An Irvine man has been banned from running a company for seven years after failing to keep records.

Brian Anderson, 61, was joint director of Anderson Builders Limited in 2014 then sole appointed director in 2015 before the company ceased trading in 2017.

Independent insolvency practitioners appointed to wind-up the company say they were hampered as the firm had failed to maintain or preserve adequate records.

Further investigations confirmed that between August 2014 and February 2017 the company failed to maintain or preserve adequate company records – making it impossible for investigators to verify more than £930,000 worth of expenditure from the company bank account.

This included receipts worth £286,000 and if they were a true representation of all sales made by the company, details of fixed assets totalling close to £16,000 in the last set of accounts and what was the position of more than £50,000 withdrawn from the Directors Loan Account.

Of the £930,000 expenditure, more than £592,000 remains unexplained, including 36 cheques totalling £26,660 and withdrawals worth just under £22,000.

Investigators were also unable to confirm the accuracy of tax assessments submitted by Anderson builders between April 2015 and January 2017, resulting in the tax authorities being owed more than £120,000 in the liquidation.

At Kilmarnock Sheriff Court, Sheriff McFarlane granted a disqualification order against Brian Anderson for a period of seven years on January 9, effective from January 30.

Anderson is banned from directly or indirectly being involved, without permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company.

Robert Clarke, Chief Investigator for the Insolvency Service, said: “Maintaining proper accounting records is non-negotiable when you are a director of a limited company. But Brian Anderson clearly failed to do this and as a result we cannot explain the exact nature of thousands of pounds that went through the company or whether a lack of documentation was a cloak for other misconduct.”

“Being banned from running companies for seven years is a significant amount of time and Brian Anderson risks a substantial fine or even prison time if he breaches his disqualification.”