Pete: Hi, I’m Peter Bascombe and I run Bascombe International; process servers, enquiry agents and surveillance operatives etc.

Sophie: What is a process server?

Pete: A process server is any individual who is independently serving a document on behalf of normally a lawyer or an individual in a court process. And the reason that process servers are used is in the fact that it is independent. So if you’ve got to serve a divorce petition for example, then the respondent would need to be served by someone independently so that the court knows it has been done properly. Someone could say ‘yeah I served that person’, but if they’re involved in the matter then it’s not independent and it can’t be verified. We provide a proof of service in all sorts of different ways after the service has taken place.

Sophie: Who would use a process server, typically?

Pete: Typically, we would be instructed by mainly solicitors and local authorities to serve on different proceedings, so if it’s a solicitor we may be serving family proceedings, we might be serving debt recovery matters so statutory demands or bankruptcy petitions. In family matters we would be serving divorce petitions, non-molestation orders and also we’re instructed by local authorities to serve emergency care proceedings – that type of thing.

Sophie: Is process serving simple or does it require other investigative work?

Pete: In most cases, process serving is fairly straight-forward; common sense. We’re normally instructed with a person’s name, address, description, a vehicle they might drive and in most cases we go to someone’s house and effect service. There are a lot of people who want to evade service and that’s primarily why we’re instructed to do that because they can’t find them and the person doesn’t want to get served, especially things like bankruptcy petitions or non-molestation orders – that’s not something they want to have. So, sometimes we have to box a little bit clever, maybe carry out some short surveillance to see if they come to or leave the premises or in fact trace an address in the case of a debtor that’s gone missing, we will try and find an address that they’ve moved to and then go to that address, make enquiries and get them served.

Sophie: What has been your most memorable process serving job?

Pete: [Laughing] There’s been too many actually. I mean there’s lot and lots of them but the funny ones -there’s been a couple of funny ones and a couple of iffy ones. When I very first started in this job in 1992, I was instructed to serve an injunction order by Winchester City Council on a man at an industrial estate locally and that’s all they told us, just to go and serve this bundle of documents. So I went down there, found the guy, said ‘are you so-and-so’ ‘yes’ ‘I’ve got these papers for you’. He immediately became a little bit angry and said, ‘you’re not serving it on me’, I said ‘I am’, dropped them by his feet and went to walk away. At that point, he stuffed this great big spanner up my nose, told me to pick up the docs whilst the spanner was still up my nose. So I gingerly crouched down and picked up the documents, he marched me to my car, I got in the car and he was y’know verbally abusing me and as I went to drive away I wound the window down and threw them at him and told him he was served. And he chased my up the road for about half a mile [laughing]. But there’s been so many, I mean honestly, it’s been – yeah I could write a book.

Sophie: Why would a company use Bascombe International?

Pete: The reason people use us is for our professionalism, our integrity, and our -you know, the fact that we don’t give up. If someone needs to get served they’re going to get served and we will find them. And there’s a lot of agents that don’t do the job properly, just turn up at -you know, if you’re instructed that a guy worked from 9 till 5, well you don’t go to the address between 9 and 5, you go at 7:30 in the morning or go at 6:30 at night. If we get instructed today it might be in court tomorrow and therefore we’ve got to do everything we can to find this person, get them served with a document so that they can appear in court tomorrow or at least be aware of those proceedings ahead of court tomorrow. So- if it needs to be served at 10 o’clock at night, we’ll be there and serve them at 10 o’clock at night and then by 9 o’clock the next morning we’ll have got the proof of service, statement of service or a certificate or an affidavit to our client ready for those proceedings the next day in court. They know with us that every single time we say we’ve been there, we have been there and we’ve got a photograph of the front door, we’ve got a description of the cars on the drive and we’ll make every effort possible to get that document served. This morning, classic example, we were instructed on Friday last week to serve a guy – all we had was a telephone number and he may be in custody. So we’ve constantly rung this number over the last 3 or 4 days, managed to speak to him, said he was away, came back, then he’d ring us, he didn’t. We kept persevering. This morning at 10:50 we served him in Southampton and they are absolutely delighted with that because no one else would have got that done. That’s why they use us.