Ant Middleton banned as company director over £1m unpaid tax
The former star of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins and his wife Emilie have been disqualified for four years.
TV personality and former soldier Ant Middleton has been banned from being a company director after his business failed to pay more than £1 million in tax.
The former star of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins and his wife Emilie were the directors of Sway and Starting Limited before it went into liquidation at the end of 2022.
The Government’s Insolvency Service found that the couple were taking millions of pounds out of the company at the same time that taxes were not being paid.
Some £385,000 in VAT and £869,000 in corporation tax was owed between 2019 and 2022.
But the pair had taken out about £3 million from the company in the form of a directors’ loan by the time it went into liquidation at the end of 2022, the service said.
Sway and Starting, which was described as offering media representation services, was set up to manage income from Middleton’s television and media work.
It went into a creditors’ voluntary liquidation, whereby a business in distress has the opportunity to pay off debts to creditors over a fixed period of time.
More than £4.5 million was paid into the company’s accounts from 2020 to 2022.
Dave Magrath, director of investigation and enforcement services at the Insolvency Service, said: “Companies not paying the tax they should deprives the Government of the money it needs to pay for the country’s defence services, our NHS, schools and universities, and transport systems.
“Ant and Emilie Middleton had legal and financial duties as directors to ensure their company paid the corporation tax and VAT it owed.
“Instead, they were taking millions of pounds out of the company at that time.
“This disqualification should serve as a deterrent to other directors that if you do not pay your taxes while directing money elsewhere, you are at risk of being banned.”
The ban for the pair, both aged 44, means they cannot form or manage a company without the court’s permission for the next four years.
Ant Middleton agreed to repay £300,000 of the directors’ loan as a settlement with the liquidator.
But after not initially meeting the payment plan, he agreed to sell his and his wife’s home to pay off the rest of the settlement, according to a report filed to Companies House.
Middleton left SAS: Who Dares Wins four years ago where he acted as an instructor to civilians put through gruelling military training exercises to test their physical and mental strength.
Channel 4 said it would not work with the former soldier again because of his “personal conduct”. Middleton criticised the statement and said it was his decision to quit the programme.
Middleton offered his support to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK when he spoke at the party’s conference in September last year.
