Astonished at HMRC's attitude

Has anybody else encountered this problem.

We have recently been appointed as tax advisors to a new client. The client doesn't have a copy of the previous years Corporation Tax return and computations and the old accountants have failed to suuply it. After submitting a 64-8 we contacted HMRC and requested a copy of last years submitted figures. We were told they can't/ won't send out this kind of information as it is archived.

We questioned how we obtain brought forward figures and were told it was the clients responsibility.

Again, we explanied the client doesn't hold this information and unless HMRC helped us the Corpration tax return would be filed with incorrect figures. astonishingly we were told this was this was the way forward!