A FORMER Belling director at the centre of the 'missing millions' pension fund scandal has received one of the biggest penalties ever imposed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

But today, Burnley GMB union boss Tom Fallows, whose members lost out, dismissed the censure and fine as "little more than a slap on the wrists."

Ex-company finance chief Michael Stewart, was found guilty of handing over £2.2 million of the fund to a corrupt solicitor as downpayment for a loan that never materialised and guilty of recklessly spending £5.5 million of pensioners' money on an investment which led to a further £4 million loss. The ICA imposed a censure, a £5,000 fine and ordered him to pay £15,000 costs, just seven years after cooker-maker Belling and its Burnley subsidiary Compound Engineering, which was based on Casterton Avenue, collapsed into liquidation.

Nobody has faced criminal charges following the pensions scandal and until recently Stewart was finance director of another company.

Former Burnley worker and pension representative Jim Wignall who filed the complaint against Stewart and whose committee is still fighting to win back missing cash today welcomed the result. But he says most of the 1,500 Belling pensioners - including about 300 from the Burnley factory - receive at most only half their pension entitlement because of the missing millions from the fund. The ICA disciplinary committee found Stewart, of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, had acted in a negligent and reckless manner against the best interests of the fund beneficiaries.

Belling directors were also trustees of the pension fund and able to 'invest' pension cash as they wished.

The ICA heard the events were a desperate attempt to save Belling from collapse.

Stewart, a pension fund trustee, paid £2.2 million of the fund to former solicitor Charles Deacon as down-payment on a 50 million dollar loan for the company, which never materialised.

The down-payment disappeared and Deacon was jailed for nine years.

In the second transaction, the fund handed over £5.5 million for a Belling company which was later sold for just £1.4 million.

Today Mr Fallows said: "I am amazed that such misdemeanours which had such huge consequences on innocent people have resulted in little more than a slap on the wrists.

"Members will be disgusted."

Mr Wignall said the fight would go on to win back cash for pensioners.

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