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Payroll director disqualified over failure to keep records

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2nd Oct 2018
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The director of payroll processing company Crownsbury Limited has been banned for seven years after failing to maintain and deliver adequate records to administrators.

John Thomas Hanbury accepted the secretary of state’s disqualification undertaking on 7 August, which came into effect on 28 August 2018.

He was appointed as the director of the Crownsbury Limited on 4 January 2016, six months before it fell into administration.

Before Hanbury’s appointment, the company had not operated as a payroll processing bureau.

After the company entered administration, the Insolvency Service investigation found that Hanbury neglected to maintain and/or preserve adequate accounting records for Crownsbury.

The Insolvency Service investigation also found that between that date and its eventual collapse on 18 July, Hanbury’s failings prevented the administrators from verifying what the company’s income and expenditure were after the company’s bank account was closed on 3 May 2016.

This meant the investigation was unable to substantiate the reasons behind receipts totalling £7,849 received between 24 March 2016 and 8 April 2016 into Crownsbury’s bank account from a connected company that Hanbury also acted as a director.

In addition to the numerous unexplained payments coming out of the company’s bank account, on 15 April 2016 a receipt of £520,000 in Crownsbury’s bank account went undetermined.

Following the decision, the chief investigator for the Insolvency Service Anthea Simpson reiterated that directors have a duty “to ensure their companies maintain proper accounting records, and, following insolvency, deliver them to the office-holder in the interests of fairness and transparency”.

She added: “Without a full account of transactions it is impossible to determine whether a director has discharged his duties properly, or is using a lack of documentation as a cloak for impropriety.”

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