Wills, who is a qualified chartered management accountant and had previously held senior financial posts at Habitat and Fat Face, said he had ‘made mistakes’ in a newspaper interview.

He told the Times that his bankruptcy was the result of a ‘long running dispute’ with HMRC over tax owing which dated back to 2009 and that late tax returns had ‘escalated out of control’.

‘There’s no investments, there’s no clever schemes, there’s nothing. I put all of my energies into my work and not enough of my energies into my personal situation and I should have fixed it much sooner,’ Wills said.

Wills said his situation was ‘embarrassing’, but also said in the interview that there had been a ‘breakdown in communications’ with HMRC and suggested bankruptcy had been a ‘draconian measure’.

‘With hindsight, it’s so avoidable. If a lot of things had happened differently on both sides, I think we could have avoided the situation. That’s what is so frustrating really,’ Wills said.

HMRC declined to comment.