Former motor racing team boss jailed for multimillion-pound fraud

A former motor racing team manager who funded his multimillion-pound lifestyle by diverting company assets has been jailed for 10 years.

Embassy Racing boss Jonathan France, 46, from Wakefield, bought numerous luxury items including £1.8m worth of cars and operated a pair of successful international racing teams while dodging insolvency and illegally running companies.

His fleet of high-end cars included three Aston Martins, a pair of Ferraris, a Rolls-Royce, a McLaren, and he also bought a five-bedroom house in Huddersfield with the funds.

On July 31, at Leeds Crown Court, France pleaded guilty to four counts of fraudulently transferring property, three counts of acting as a director while bankrupt, as well as perjury, fraudulent trading, false accounting and money laundering.

Being bankrupt and disqualified should have limited France’s ability to directly or indirectly run a company but he ignored the restrictions and continued to run companies.

He diverted millions of pounds from the company accounts to a combination of other business and personal accounts so that he could fund his luxury lifestyle.

Accomplice and racing driver Jody Firth, 36, of Wakefield, pleaded guilty to helping France run a company while bankrupt, while both he and Graham Myles Schofield, 53, of Mirfield, West Yorkshire, also pleaded guilty to money laundering.

The pair received five years and four months, and two years and six months in jail respectively.

France falsified company cheques, invoices and other paperwork to make it appear as if payments had been made to creditors of his companies when, in reality, they were made to pay for the cars and luxury goods.

France was banned from acting as a director for 14 years in 2004 due to earlier mismanagement of Eric France and Son Metals. He was then declared bankrupt in November 2008 as he was unable to pay more than £7m owed after the collapse of his sole-trader businesses Embassy Racing and EFS Group.

Despite this, he continued to head his racing operations. The Embassy Racing outfit debuted in 2004 as part of the UK’s premier sportscar series, the British GT Championship, and later went on to compete in European events including the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The team folded after his bankruptcy, but made an abrupt comeback as Team WFR. The revived team and a new metal trading firm were both illegally run by France between 2008 and 2014, with Firth and Schofield listed as company directors.

Insolvency Service deputy chief investigation officer John Fitzsimmons said: “Jonathan France is a fraudster and lied in order to cover up his true activities and fund his opulent lifestyle.

“But it wasn’t just him who carried out the deception as he was supported along the way by Schofield and Firth, two racing colleagues who were well aware of France’s bankruptcy.

“We will always seek to tackle those who flagrantly disregard and cynically abuse the insolvency regime, which is there to protect creditors. After a substantial investigation we are pleased to see that France, Schofield and Firth have received significant prison terms.”