Former owners of Shropshire hotel owed £8 million
The former owners of a Shropshire hotel racked up debts of £8 million for their family's hotel chain.
Andrew and Stephen Hughes were acting in roles they had been disqualified from holding and have now been given further bans.
The bans from the Insolvency Service mean the pair are disqualified from being directors or in any way managing a company.
The bans will run until 2028, and relate to their time running Devon-based Heritage Properties & Hotels Ltd which had four hotels before it went into administration in 2014.
It ran the Park House Hotel in Shifnal – which has since been taken over by new owners.
When the company went into administration in October 2014, there were outstanding claims from creditors of £8,049,537.
All of the hotels, The Crab at Chieveley Hotel in Berkshire; Churston Court Hotel in Brixham, Devon; Newbury Manor Hotel in Berkshire and the Park House Hotel, have since been taken over by new owners.
The company was based out of the Churston hotel and an investigation found that the brothers continued to work in management, despite their earlier ban, and that accounting records for the firm had been destroyed.
The pair had also negotiated loan agreements of over £3.5m and created financial obligations for the company which remained outstanding in the administration.
The pair's sister Julie Savage has also been banned until 2023 for failing to keep adequate financial records.
According to the Insolvency Service, she failed to ensure that adequate trading and accounting records of the company were preserved and delivered, instead of being deliberately destroyed.
David Brooks, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: "This investigation was hampered by the destruction of records but it was eventually possible to show the involvement of Andrew and Stephen Hughes who were acting in contravention of their disqualifications.
"If people are disqualified but then act or do so through others, the consequences for them are likely to become serious including prosecution and personal liability."
Andrew Hughes was previously disqualified on October 4, 2010, and Stephen Hughes was disqualified on May 25, 2006.
