next couple of weeks I heard nothing from Marston Group and presumed that the matter was resolved - how wrong I was!

On 3rd April at around 6.15am I was awoken by relentless banging on my front door and ringing of my doorbell. I answered the door to a gentleman (and I use the term very loosley) whom I later found to be Mr Cox, who advised that he had clamped my vehicle and that if i did not furnish him with £300 within the hour he would be "getting the boys round, to impound my car which would cost me an absoloute fortune". He would not listen to me and my wife telling him that the fine had been paid, even though we were showing him proof. and insisted that the disress warrant was still live. He would not let me read the warrant, and said "he would not engage in my childish playground arguing"

He apparently then made a call to Marston and advised us that they had confirmed that the Distress Warrant was still valid.

I then went into the house to discuss the situation with my wife. She became very upset and we decided that the only course of action available to us (as we had to get to work) was to pay. I went to the cashpoint and withdrew what was left of my monthly wage up to the daily £250 limit and was not able to withdraw any more.

Mr Cox was not happy with this and said we were "wasting his time" at which point my wife asked my son if we could borrow that outstanding £50 to which he agreed and I made another trip to the cashpoint.

During this time, Mr Cox was arguing with my wife in ful view of our neighbours and anyone who happened to be passing.

My wife then paid the full £300 to Mr Cox and signed the reciept, (but not before he had snatched the pen out of her hand, marking it in the process) he then handed her the receipt and a version of the so called distress warrant, which looks to be drawn up on Marston Group headed note paper and was dated 3rd April.

Following this episode, my wife who sufffers with Menieres disease had a drop attack and was signed off from work until 22nd April, and I was left with the awful situation of not being able to provide food for my family for the remainder of the month.


On () I spent nearly the whole day trying to contact the courts to try to find out the date the debt was passed to Marston Group, the date of the distress warrant, and the date that they informed Marston Group that the fine had been paid - to no avail. On the same day I emailed Marson Group to find out the same information and also to ask them to verify the certification of both Mr Monro and Mr Cox. They replied that under the Data Protection Act, they were not willing to reply by email. I received the reply below by post:



Thank you for your recent correspondence. Please be advised Mr Cox was certified at Liverpool County Court on 13 March 2013 and has an expiry of 12 March 2015. Please find a generated copy of the warrant. In regard to the fees you incurred. These charges have been calculated in accordance with the magistrates court act 1980, and on a scale agreed with the ministry of Justice (MoJ). The breakdown is as follows;-

Fine £460

Compliance Fee 07/01/2013 £85.


Attendance to remove fee 03/04/2013 £215.

Total £760

Payment forwarded from our client 08/02/13 £460

Payment received £300

We can confirm that our records show that this case has now been paid in full. As such we will be taking no further action in respect of this matter

I also received a copy of the distress warrant however the date on this copy was 19th April.

You will see that there is no mention at all of Mr Munro, and that even with the discrepancy of dates, that Mr Cox was attempting to secure money from us for a fine that had already been settled.

[BoroBoy1975]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

If you've got the medical evidence to prove your absence from work hit the b*stards hard where it hurts - 3/4/13 - 22/4/13 is 2 & 1/2 weeks in my reckoning along with a claim for the mental emotion & stress has to be worth a shot surely - think BB will be the man to advise you on that front & assist you in get a few quid out of them in return for the treatment you received!!!

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

I would be happy with my £300 back...

[bluebottle]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

I have spoken to Gareth Hughes about your case this afternoon, Qpips. The main question that arises from this incident is whether the bailiff's attendance was justified or, indeed, necessary. The fine had already been paid to the court and, as such, the court would have or should have informed Marstons of this. If Marstons had already sent a letter, then they can charge the £85 Compliance Fee. However, claiming the Distress Warrant had already been passed to the bailiff is not justification for allowing the bailiff to attend, simply, to obtain the £215 Enforcement Fee. Once the debt is satisfied, all enforcement should then cease. I'm going to send you a PM.

[bizzybob]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

Are the court equally or more culpable also then for passing it to Marstons once it had been paid?

[Qpips]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

Thanks BB Hubby will be trying again today.

Top and bottom is that the fine was already paid prior to us receiving any communication from Marston's.

Also, with respect to Mr Hughes, I think the main question is all the unnecessary stress, embarrassment and upset that was caused by an unwarranted visit. Plus, the fact that it left me unable to provide the basics for my family.

Had we received any notification of compliance fee, we would have paid it as we wanted the matter resolved quickly. This is why we paid the court fine in full, despite leaving us short for the month of January.

[bizzybob]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

In which case the question must be who was the muppet in HMCS, or is the system so automated that the referral to marstons was an automatic process whereby, the money clearing missed a machine set deadline and the computers at HMCS passed it on?

[bluebottle]

Re: Marston harrassment for court fine already paid!!

The court needs to be pressed to as to when they notified Marstons that the fine had been paid. It is an offence for a person to fail to disclose information they have a legal duty to disclose and by so failing to disclose information causes another loss, or exposes them to loss or the risk of loss, which can be deliberate or reckless.