'Intrinsically dishonest' company director jailed

An “intrinsically dishonest” company director who operated electrical contracting firms and ran up £3m in debt while bankrupt has been jailed for almost five years.

Roy Harold Goss, 67, of Lichfield Road, Cambridge, tried to escape prosecution by sending credit agencies fake High Court orders and pretending his estranged wife and brother were to blame.

He was found guilty of 18 charges at the Croydon Crown Court and sentenced to four years and nine months in jail.

He was also disqualified from acting as a director managing a company for 10 years.

The charges stemmed from Goss being declared bankrupt in 2000, which prohibited him from acting as a director of a company.

But he breached this restriction in relation to eight companies between 2000 and 2006.

Six of the firms went into liquidation, leaving debts of £3m and five firms were electrical contractors based in Swansea.

To escape prosecution he pretended his estranged wife Fay Goss was a director and running some of the companies and that his brother Royston Goss ran two others.

He also wrote to credit reference agencies enclosing copies of bogus High Court orders that falsely claimed the bankruptcy order had been annulled.

Sentencing, judge Kenneth MacRae said Goss was “intrinsically dishonest” and a “menace to the commercial and business community”.

Business minister Pat McFadden said: “We are determined to crack down on cheats like these who profit by deception.

“When someone acts in this way they are effectively stealing from honest businesses, who are owed money and can suffer as a result.”