British Process Servers Guide

 The British Process Servers Guide has been written and compiled by practicing professionals, whose vast accumulated experience, skill and in-depth knowledge acquired over more than 50 years provides a wealth of vital information and procedures. It is the essential guide to the successful completion of all legal process. Includes all relevant Woolf Reforms Detailed explanations of rules and procedures Contains example affidavits and statements of service for all process in the UK and abroad Detailed explanations of Civil Procedure Rules where relevant High Court Process County Court Process Magistrates’ Court Process Children Act 1989 Bankruptcy Divorce Process

This is a must for busy process servers and investigators! The British Process Servers Guide has been rewritten and updated to reflect the changes made to the Civil Procedure Rules and Court Procedure since the highly successful and original Process Servers Guide 2000 was written and published by Nationwide Investigations Group. The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) were introduced in April 1999 following a report on the state of civil justice carried out by Lord Woolf. Formerly practice in the High Court was governed by the Rules of the Supreme Court (RSC) and practice in the County Court by the County Court Rules (CCR). The CPR incorporate one code of civil practice for both the High Court and the County Court. However, many differences in practice between the High Court and the County Court have survived the introduction of the CPR. This is because large chunks of the RSC and the CCR have been re-enacted as schedules to the CPR. The surviving parts of the RSC have been re-enacted as Schedule 1 to the CPR. The surviving parts of the CCR have been re-enacted as Schedule 2 to the CPR. The two most commonly used practitioner texts on the Civil Procedure Rules are “Civil Procedure”, familiarly known as The White Book and published by Sweet & Maxwell, and The Civil Court Practice familiarly known as The Green Book and published by Butterworths.

The Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2011 came into force on the 6th April 2011. This guide has been updated to reflect those changes in the CPR. This guide will be further amended as the rule change in the future. As a practising process server, I have always wished to have a ready reference to the rules on my iPhone. For this reason, The British Process Servers Guide will be published in electronic format (Kindle) for easy reference on your Kindle, Kindle app (iPhone/iPad2), Kindle for Android, Kindle for PC & MAC as well as published as a paperback on Amazon.

It was a quite Saturday afternoon in leafy suburbia somewhere in Surrey. Kids were playing on their bikes, the sun was shining.

Being unobtrusive here is simple. Just pretend to speak on a mobile fone. Jorge Salgado-Reyes knows this and it makes his job easy. “There are so many people that park their cars to use their fones that it effectively makes you invisible.”

Jorge, a former Retail Loss Prevention Investigator, is on a surveillance. Not seventy yards away, inside a terraced house is his target. She’s a woman approaching her forties, a housewife with a suspicious husband and a lot to lose. She’s a cheater and, if Jorge has anything to do with it, she’s going to get caught.

The target is just one of tens of thousands of “matrimonial” subjects who come to the attention of private investigators each year in a burgeoning infidelity industry. A survey by accountants Grant Thornton found that 49 per cent of all divorce cases now involve the services of private investigators. And, if you believe the private eyes, that figure is simply growing and growing.

Jorge has a Toyota four wheel drive, a house in Surrey and one of the busiest private investigator websites on Google. The green-eyed monster is voracious. Infidelity is a good paymaster.

“I’d been working in Retail Loss Prevention for seventeen years investigating employee theft and fraud,” he says. “Then I thought, why not set up as a private investigator? I set up the business, Salgado Investigations; pretty soon, I was making enough money to quit my full time job. That was six years ago. Now my business merged with another and we are called Allied Detectives now. Salgado investigations became my office in Chile”

“I never expect anything to happen, that way if something does it’s a bonus. The wife – let’s call her Jane – has been lying to her husband – John – about where she goes on the weekends. Now she has told John that she will be going out with a friend this weekend.”

Jorge is parked slightly out of sight of the house, he doesn’t seem worried that he can’t see the house, “I put a GPS tracker on her car last night,” he says, looking down at the screen of his laptop, “even if we lose her, we’ll soon pick her up again on this.”

