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Liquidator estimates more than E280,000 is owed to former Thorburn director
Page 9
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CM COVER STORY
A FORMER DIRECTOR of Thorbum Transport, whose daughter was granted an 0-licence on the understanding he had no involvement in the failed Liverpool firm, says the liquidator's initial findings that he could be owed more than a quarter of a million pounds includes payments to drivers.
Wallace Thorburn says he is actually owed double this figure if the guarantees he claims he had to give fuel companies and suppliers are also taken into account.
The huge amount is contained within a statement of affairs from corporate insolvency advisers Jones Lowndes Dwyer and represents more than 25% of the total amount they believe is presently owed. A public inquiry granted Jeanette Thorbum Warder an 0-licence in September 2007 with an undertaking that Wallace who had previously been disqualified — stayed away from the company.
But Wallace says he was the only person who could raise the money needed to keep the company trading during that period.
He insists he was not in volved in its day-to-day activities, but he also says: "It was only me that could raise the money to carry on paying those drivers for three months. The people, fuel companies, they all came to me for guarantees. I took a step back — there was no day-to-day involvement, hut the guarantees were still there."
Thorbum adds that he owned the site the business traded from: "I didn't take any rent off the business, and I didn't take a wage out of the business. I did a bit of storage with companies, instead. I would go in at Oam, and when the daughter came in at 9am, I would go home."
Jeanette eventually struck a deal with Mansoor Hussain, funded through his business, The Logistix Group, to buy the company shortly before TC Beverley Bell (pictured) finally revoked the licence earlier this year after evidence emerged her father was regularly involved.
Thorburn Transport went into liquidation in June, just three months later.
A spokeswoman for Mansoor Hussain claims the limited opportunity for due diligence meant the firm's actual financial state did not emerge until after the purchase. She adds:"It is important to record that as soon as the true picture was discovered by Mr Hussain, the company's factors, Bibby Finance, were immediately informed and, as a consequence, the funding facility was frozen to allow Bibbys to investigate the full scale of the problem."