By William Coleman
A couple of weeks ago I highlighted some of the scams that myself and the CaravanTimes team have comes across over the years. Following that we have stumbled across a story where two Directors and former solicitors have been banned by courts for 21 years after conspiring to remove close to £700,000 worth of property from failed caravan company.
Last week Liberty Joseph Durant, Joseph Price and David Alan Borland appeared at Lincoln Crown Court where they each received disqualifications and suspended prison sentences.
On Monday 12th November the court heard that a company called Classic Caravans Limited, based in Sleaford, Lincolnshire was incorporated in November 2008, where it manufactured and serviced caravans.
During his time with Classic Caravan Joseph Price became the companies sole director, made official in December 2010. In just 4 short years after first being incorporated the company ceased trading due to incurring debts close to £22,000 by October 2012, which then triggered an insolvency process to close the doors on the business.
Upon its closure Classic Caravans’ nominal work in progress was then transferred over to a new company by the name of Carlight Trailers Limited. The funny thing about this transfer was that Joseph Price was also a director of Carlight Trailers Limited and Liberty Durant just happened to be the sole shareholder. The plot thickens.
Just one day before Classic Caravan went into liquidation, the liquidators were made aware, by Joseph Price, that Liberty Durant owned a substantial amount of Classic Caravans’ stock. This new information, that was conveniently brought to light, meant that the property totalling approximately £693,000 could not be returned as assets to the company’s creditors.
Upon this startling revelation the case was then referred to the Insolvency Service where investigators found that Liberty Durant had previously been disqualified in 2011 for six years in relation to a separate company and should not have been acting in the management of a company.
On top of that further investigation revealed that before Classic Caravans was to be closed, Liberty Durant and Joseph Price conspired with former solicitor David Alan Borland, trading under the name DAB Legal Services, to produce a fraudulent ‘Contract of Sale’.
These fraudulent documents then enabled Liberty Durant to claim ‘retention of title’ on the stock owned by Classic Caravans. Due to this it meant that the caravans under the company’s ownership could not be used to help repay creditors. So in short the manufacturers of these leisure vehicles and parts would end up massively out of pocket while certain people walk away with a big smile on their face.
However, the sales contract was falsely back-dated to 2010, two years before the company entered into liquidation, and was proved fraudulent as one of the copies of the contract included the liquidator’s address, someone who had only been appointed in 2012.
The sentencing handed down to Liberty Durant was a 10-year disqualification order, a £1,000 fine and a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to one count of acting in contravention of a disqualification order and one count of fraud.
Joseph Price found himself on the receiving end of a 6-year disqualification order, a £1,000 fine and a 16-month prison sentence, suspended for 2 years, after pleading guilty to one count of fraud.
And David Borland was given a 5-year disqualification order, a £1,000 fine and 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 2 years, after pleading guilty to one count of fraud.
Glenn Wicks, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service, said: “These men cynically and ruthlessly used a forged document in an attempt to defraud creditors and to allow Liberty Durant to act as a shadow director in breach of his disqualification. The court has shown this sort of behaviour will be dealt with severely.”
So there you have it, it is not only we consumers and holiday makers that get stung by the wide range of scams out there. Each year manufacturers face the potential loss of thousands of pounds due to poorly run, or in this case, very dodgy dealers. To find out more about how some scams may affect you read our article from a couple of weeks ago herel.