Nearby are two of Jorge’s colleagues, ex-RAF MP Neil Sheppard (Midlands office), and Rodolfo Francois a motorbike operative who runs Salgado Investigations office in Chile. They are sitting in the back of a nondescript surveillance van. Neil is armed with a long lens worthy of a paparazzi and Rodolfo with a new addition to the surveillance armoury, a pair of Spy Sunglasses.

We settle in for a long afternoon. I asked Jorge how many PI’s there might be in the UK? “No one really knows for sure, because we (PI’s) are not licensed.” he replied. “Hopefully we will be licensed by 2014, just maybe it will get rid of some of the cowboys that exist out there, who can do you more harm than good,” he says. “Much of what we do is in a legal minefield and if it isn’t done within the law you could find yourself in trouble. There is no point gathering evidence if you can’t use it in court.”

A visit to a well known action site will give you some idea of what lies in the private investigator’s armoury. For a reasonable fee you can buy a pair of sunglasses that records video and audio on its internal DVR. Or you could buy the Spy Pen, a pen that records both in video and audio. Or you could install a GPS tracker that tells you instantly where your targets car is via the Internet. “Trackers are very popular with detective agencies,” Jorge informs me, “because they allow a surveillance to happen with smaller teams and within smaller budgets. It used to be that surveillance should be conducted with a minimum team of four operatives.” Jorge went on, “nowadays people can’t afford that kind of expenditure. I know agencies that do it with one agent and a tracker.”

If audio evidence isn’t enough to drive you crazy, why not install a camera in the bedroom disguised as a radio alarm clock or perhaps as a wall clock. The most depressing piece of kit, however, is surely the Check Mate infidelity test kit for men, which allows you to swab for evidence of semen on your partner’s underwear.

Back in west London, Jorge and the boys have had as much success as they had expected this early in the afternoon; none. Two teenagers have come and gone from the property and neither was Jane.

“Much of the job is like this,” says Jorge, an amiable 44 year old. “It’s patience and waiting. I feel sorry for Neil and Rodolfo; they are in the back of the van with no ventilation and no toilet.”

Darkness has fallen in Surrey, and Jorge and his boys are wondering if anything is going to happen today. Suddenly, Jorge gets a call on his Motorola radio, “stand by, stand by” two seconds later “target in car”. Jorge calmly starts the car and gets ready to follow, “I will take the lead”, he explains, “Until Rodolfo can pick her up on the bike.”

We watch as her car passes the side street we are on and we start to track her. Two minutes later “Rodolfo reports, that he is 2 cars behind. Jorge instructs him to take up the lead and he drops back with Neil in the van even further back.

“Rodolfo is using the Spy Sunglasses to record the follow. Neil and I will use our camcorders with night vision to record from static positions once we get to where ever we are going”, Jorge continues to explain.

Half an hour later, we pull in to the car park of a large and isolated hotel. We watch as the target walks into the hotel and almost immediately returns accompanied by a man. Jorge is busy recording them holding hands, seemly oblivious to the close scrutiny of the Allied Detectives.

The 4×4 purrs into life and Jorge moves out of the shadows into the anodyne glow of an empty Surrey country lane. There will probably be several more hours of following the target as she cheats on her husband.

The case was about a child and the medical notes were being withheld by the parents. The solicitors needed the documents and decided to summons anyone that might have access to them.

The summons were duly picked up and the 1st on the list was served without any problems.

The 2nd “Servee” was a solicitor and she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I decided to leave her until Saturday and I duly served her at her home. She wasn’t a happy bunny.

I then attempted to serve the 3rd on the list, a hospital consultant. She wasn’t there and the hospital were very unhelpful and I left her a message to call me (she didn’t). I then traced her to her home about 3/4 of a mile away from the hospital. She was very surprised to see me and demanded to know how I had traced her. I replied “It’s what I do” in my best “Art Noire” PI voice.

I also served the GP in the case and again he complained that he had a full surgery on Monday. I explained that he needed to inform the Judge on Monday about that.

I also served the parents who reacted by saying that they refused to accept service. When I informed them that they were served anyway, the man threw it me and demanded that I leave his property. Since I was leaving anyway, I didn’t have a problem with this.

