Bath isn’t known as a hotbed of international super-villains, but in Dave Scaramanga it can boast the real-life Man with the Golden Gun.

Dave, who runs new Bath private hire firm V Cars, shares a surname with one of 007 James Bond’s arch enemies. And when Vox publicised the fact that Francisco Scaramanga, villain of the Ian Fleming novel The Man with the Golden Gun, was inspired by Fleming’s dislike of a fellow school pupil at Eton – Dave’s grandfather George – the regional and national media swooped on the story.

The Daily Mail, Telegraph and Daily Express as well as ITV News, the Press Association, Western Daily Press and Bath Chronicle had all picked up the story within hours. Websites dedicated to Bond and spies, such as www.mi6.co.uk, also ran their own versions.

Vox director Julie Margerum said: “This was a classic case of unearthing an interesting nugget of information about a client, recognising the potential and then using our knowledge, experience and contacts to sell it in. We knew it had the potential to be big – Bond is very ‘now’, Dave knew enough of his family history to make the tale come alive, and there was enough information for each journalist to make the story his or her own.”