Brought to book
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The directors of a South West haulage firm have been given a combined ban of more than three decades after ignoring disqualification orders and trying to dupe a fuel company
Words: Chris Tindall
THREE DIRECTORS OF a Devonbased haulage company have been banned from holding directorships for a total of 32 years after an investigation found that they had acted with “breathtaking dishonesty”.
The scale of their misconduct while managing Westcountry Storage & Distribution (WSD) is relected in Shaun Standen’s maximum 15-year ban and Andrew Lovelock’s 10-year disqualiication. Standen’s brother Kevin was given a seven-year ban in May. As well as his involvement in WSD, Kevin Standen had also been director of another Tiverton haulage irm, Standen & Sons, until trafic commissioner Sarah Bell revoked its licence and disqualiied him from holding an O-licence for eight years in 2009.
She found that Standen & Sons, authorised to run 14 vehicles and 14 trailers, had shown a “complete disregard for road safety and fair competition” when Kevin Standen appeared before her following vehicle maintenance and inance concerns (see box, below).
Second bankruptcy
Meanwhile, Shaun Standen had become directly involved in the management of WSD, despite both his second bankruptcy, which ended during April 2009, and a four-year ban on acting as a director from 2007 following a court conviction.
According to the Insolvency Service (IS), Kevin later admitted to knowingly allowing his brother to act in this manner and, although Shaun had resigned as director by October 2006, “he was directly involved in the management of the company until October 2008”.
This apparent disregard for a disqualiication order and a bankruptcy was bad enough, but it was the events that occurred between 31 October and 2 November 2008 that were to end in a winding-up petition for WSD and prompted an IS investigation.
During those 48 hours, fuel totalling £27,881 was drawn from one unstaffed garage on as many as 66 separate occasions, supposedly for the irm’s nine vehicles.
To put this into context, WSD’s average weekly fuel invoice was around £25,000 and previous invoices showed that the average amount of fuel drawn at this garage was £858 worth.
The garage later claimed to have CCTV footage showing that the fuel being drawn was put into large containers in a vehicle’s trailer.
Exeter County Court agreed with the IS that the directors had no reasonable expectation of repaying the Fuelcard Company for this huge withdrawal and had anticipated that their credit facility was on the verge of being withdrawn.
An IS spokesman says: “On 31 October 2008 at 17:22, the fuel provider’s records show that ‘S Standen’ telephoned them regarding a dispute over a proposed time-to-pay agreement, following previous conversations with him regarding an overdue payment of £30,172 and potential cessation of credit terms.” He adds: “[WSD] ceased obtaining sales income from August 2007, and trading was thence limited to the operation of a fuel account to the beneit of an associated company.” The spokesman conirms that the associated company was Kevin Standen’s other irm, Standen & Sons, which went into liquidation in October this year.
In his judgment, district judge Harvey said there was strong evidence of a carefully planned effort at the last possible opportunity, and he was satisied both Shaun and Lovelock had planned and controlled the ruse.
Shaun Standen was also found guilty of misconduct in his failure to keep or preserve the company accounting records, which were allegedly destroyed in a ire in June 2010.
The IS is clearly pleased with the court’s decision to ban the three men. Oficial receiver Carol Butler says: “The court has agreed with the Insolvency Service’s contention that the defendants have acted with breathtaking dishonesty as directors of Westcountry Storage & Distribution and I welcome the lengthy periods of disqualiication which their behaviours have warranted.”
Compulsory liquidation
Following a winding-up order by the Fuelcard Company in May 2009, WSD was put into compulsory liquidation. According to the IS, it was wound up with a deiciency of £220,380.
However, it is unable to comment on whether or not its investigation into the Standen directors, as well as Andrew Lovelock, will be passed on to VOSA or the relevant trafic area ofice.
A spokeswoman for Western Trafic Area TC Sarah Bell says the operator licensing history of the various members of the Standen family is a matter of public record and adds: “We are unable to say any more than this in case there is any ongoing investigation.”
None of the three men involved would respond to CM’s queries. ■