Just another typical Friday afternoon.

Retail crime is an expensive problem for company’s according to a new report by the British Chambers of Commerce which puts the annual cost of crime against business at £12.6 billion – an increase of 20 per cent since its previous survey in 2004. 3,900 businesses were surveyed nationwide and they found that 59 per cent had experienced at least one crime in the previous 12 months. This survey reflect Salgado’s own survey published as Thieving Little Britains.

Jorge Salgado-Reyes, Senior Loss Prevention investigator for Allied Detectives, says that this holds true for most retailers, with shoplifting (external theft) being the most common cause of business loss, followed by staff theft.

The common shrink split is 70/25/5 per cent (external/internal/other) and depending on the type of retailer this is a fairly accurate split of their losses. But according to Jorge internal theft hits a business harder due to the insidious nature of the crime. It is known as “Theft Employee” and is the dark side of Loss Prevention.

Why does it hit harder? Well Jorge gives one example, imagine that you when you get home tonight, you discover that you have been the victim of a burglary. How do you feel? terrible? Then you report it to the police and they investigate it and during the course of the investigation they discover that the burglar is a friend of yours. How do you feel now? Betrayed? So what is the difference between being burglared by a stranger or a friend? The difference is that your friend has abused your friendship, your trust!

Out of a workforce, it is estimated that 25 per cent of your staff will never steal, 50 per cent may steal if given the opportunity, and the last 25 per cent will always steal. In other words potentially up to 75 per cent of your staff may steal if given the opportunity to do so.

When a member of the public steals an item, they are stealing the cost price of that item (i.e. item – retail price £29.99 – Cost price 5.99) while when a member of staff steals £30 from the till, they are stealing the retail cost i.e. the entire £30.

As you can appreciate, staff theft is a very real and significant problem.

According to Jorge Salgado-Reyes, staff theft is a more common problem than retailers care to admit. And breaking through this barrier of denial is crucial to helping businesses reduce their internal losses.

Allied Detectives offers a holistic approach to tackling staff theft including the use of a confidential staff hotline for staff to report their suspicions about other dishonest staff. Reviewing a company’s security and loss prevention procedures, the use of covert CCTV, test purchasing, GPS tracking of distribution fleets, and undercover operatives being entered into the work force.  Ultimately, the question should not be whether you can afford to implement security measures but whether you can afford not to.

Jorge adds: “Don’t turn a blind eye to staff theft, if you accept it, you will be nurturing a culture of staff dishonesty where your dishonest staff teach new staff to steal and you will start to lose money at an exponential rate.

The work of a private detective is interesting and varied. Have you ever considered that it might be the perfect life for you? Are you good at knowing when “things just aren’t right”? Do you love getting to the bottom of things? Are you searching for something exciting and different?

Allied Detectives are looking for new partner investigators, both here in the UK and overseas.

Become a private detective, by becoming an Allied Detective!

No experience? With our unique and bespoke training programme you could be fulfilling your dreams within 12 weeks. In any urban setting you may see things which others miss. Maybe a dishonest staff member stealing from a till, maybe a van in “the wrong place”, or a shoplifting team in action. All around you people carry on their daily activities oblivious to the darker side of life.

But you’ll notice.

That’s where you’re different.

Being an Allied Detective could be the job for you…

As an Allied Detective you’ll be running your own business, from your own office. You’ll decide which cases to take and which ones to reject, and for once you’ll be in charge of your own success.

The work carries other benefits too: time off whenever you want (or need) it; the ability to plan your own day or week; immense variety. What are you waiting for?

You’ll be involved in surveillance, tracking down debtors, finding lost friends and relatives, process serving, interviewing witnesses and even helping people with wayward marriage partners. And there’s more: as an Allied Detective you’ll be able to fit all your work around existing commitments, and because we’ve been trading since 2006 we have evolved the perfect agency model for good times and bad.

Who are Allied Detectives?

Allied Detectives originated as a collaboration of two people Neil Sheppard and Jorge Salgado-Reyes, the brains behind the successful investigation agencies, Trident Investigations and Salgado Investigations. Both founder members have long and successful careers in commercial investigation.

