Last orders for pub empire boss in £1m tax debt rap
Frederick Robert Ward, the director of CT (2010) Limited (formerly Churchill Taverns Limited), which ran five pubs in Northamptonshire, has been disqualified from acting as a director for four years for not paying tax.
The disqualification follows an investigation by The Insolvency Service.
Ward, 59, of Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, has given an undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, that he will not act as a director of a limited company until 14 December 2016.
CT (2010) Limited – CT – signed a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) with its creditors, including HMRC in November 2008, setting out a plan to make contributions totalling £172,000 over 5 years. However, CT contributed just £6,000 under the CVA before the CVA was terminated in November 2010.
The CVA stipulated that CT would be responsible for the payment of any taxation liabilities after the approval of the CVA, but the company paid just £64,050 to HMRC, before it went into administration on 8 October 2010 owing £988,893 to HMRC.
After administration, CT’s assets, including its five pubs were sold to Clementines Tavern Ltd (Clementines),of which Ward was a director. Clementines entered into administration on 9 August 2012. The five pubs still trading are the Olde Victoria in Burton Latimer, Kettering; the Kings Head, in Spratton, Northampton; the Sun Inn, Kislingbury, Northampton; the Plume of Feathers, Weedon, Daventry; and Rafferty’s, Wellingborough, Northants.
Commenting on the disqualification, Mark Bruce, a chief examiner at The Insolvency Service said: ‘Directors who fail to pay taxes to the Crown after they have taken the money from the public, whether from customers or employees, should not expect to get away with it. This is cheating the system by gaining an unfair advantage over their competitors at the public’s expense and we will put a stop to it.
‘Other directors tempted to follow this path should remember that if they run a business in a way that is detrimental to either its customers or its creditors they will lose the protection afforded by limited liability. The Insolvency Service will investigate them and seek to remove them from the business environment.’
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