A director caused more than a £¼m of stock to be transferred from a failing Huddersfield company to another business of which he was also a director.

The move, by Christopher Lister, of GMS Stone Supplies Ltd, meant creditors, including the HMRC, who were owed more than £170,000, lost out when the company was liquidated.

Mr Lister, 51, has now been disqualified from being a company director for three and a half years for causing a preference transaction to a connected company, following a Disqualification Order by Leeds County Court.

It prevents him from becoming involved in the promotion, formation or management of a company until July 2019.

The Insolvency Service said while Mr Lister was a director of GMS Stone Supplies Limited and less than a month before it was liquidated, an invoice for the sale of stock for £268,762 inclusive of VAT, was raised to a connected company, which was also a creditor of GMS.

GMS, which traded as a stone supplier from Lindley Moor Road, Huddersfield. transferred the stock but did not receive full payment for its value, to the detriment of its creditors.

READ MORE: Watch the latest #HandsOffHRI campaign video: Poetry, palms and people power

READ MORE: WATCH THE TRAILER - Huddersfield star Lena Headey in new movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The Insolvency Service said the ‘preference transaction’ had the effect of giving one creditor a ‘preference’ in the insolvency to the prejudice of the general body of creditors.

Robert Clarke, group leader with Insolvent Investigations North, of the Insolvency Service, said: “The Insolvency Service and the Department for Business will take firm action against those directors who act with a disregard for company creditors, causing them loss and who are unfit to manage a company, to protect the public and the business community.”

GMS went into Creditors Voluntary Liquidation in February 2013 with an estimated deficiency of £260,700.