A COMPANY boss who left a £176,000 hole in his accounts and failed to account for more than £9,000 in foreign travel, restaurant bill and landscape gardening payments has received a six-year ban.

Question marks were also raised by liquidators regarding the sale of four pieces of hire purchase equipment, valued at £52,603, before Burnley-based Specialist Material Handling Ltd finally went under.

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Nicholas John Wilson, SMH’s main director, has now been disqualified from forming, owning or promoting a company until late 2023, following proceedings by the Insolvency Service.

An investigation found the accounting records for the former Meadow Street operation were ‘inadequate’, leading up to it being finally liquidated last December.

An Insolvency Service spokesman said: “It is not possible to verify the purpose of unexplained payments from and receipts into SMH’s bank accounts between June 2014 and the date of liquidation on June 26, 2015.”

The 43-year-old, whose last known address was in Gisburn Road, Barrowford, could particularly not account for cash movements totalling £176,350, from SMH’s sterling account, and whether they were for the company’s benefit.

Another problem emerged when 27,500 Euros could not be accounted for in the firm’s other balance sheets.

He also failed to verify whether £104,130 paid out to consultants was a constructive use of the company’s funds. Mystery cash withdrawals totalling £13,384 were also placed under the spotlight.

Unexplained payments to finance companies, totalling £35,372, and similar unexplained payments also received from the same kind of firms, totalling £190,481, were also highlighted.

And the spending of £9,222, on foreign travel and expenditure, restaurants and a landscape gardener was also questioned as part of the investigation process.

The inquiry also failed to establish why company documents showed £3,601 being owed to Wilson by the firm - but their own accounting records showed that he owed them more than £22,000 instead.

A similar query was raised over a missing £21,810 in the director’s loan account, which was outstanding to SMH at the time of the liquidation.

The firm was first incorporated in February 2010, and registered to a Clayton-le-Moors address.