Warehouse ‘sprinkler malfunction’ caused £20K damage to books ahead of administration

Donna Ravenhill, director at Dandy Booksellers, said she put her trust in the company after it agreed to undertake the distribution of its specialist books earlier this year, as well as provide storage services.

However, she said this trust was misplaced after a sprinkler malfunction in January at Tailormade’s Bolton warehouse damaged two pallets worth of books and she was not informed for more than a fortnight.

The pallets were eventually returned to her and she said that instead of 26 books being damaged – as the freight forwarder had claimed – a total of 215 were ruined, which put the cost at around £21,000.

Ravenhill said she had struggled to obtain any information about how the incident occurred and since the company entered administration communication had deteriorated further.

BDO has now been appointed as administrator of Tailormade Logistics and it informed Dandy Booksellers that although the company had taken out insurance, it was still attempting to find out what it covered.

“We still haven’t heard back from BDO despite constant chasing,” she said.

“I don’t know what we are going to do; we are in a situation where no-one wants to pick this up.

“My insurance won’t cover me because my books weren’t stored here. At the end of the day, we are sitting here surrounded by damaged goods and we’ve never had a situation like that before.

“Our business is suffering, we want to get that money back.”

Records show that the sole director of Tailormade Logistics is Belgium-based Bert Vandecaveye, although Motor Transport has seen emails in which he informed Ravenhill that its MD was Stephen Booth, who she met once following the sprinkler incident.

Vandecaveye said he had been struggling to find out what had happened to Tailormade Logistics and he encouraged Dandy Booksellers to send any agreements made with Booth to BDO.

He also explained that now it was in administration he had no authority to decide anything.

BDO had not responded as went to press. Vandecaveye did not respond.

Booth declined to comment but refuted Vandecaveye’s claims. In a separate email to Ravenhill he claimed to be an “independent contractor” for the company.