Debt collection agencies “bend over backwards” to avoid people being jailed, a barrister said yesterday.

Christopher Swan, who is also a director of a debt agency, said he had acted for both creditors and debtors in the courts, and that the system was sympathetic to those with genuine reasons for not paying up.

Mr Swan, of legal firm Christopher Swan & Co, spoke out after the PLP’s Wayne Furbert tabled a bill in the House of Assembly to outlaw people being sent to jail for debt.

“The impression that Mr Furbert is giving is just wrong. People don’t get locked up for debt, they’re locked up for contempt of court orders. That’s a different thing,” he said.

“That statement deserves qualification in that the courts, particularly the civil court in Magistrates’ Court, are absolutely overburdened with the amount of civil claims they see.

“The courts are painfully aware of where we are as a society in terms our economy and they will bend over backwards to ensure it’s the last possible thing that happens that people are incarcerated.”

Mr Swan added that Magistrates’ “routinely” adjust repayment schedules down for people who have fallen behind with court order payments rather than impose jail terms, while collection agencies also tried to reach fair repayment terms.

“There are people with circumstances that don’t allow them to pay without delay. Debt collection agencies will also bend over backwards to help people, sometimes to the disgust of clients,” he said.

He added that “less than five percent” of debtors were ever locked up, which included those held in court cells for a few hours to allow friends and family members to come up with outstanding court-ordered payments.

Mr Swan said many debt cases involved non-payment of rent to landlords who relied on the cash to pay their own mortgages.

“Often the people who suffer are the people who are owed money — I have seen people lose their houses over things like that,” he said.

And he added that there was a hard core of people who went to great lengths to avoid discharging their debts, and that the threat of prison was the only thing that might make them stump up.

“There are people out there owed money who are sitting on the edge of their seats because there might be no incentive to pay,” he said. “If the threat of jail is taken away, there is no incentive at all.”

Mr Furbert’s bill was backed by Sheelagh Cooper of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, who said jail for debt impacted most on her clients — often single mothers with no support who struggled to get by.

But Mr Swan said that more resources should be put in to ensuring fathers who failed to pay child maintenance were brought to book and made to live up to their responsibilities.

“I understand Sheelagh Cooper’s point of view, but to paint a picture where a single mother with two kids can’t afford to pay her bills being threatened with being locked up, Magistrates take that into consideration,” Mr Swan said.

“More effort should be put into chasing down deadbeat dads who fail to pay child support.”

He said he had seen the same people return to the civil courts on several occasions — and who had no intention of honouring their debts.

He added that some in the family courts played the system by refusing to work so they didn’t have to pay child support, or changed their employment on a regular basis to dodge bids to arrest their wages.