Given that she lists her profession as “legal advisor”, Mariam Khan should have known better.
She was the sole director of Wilma Advisors Limited, and until last month, a director of asylum and immigration advice for company IMK Advisors Limited.
During the pandemic Wilma Advisors applied for a Bounce Back loan, one of the Government’s schemes to help businesses survive lockdown.
One of the loan conditions was that the firm should have been trading on March 1, 2020, but Wilma Advisors was not incorporated until March 13 that year, applying for a £40,000 Bounce Back loan the same day.
Even though businesses were only entitled to one such loan, Wilma Advisors then approached a different bank seven days later and received a second loan, this time for £35,000.
The £75,000 total remained outstanding when the firm was put into liquidation in May last year.
Khan, 27, from Ilford, East London, has now been banned from being a director for 11 years.
She claimed the bulk of the money was used to buy office equipment but an Insolvency Service report states that she only provided a single receipt, adding: “It has not been possible to verify Mrs Khan’s explanation for the loss of the goods purportedly purchased.”
I asked her to comment and rather than giving any explanation for getting the loans she told me that we should not publish her name or picture "due to my religious beliefs" and the only people who should be aware of her case, which is in the public domain here, are "the banks and insolvency service people".
In another case, Simon Leigh of Stevenage, Herts, also got an 11-year ban after obtaining a Bounce Back loan by claiming his company The Coffee Outlet had a turnover of £275,000 when the true figure
was £1,476.
Birmingham gym company boss Junaid Dar, 31, got an 11-year directorship ban for pocketing loans coming to £45,500 from three separate lenders despite being entitled to only one loan. I can only assume that he is not the same person as the Junaid Dar, also 31 and from Birmingham, who is currently listed as a director of fitness company Bring Grit Limited.
Roofer David Godderidge, 40, from Tamworth, Staffs, spent £13,000 from a Bounce Back Loan on gambling and has now been bankrupted for seven years.
These are just some of dozens of cases I’ve come across of bosses ripping off the Bounce Back loan scheme.
In a new development, Timothy Mutton has become the first director I’ve spotted getting a ban for fleecing another government programme, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
The 56-year-old from Kettering, Northants, ran car finance company Finsol Systems Limited.
He’s just been given a 12-year directorship ban, with the Insolvency Service stating that his company falsely claimed £84,575 in wages for three furloughed employees, despite all three continuing to work full time.
Keir Starmer has called on the National Crime Agency to investigate Covid fraud which is estimated at £11.8billion, that story is here.
Investigate@mirror.co.uk
