ONE of the Courts customers at the centre of a fight to ensure Ipswich furniture buyers get what they paid for is today sitting pretty.John Yarnton, of Blake Road, is one of the first customers to receive the furniture he paid for after the troubled chain was put under administration.

ONE of the Courts customers at the centre of a fight to ensure Ipswich furniture buyers get what they paid for is today sitting pretty.

John Yarnton, of Blake Road, is one of the first customers to receive the furniture he paid for after the troubled chain was put under administration.

After dozens of emails and phone calls to administrators KPMG Corporate Recovery and a campaign to unite frustrated Ipswich customers, the father-of-four has taken delivery of the £2,300 suite he purchased just minutes before the company officially went into administration.

"It's absolutely unbelievable. I didn't expect it," Mr Yarnton said.

"I sent many emails through various people hoping they could forward it to the people at KPMG that matter.

"Then I received a phone call from the area manager of Courts. The first thing he said was 'Mr Yarnton, I apologise for the way you've been treated and I'd like to assure you your suite is in stock and is waiting on the van for delivery."

The next day the suite the Yarnton family feared they would never see was delivered to their home.

"Until it arrived I was still a bit dubious about whether it was going to be delivered," Mr Yarnton, a property adviser, said.

"Obviously I was very, very happy. I rang my wife who was absolutely ecstatic."

A KPMG spokeswoman said deliveries had begun to take place nationwide to a number of customers who had paid for furniture in full.

Meanwhile Mick McLoughlin and Chris Laverty, KPMG's joint administrators to Courts Plc and Courts UK Limited, revealed they had received a number of "indicative offers" to purchase parts of the beleaguered chain.

Mr McLoughlin said: "We have received a good level of interest and are hopeful that we can sell a significant part of the business as a going concern."

Along with fellow Courts customer Andrew Read, of Balmoral Road, Ipswich, Mr Yarnton organised the formation of a group of customers angry at the way they had been treated.

The pair have been contacted by about 25 Ipswich customers of the Courts store in Ranelagh Road, Ipswich, and both are pledging to continue to push for all customers to receive their furniture or their money back.

"It's as if these customers don't matter. It's as if it doesn't matter what amount of money they've paid," Mr Read, 42, said.

"I'm telling people to keep making as much noise as possible."

A customer and shareholder information sheet is available at www.courts.co.uk and the Courts helpline number is 0870 950 1333.

Courts customers can contact Andrew Read on 01473 684430 or John Yarnton on 07796995101.

Are you a customer affected by the Courts financial collapse? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or send us an e-mail to eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk.