I was recently asked, “Can a bailiff threaten you with prison if it has been to court” by someone – so to answer that question I posted this blog post to explain better.

So, to answer that question….

A bailiff can only threaten you with prison IF the debt is for council tax or child support payments. If it for ANY other type of debt then you CANNOT be sent to prison for it. This is just another ploy of the bailiff to get you to pay up.

A bailiff cannot send you to prison – the company or person that you owe the debt to can apply to the court for an arrest warrant to be issued but the debt has to be passed back to the company from the bailiff first.

IF an arrest warrant is issued it is normally just a ‘Bail’ warrant which means that should you be stopped by the Police and they check your details, they will see that there is a warrant for your arrest but because it is a ‘Bail’ warrant, it means that the Police will just verify your current address and your details will be passed to the court for them to send you a date for you to appear in court. You will NOT be detained and you WILL be allowed on your way.

If you then fail to attend court on that date then the court will issue a non bail arrest warrant which means you can then be arrested and detained at any Police station until your court appearance.

It is best not to let it reach this situation but it normally does take a while for things to get to this stage which may ‘buy’ you enough time to either pay some of the debt off or come to a payment arrangement.

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