Following the inception of their collaboration Allied Detectives have expanded to encompass offices in London, the Midlands and Chile. Now they wish to expand their business by offering you the chance to apply to become a business partner.

Interested? Contact Jorge Salgado-Reyes by using the form at the bottom of this article.

Take the first step by completing this form

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However, according to Croydon Private Investigator Jorge Salgado-Reyes – a man who specialises in catching people “at it” – there are certain things you can do to reduce your chances of being found out:

(1) Get a pay-as-you-go phone: mobile phone records are now the #1 way cheaters get caught. Pay-as-you-go means no itemised bills and, if you delete flirty texts and your call records, you’ll cover your phone tracks.

(2) Give your lover a fake name: suspicious partners are likely to go through your phone contacts, but they’re unlikely to pay much attention to someone of your gender, so store your lover’s number under a fake name of your own sex.

(3) Don’t say you’re working late: two reasons: firstly, it’s the oldest line in the book, secondly, if you’re always working but not bringing home more money, it’s going to raise suspicions.

(4) Get a friend on board: a night out with a mate is the perfect cover story. Get a trusted friend to help cover your tracks by providing regular alibis.

(5) Treat your partner the same way: people who are being unfaithful tend to start treating their partners differently. They either turn off their affection or they overcompensate and act more affectionately (e.g. flowers for no reason, when they hadn’t done that in years).

According to Jorge, “unless the cheater is a sociopath, he or she will treat their partner differently. But, it’s all a question of degree: some people have far more self-awareness and self-control – better actors, basically – and they’re the ones that are best at hiding affairs.”

(6) Don’t change your appearance: when someone starts an affair, they’re often tempted to dress differently or take more care over their appearance. If this is combined with acting differently towards your partner, it’s increases the suspicion that something’s going on.

(7) Deny everything: love can make fools of us all and most of us want to believe the best of the person we love. Without concrete evidence and faced with a resolute denial, your partner can often be convinced that it’s “all in his or her head”.

Do these seven things and you’ll hide many of the most common signs of cheating.
However, will you still get away with it?

According to Jorge Salgado-Reyes, “in my line of work, I’ve learned two things about infidelity. Firstly, I’ve seen the hurt and suffering experienced by the victims. Secondly, I’ve seen how difficult it is to hide an affair.”

And his real advice for cheaters?

“Don’t do it. It’s likely to destroy your relationship, cause lasting damage to your partner, and your kids if you have any, it will create resentment that’ll linger and you’ll be burdened by feelings of guilt … it’s just not worth it.

“Ask yourself ‘would I do this if I knew I’d be caught’. If the answer is ‘no’, don’t do it.

“Because, if you do cheat, and your partner hires me, you will be caught!”

ENDS

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Jorge Salgado-Reyes at Allied Detectives on 056 0105 5760.

Jorge Salgado-Reyes is happy to make himself available for expert comment on any aspect of private investigation.

The poll found that 78% of the participants had stolen from their place of work at some point in their lives. This means that with individuals admitting to stealing, on average, more than £920 worth of items throughout their careers, theft at work costs the economy nearly £432m each year. The research stipulated that office stationary did not count, and the average was pushed up by many claiming that they have stolen more than £5000 worth of goods.

Those who denied pilfering from work however are certainly no angels, as 57% of people who haven’t yet stolen from a place of work said that they would if they thought that they could get away with it.

Jorge Salgado-Reyes, who commissioned the research, said: “In my line of work, you get used to shocking stories and facts, but these stats make for pretty scary reading. Companies are doing little to stop thefts of these kinds, with very few having deterrents such as monitored CCTV or robust asset management systems in place.

“It just goes to show that in today’s Britain, you really don’t know who you can trust.”

Amongst the stolen items anonymously detailed in the comprehensive survey were large sums of cash, alcohol, furniture, computer equipment and even one boss’s desk. One respondent even claimed to have stolen an office pet.

I want to focus on the tracking part of the presentation.

It is quite clear that if you combine client instructions (written or digitally transmitted) that identify a person and a vehicle and then you deploy any type of tracker, the information gathered by the tracker becomes personal data as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998.

