When our Agents turn up to evictions, they know the risks…

…they know that they could be abused or even assaulted. After all, it’s happened plenty of times before. This doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, mind you, but as our Agents are largely made up of ex-forces personnel, they usually take it in their stride.

Something that made us all sit up and take notice, however, was a recent case in Chester, where police officers seized three fire arms and four crossbows (yes, crossbows) from a property which had previously been visited by bailiffs, just a week or so prior to this discovery.

This police seizure came as part of a joint operation with bailiffs, to evict the tenants, and understandably resulted in four arrests being made on firearms offences.

Local schools, playgroups and businesses were forced to close temporarily, whilst the police secured the area.

So, it was all dealt with properly then? What’s the issue?

Well, it might have been dealt with properly, but was it a near miss for our colleagues in the industry?

We think so.

You have to believe that the kind of people keeping weapons like this, would be both prepared and capable to use them, and what better motive could they claim to have, than trying to stop an eviction?

We think that the Agents involved in this case (and indeed the police) have avoided a potentially deadly situation here.

No doubt there was careful planning and both written and dynamic risk assessments in place, but violent people are notoriously unpredictable, and this just goes to show the very real dangers that our Agents face when working on assignments up and down the country.

Fortunately, in this case, the outcome was positive, but it just underlines our commitment to properly training and equipping our men and women in the field.

No one deserves to be in danger of losing their life or being maimed whilst going to work, but that was clearly what was at stake here.

#TeamCES will always set the standard in preparation, protection and procedure, to safeguard our people as much as possible.

the truth is, that you never know exactly what's behind the door, but as long as we continue doing things the right way, we can always hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.