Accountant banned over charity theft
The ICAEW has excluded chartered accountant David Wilford after he was convicted of stealing £139,210 from the charity he worked for.
As reported in the Institute’s latest disciplinary orders, Wilford was convicted by the Sussex Central Magistrates Court of theft in that between 13 September 2006 and 28 May 2009 he stole a ‘chose in action’, a debt of £139,210.10 owed to Headway Hurstwood Park Company, a registered charity, by HSBC.
Wilford, who had been an accountant for 40 years, was sentenced on 15 October 2010 at the Lewes Crown Court to 28 months in jail.
Continued...
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Dishonest clients
Your story gives very good reasons why we should avoid them like the plague. They don't care who they hurt or who pays the final bill ... so long as it isn't them.
The ICAEW response is less easy to explain ..... in fact it is downright impossible to explain!
Hi Albert,
Hi Albert,
I'm sorry to hear about your problems it sounds like you we're dealt a terrible card, I can only true to feel through the way you have written how bad this was for you and I hope that you are finding your way back to where it sounds like you should have been - successful!!
Trade Association
The ICAEW is a trade association. Why didnt you just drop the word ''chartered'' from your letter head and call yourself Accountants and Business advisors. If the fine is in your opinion unenforceable, what would you have lost.. one word. Most of the clients I have signed up over the years dont even know ''anyone'' can call themselves accountants unlike solicitors.
I dont understand why you didnt write out your own cheques and had 2 kiwis doing it. Surely every owner of a small business writes and signs his own cheques and posts them. If they were clients cheques to paye, why didnt they send them direct save you double handling stuff.
Also why did you go bankrupt, losing £16k wouldnt have done that...
Somethings missing here and if you want to carry on as n accountant you need to look at why it went pear shaped and learn from the lesson, pick yourself up and get on with it. Complaining wont help :) I mean that in the nicest way.
Tom
Bit i liked
about Daves hearing was the bit about not being considered for readmission "for at least 5 years"...blimey bit harsh huh..that'll give him some sleepless nights as he contemplates his enforced gardening leave in open prison..
Albert your story has always baffled and saddened me but I'm afraid I do agree with the last post. Life is not fair and we all know that the current concept of equity in this country is largely based on the good old speed camera principle. Play the game and do your best and you are liable to get hammered but stick 2 fingers up and happy days. No point any of us beating ourselves up about it but learn from experience and move on.Otherwise join a monestary.
The point is... 2 thanks
Gents and "The Limey",
The subject of my posting and the anger I feel is because of the lack of consistency in approach to disciplinary matters by the ICAEW.
I have accepted that no one gives two monkeys about me or my case and I have posted many times about the detail of my case (eg: it was not the £16k that made me bankrupt, it was the bank overdraft of £225k taken to finance the debtors book of £500k on the £3million of fees I ran that actually took me down combined with the partners I was involved with who “transferred” my business from me without making any payment for it whilst I was subject to a section – which itself is the heart of another Court case that is on the verge of settlement which will see over £2million pounds of my assets restored to me)
The point is - I and at least two other people I know of - have been utterly destroyed professionally by the ICAEW for letter writing and mental health issues - whilst a parade of fraudsters, thieves, pedophiles (£500 for raping children!) and mal-practitioners have escaped with minor fines, reprimands and short terms exclusions.
The guide to sentencing operated by the ICAEW does not make sense and YOU as the membership need to change it before someone like me, who (shortly) has the money and the desire to change it, enforces our point of view through the Courts and lands your organization with a penalty that bankrupts it.
legal action
Go for it Albert ! Remember a case when I was training 35 years ago of some poor fellow trainee who was excluded even before he'd qualified for allegedly fiddling his tube fare. Heavy stuff huh ?
Still angry...
Whenever I read this stuff I still get very angry.
For one telephone call between one of my staff members and a former client that cost no one nothing, I have been banned FOR LIFE from the ICAEW and was fined £30,000!!!
What's more the ICAEW have refused repeatedly to explain my sentence and have never tried to enforce the fine imposed knowing it to be unenforceable.
What caused this situation?
The client hadn't declared income to HMRC. The staff member advised them that they needed to declare the income and asked if they wanted to make the declaration. The client replied "do what you have to do". This was documented by contemporaneous hand written notes and later typed file notes.
The staff member made the disclosure.
The by now former client didn't like that they now had a tax bill.
First they complained to the ICAEW about my bill.
Then about my management of their accounts
Then about "my attitude"
Then about unconnected advice I had given them (which saved them from spending a fortune on acquiring a business they knew nothing about)
Then about another bill
Then about my staff member...
...and then about the disclosure to HMRC.
In the meantime, the ICAEW had practically moved in with me and were investigating everything I had ever done.
The stress of this, the burden of 600 clients, 12 staff, a 12th hour aborted merger with a national firm (due to "central issues they could not discuss") , a cashflow crisis and then dealing with two staff who had stolen £16k from me (by changing the name on the PAYE cheques and paying them to themselves before hot tailing it back to their native New Zealand) drove me to the point of mania, attempted suicide and a section.
Before hitting the mania and the suicide, the ICAEW hauled me in front of a disciplinary board for unprofessional conduct and disclosing confidential tax info with authority.
Yup, you guessed it, Mr Awkward Client now denied all knowledge that he had ever given permission to my staff member to disclosure the income to HMRC and claimed at the disciplinary that I had "fraudulently made up the income to get him into trouble"
My barrister was crap. He had read nothing of the bundle that my solicitor had prepared and instead of concentrating on the technicalities of the income, the rule book, what my staff member had said and done and that the former client was a lying weasel, he instead tried to argue what a jolly good egg I usually was and that all of this was a storm in a teacup.
In so doing, he bullshitted his way through, got his facts substantially wrong and not only landed me with the single largest fine then given to an individual and a 2 year ban (now increased to an indefinite ban because I have diagnosed mental health issues), he also got me another investigation into my background, life and qualifications... (and no, I can’t sue him, I have made every enquiry I can about it over the last 4 years)
Which brings me back to the mania and the suicide attempt that came between this and the second hearing for the barrister’s incompetence.
Of course, if I had recorded the call, I could have avoided all of this and I would today be one of the most successful young accountants in the UK (for I had in the meantime taken over a £3mill practice as the majority shareholder), rather than a bankrupt unqualified who is starting his life again with a very big stain on his CV.