My 21 year old daughter bought a 2008 BMW 1 Series one month ago from a private seller. The car has 51,000 miles on the clock and cost her £5450. She paid for a background check and everything seemed fine, with a full service history.

Within a day of collecting the car, it broke down. It transpires that the head gasket had very recently been taken off and then put back on (new sealant) and the whole engine had been put back together very poorly, resulting in the engine spewing out water.

The local garage felt the repair was beyond them so it went to a local BMW approved specialist centre who agreed that this was a fault that the seller was very aware of prior to sale. They have supplied a full written with photographic evidence to support this.

Some £3000 later (new water pump, four new injectors, new head gasket) the car is still not on the road – the last service history has also been fraudulently completed. The seller will not communicate with me (just said “sold as seen”) and I have spoken to Trading Standards, the police, CAB etc and it would appear there is no way I can recover the cost of the repair as it was sold ‘privately’. What should we do?