A businessman has been jailed and banned from being a company director for 15 years after he ignored a previous disqualification.

Kenneth Anderson, of Fenay Bridge, hid that he was running a Huddersfield hotel and a pub.

Sentencing him at Leeds Crown Court yesterday Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said he had acted in a thoroughly dishonest way during the three years concerned between 2008 and 2011 relating to the Huddersfield Hotel and Lord Clark public house.

The judge said within weeks of the previous 13 year disqualification coming into effect he had opened a bank account trading as the Huddersfield Hotel.

“It is perfectly obvious to me you had absolutely no intention of paying any regard to the disqualification imposed upon you.”

“Effectively you just carried on running a business irrespective of the disqualification which had been made on you.”

The judge said he used other people and companies to hide what he was doing and as a result companies trading with the hotel lost money.

Anderson, 45, of Fenay Bridge Road, Fenay Bridge, Huddersfield admitted three charges of acting in contravention of a disqualification order and was jailed for 14 months.

Alisdair Campbell prosecuting said Anderson had a “woeful record.”

He was disqualified from being a company director for five years after he admitted being party to carrying on a business with intent to defraud.

In 2007 a winding up order was made for a company of which he was a director following unpaid VAT and that resulted in the High Court Chancery Division in Manchester making a 13 year disqualification order which came into effect in 2008.

That meant he was prohibited from being involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company without leave of the court.

But over the following three years he “flagrantly breached” the order hiding behind three companies, Nights Ltd; Gem Gold Enterprise Ltd and Wavestyle Ltd to conceal his position while he was actually running the Hotel.

He was able to avoid paying creditors by changing the companies they dealt with, leaving some bills unpaid including more than £14,000 for beer and money was owed to a firm involved in cleaning water tanks at the hotel after someone caught legionella.

Shila Whitehead for Anderson said he had no intention of becoming a company director again.

He had lately been a sole practitioner employing 28 people and that business would be in difficulties if he was jailed immediately.

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