The Letting Centre

The managing agents of the property we started renting in the Summer have been shut down by the police for keeping rent payments from landlords and pocketing deposits from tenants. Now we have handed in our notice (directly to the landlord) we understand he now becomes liable for giving us our deposit back, even though it was paid to his managing agent who have spent it themselves rather than putting it into a deposit scheme! Any suggestions - is our landlord likely to realise the unfortunate position he's in or is he in a position to argue he's not liable to pay it?  The managing agent also kept 2 of the rental payments we made to them which they should have passed on to the landlord.