Global Visas boss Liam Clifford tries - and fails - to muzzle the Daily Mirror

Few people have got their lawyers on to my case more often than Liam Clifford of Global Visas.

The boss of what claims to be the most successful immigration and visa operation in the world has had an interesting summer, starting with some good news.

After five years his ban from acting as a company director ended on July 31.

But then August proved that I'm not the only journalist with Global Visas on my radar when a documentary investigated its arm in South Africa.

The programme, Visa to Nowhere, sent an undercover reporter who posed as an out-of-work 45-year-old art teacher who wanted to move from Cape Town to Canada.

Although Canada is not crying out for unemployed art teachers, or anyone else over the age of 45 unless they're on a special skills list, it claimed that Global Visas had "no qualms" about signing up him and his family for almost £2,000.

The show also found an apparent whistle-blower at the company who admitted "selling a dream that doesn't exist".

The firm replied with a lawyer's letter.

It said it acted within a code of ethics and had millions of successful clients.

And it told me that it had begun "pre-action correspondence in respect of a complaint of libel".

The documentary makers are standing by their programme.

Clifford, 43, drives a Maserati soft-top to the Global Visas headquarters in London.

He lives in a six-bedroom mansion complete with a heated swimming pool in five acres of gardens and woodland near Tilford in rural Surrey.

He also seems to enjoy spending money on lawyers.

In my last piece about a customer who never got the visa she wanted, I pointed out that the firm had still not paid six people who had sued it in the small claims court.

The company ran to media law firm Sheridans, which said that Global Visas had just one outstanding court judgment, not six.

Sheridans said the article was defamatory and implied that Global Visas was "a disreputable business that considers itself to be above the law."

So the Mirror produced the public record showing how many judgments had still not been paid - it was six.

Global Visas has also demanded that we delete comments posted on a Mirror blog, such as one pointing out that the firm had lost an employment tribunal case earlier this year.

"Entirely untrue," Sheridans insisted on instructions from Global Visas.

In fact it was entirely true and the employee was awarded £9,907 for unlawful discrimination.

Global Visas even objected to a blog comment that dared to mention Clifford's director's ban.

Someone else whose opinion they'd like to stifle is Tony Saliba, of Dunstable, Beds, who was left "totally unsatisfied" after trying to get a visa and job in Canada, then refused a refund.

Global Visas, via Sheridans, again demanded that his blog comment was deleted, saying: "Payment of a refund is in progress."

What the lawyers did not say is that Tony had to sue for his money and get a warrant of execution for £2,512.

At the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, I argued that if you've been the victim of injustice, you should have the right "to shout it from the roof tops, and that's where the press can come in." I added: "If the press are stifled, then the public are stifled."

Lord Leveson replied: "I don't actually think that anyone was thinking of stifling the press or the public in relation to disclosing acts of moral obloquy."

Doesn't look like that from here.

By ANDREW PENMAN INVESTIGATES

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/global-visas-boss-liam-clifford-2204530