A MAN who ran a road transport business in Studley has been disqualified from acting as a director for eight years.

Gary Christopher Shingler, who ran Midland Premier Freight Limited, was disqualified for failing to ensure the company kept proper accounting records or delivered any adequate records to the company’s liquidator, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Mr Shingler, 51, has given an undertaking to the Secretary of Sate for Business, Innovation and Skills not to act as a director, manage, or in any way control a company until June 2022.

Commenting on the disqualification, Sue MacLeod, chief investigator for Insolvent Investigations Midlands and West, said: “The undertaking signed by Mr Shingler sends a clear message to other company directors - if you run a business in a way that is detrimental to either its customers or creditors you will be in our sights.

"The Insolvency Service will investigate you and you could be removed from the business environment.”

The company went into liquidation in May 2011 with assets of £6,240 and liabilities of £332,595.

The investigation found that Mr Shingler failed to ensure that the company maintained and/or preserved adequate accounting records between March 2010 and the date of liquidation, or alternatively, he failed to deliver up such records as were maintained by the company to the liquidator as he was required by law to do.

Among other matters, this failure to keep proper records has meant it has not been possible to establish full details of the company’s dealings with particular companies affiliated with Mr Shingler, explain payments totalling £760,664 in the period from January 2011, or determine the company’s true asset position at liquidation.

Mr Shingler also failed to ensure the company complied with its statutory obligations to submit timely tax returns and payments and thereby caused it to trade to the detriment of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) March 2010 to liquidation.

According to HMRC records, the company’s outstanding PAYE/NIC liabilities totalled £175,402, including an estimated liability for the 2010/11 and 2011/12 tax years totalling £38,327.

In addition, between April and May 2011 Mr Shingler caused the company to enter into transactions totalling £76,142, of which £38,505 was paid to an affiliated business to the detriment of creditors generally, and £37,637 was paid out after the date of liquidation, to the detriment of the company’s bank specifically.

The payments increased the bank’s losses in the company’s liquidation to £59,030.