The document “What is personal data? – A quick reference guide” published by the ICO http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/160408_v1.0_determining_what_is_personal_data_-_quick_reference_guide.pdf makes clear that data that identifies a living individual is personal data.

• Can a living individual be identified from the data, or, from the data and other information in your possession, or likely to come into your possession? If yes then its personal data.

Identifiability - An individual is ‘identified’ if you have distinguished that individual from other members of a group. In most cases an individual’s name together with some other information will be sufficient to identify them. Simply because you do not know the name of an individual does not mean you cannot identify that individual. The starting point might be to look at what means are available to identify an individual and the extent to which such means are readily available to you.

NOTE: It is clear that a client’s instructions will identify the subject of enquiry.

• Does the data ‘relate to’ the identifiable living individual, whether in personal or family life, business or profession?

Meaning of ‘relates to’ – Data which identifies an individual, even without a name associated with it, may be personal data where it is processed to learn or record something about that individual, or where the processing of that information has an impact upon that individual. Therefore, data may ‘relate to’ an individual in several different ways.

• Is the data ‘obviously about’ a particular individual?

Data ‘obviously about’ an individual will include his medical history, criminal record, record of his work or his achievements in a sporting activity. Data that is not ‘obviously about’ a particular individual may include information about his activities. Data such as personal bank statements or itemised telephone bills will be personal data about the individual operating the account or contracting for telephone services. Where data is not ‘obviously about’ an identifiable individual it may be helpful to consider whether the data is being processed, or could easily be processed, to learn, record or decide something about an identifiable individual. Information may be personal data where the aim, or an incidental consequence, of the processing, is that you learn or record something about an identifiable individual, or the processing could have an impact on, or affect, an identifiable individual.

NOTE: Data from a Tracker would be to identify the individual or his activities.  It is therefore personal data within the meaning of the DPA.

ARE WE ALLOWED TO GATHER PERSONAL DATA?

All private investigators or any individual who wishes to gather personal data MUST BE registered with the ICO and have a DPA number.  It is a criminal offense to process data and not have a DPA number.

WHAT OTHER LAWS MIGHT WE BREAK BY TRACKING CARS?

Trespass: It may be a civil trespass to deploy a tracker onto a car not belonging to your client or to yourself.  But in the OSC’s annual inspection, the OSC’s Chief Surveillance Commissioner Sir Christopher Rose stated “putting an arm into a wheel arch or under the frame of a vehicle is straining the concept of trespass“.

However to enter the private land of anyone in order to deploy a tracker is clearly a trespass which is a civil tort.

Harassment & Stalking: Surveillance in all of its forms can sometimes be misinterpreted by the public as stalking.  There is no legal definition of ‘stalking’. Neither is there specific legislation to address this behaviour. Rather, it is a term used to describe a particular kind of harassment. Generally, it is used to describe a long-term pattern of persistent and repeated contact with, or attempts to contact, a particular victim.

Examples of the types of conduct often associated with stalking include: direct communication; physical following; indirect contact through friends, work colleagues, family or technology; or, other intrusions into the victim’s privacy. The behaviour curtails a victim’s freedom, leaving them feeling that they constantly have to be careful.

In many cases, the conduct might appear innocent (if it were to be taken in isolation), but when carried out repeatedly so as to amount to a course of conduct, it may then cause significant alarm, harassment or distress to the victim

If the subject of enquiry is aware of the tracking, then this may amount to harassment under the Prevention of Harassment Act 1997.  There is a case at the Royal Courts of Justice where a private investigator is being sued under this act for the use of trackers.

Property Interference: This refers to RIPA or Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.  The Home Office published a document entitled “Covert Surveillance and Property Interference, Revised Code of Practice, Pursuant to section 71 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000” where it suggests in Chapter 7, page 61 that;

General basis for lawful activity

7. 1 Authorisations under section 5 of the 1994 Act or Part III of the 1997 Act should be sought wherever members of the intelligence services, the police, the services police, Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) or Office of Fair Trading (OFT), or persons acting on their behalf, conduct entry on, or interference with, property or with wireless telegraphy that would be otherwise unlawful.

