Hang on... I see now that the Bona Vacantia guys have washed their hands of it and the domain is no longer suspended... hmm....

I have a little less alcohol in my system now and can answer it a little more correctly.

Basically, you need to domain to be legally transferred into your name which requires several things:

1) A transfer form from Nominet filled in and signed by the two people below.
2) A letter authorising the transfer from the registrant or director of company or official receiver or liquidator. The receiver/liquidator can act for the company even after it's all been wrapped up (personal experience here)
3) A letter from the transferee (you) authorising the transfer.

As you can see it is very important that when registering .uk domains everything is correct, but as in Patrick's case you can't do much when another company is doing it on your behalf.

Amusing point: They Houses of Parliament recently tried to get an SSL certificate for the "parliament.uk" domain but were rejected by Thawte (Verislime subsidiary) because they couldn't prove ownership of the domain....

Gareth