7. 2 For the purposes of this chapter, “property interference” shall be taken to include entry on, or interference with, property or with wireless telegraphy.

The chapter gives an example;

Example: The use of a surveillance device for providing information about the location of a vehicle may involve some physical interference with that vehicle as well as subsequent directed surveillance activity. Such an operation could be authorised by a combined authorisation for property interference (under Part III of the 1997 Act) and, where appropriate, directed surveillance (under the 2000 Act). In this case, the necessity and proportionality of the property interference element of the authorisation would need to be considered by the appropriate authorising officer separately to the necessity and proportionality of obtaining private information by means of the directed surveillance.

This can be interpreted to mean that placing a tracker on a vehicle without the consent of the owner is illegal unless you obtain authorisation from the Surveillance Commissionaire under the RIPA 2000 laws.  Since as private investigators we cannot obtain such authorisations, it is therefore illegal property interference.

Another interpretation is that it is illegal to do so IF you are acting under the instruction of a public authority and you do not obtain authorisation. The legislation makes no mention of property interference for anyone else.  ERGO this does not apply to us!

The second interpretation is the valid one.  I have had advice from two different lawyers on this and both are in agreement that there is no legislation in place that deals with the deployment of trackers in a criminal sense except RIPA 2000 and that RIPA 2000 ONLY applies to those agencies and persons mentioned in it.

CONCLUSIONS

It is possible that the civil offence of trespass is committed if the vehicle is on private property when the tracker is deployed.

It is also possible that if the subject of enquiry becomes aware of the tracker, this may amount to harassment under the Prevention of Harassment Act 1997 if they pursue a course of conduct

(a) which amounts to harassment of another, and

(b) which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other.”

It is the opinion of this writer that the use of GPS Trackers is not illegal and that no criminal offenses are committed in the deployment of such resources.

Evaluations of what works in reducing anti-social behaviour are scarce. Where they do exist, they are carried out locally with very little standardisation in methodology. For this reason, it is difficult to make informed judgements about what works and what does not work to reduce anti-social behaviour. Despite this, however, it is clear that many ASB Enforcement Units are using Professional Witness Services to gather the evidence needed to take action.

We can provide trained professional witnesses with the most up to date surveillance technology to get the evidence you need to take further action. This includes but is not limited to eye witness testimony, covert CCTV evidence from our investigators;

Interviewing suspects and witnesses
Statement Taking
Case File Preparation
Giving evidence in Court
Seeing the case through from start to finish

Monday
11am woke up late, I have vague memories of my GF waking up in the middle of the night to go to work (about 7am), I did all the usual stuff ie had a shower etc.

12noon – went out to get my mail. amongst it , I had a new instructions from a private client who needs a trace on someone who owes him money.

12:15 back in front of my PC and am entering my new clients details on my kashflow software. It keeps track of all my clients and does my bookkeeping.

12:20 hours sent my new client an invoice via email.

12:30 hours, client paid the new invoice via PAY PAL.

12:35 hours – began the trace. only details I have are name and last known address.

12:36 hours – 1st database that I try …and BINGO! I have the info. all details are there. client will be happy and upset at the same time. I have located the trace subject but he is dead.

13:00 hours – am sending reminder emails to my clients whose invoices are overdue. I spoke with one who is significantly overdue. All the overdue clients are solicitors.

14:00 hours – had to go out and get 4 affidavits sworn at the county court.

15:15 hours – decided to do a bit of seo on the various websites.

16:30 hours – 2 more traces have come in. One is easy and the other is going to be hard.

17:00 hours – decided to veg out on the sofa for a couple of hours. I have to do some serves tonight.

21:15 hours, Just served a Non-molestation order on a very unpleasant individual. the other 3 serves went without a hitch.

03:00 hours – on my way to fit a tracker on a clients husbands car and on the clients sister as well.

04:20 hours – back trackers fitted with no problems. the computer appears to be receiving the data well.

04:30 hours – Can’t sleeeeeeezzzzzzzz