Former company director Jonathan France was sentenced at Leeds Crown Court and disqualified as a company director for 12 years.

Also found guilty were his accomplices Jody Firth and Graham Schofield. Firth was sentenced for five years and four months and Schofield received a sentence of two years and six months.  Firth was disqualified as a company director for five years and Schofield was banned from running companies for three years.

France was first disqualified from being a director of limited companies for 14 years in 2004 for his role in the mismanagement of Eric France and Son (Metals) Limited which went into insolvency. He was then declared bankrupt in November 2008 as he was unable to pay more than £7m owed after the collapse of his sole-trader businesses Embassy Racing and EFS Group.

France ignored the restrictions placed on him and continued to run companies, diverting millions from the company accounts to a combination of other business and personal accounts so that he could buy a house, luxury items and a fleet of cars.

With Schofield’s help, he misled the trustees managing his affairs into believing that he had no assets to pay back his debts. Just under £7m has since been recovered by the trustee in bankruptcy.

The court heard that only months before he was made bankrupt in 2008 on the grounds that he had no money to pay his debts, France deliberately transferred close to £180,000 worth of money and assets out of his personal estate to avoid paying his creditors.

France’s money and assets went to Schofield and Firth, friends he had made through motor-racing. Assets moved by France included two classic cars worth £27,000 and a further £152,607 was transferred to bank accounts controlled by Schofield.

Between 2008 and 2013, France managed and controlled JKL (Wakefield) Ltd before the company went into insolvent liquidation. The company bought and sold metals and listed Firth as the company director but not France.

Schofield had his name down as the official director for two racing companies effectively controlled by France. WFR Ltd and WFR Holdings Ltd ran between 2011 and 2014 before also going into liquidation.

While managing JKL (Wakefield), France diverted more than £6m from the company accounts to a combination of other business and personal accounts.

Items bought from the £6m included a five-bedroom house in Huddersfield through a Discretionary Settlement Trust, while just under £200,000 was spent on furniture and £70,000 was used to buy fine wines.

Around £1.8m was used to purchase a fleet of high-end vehicles and personalised number plates, including three Aston Martins, two Ferraris, as well as a Rolls Royce and McLaren.

France falsified company cheques, invoices and other paperwork to make it appear as if payments had been to bona fides creditors of the company when in fact they were made to purchase the cars and luxury goods.

After France repeatedly failed to properly disclose his property to the Trustees, he was twice privately examined at Huddersfield County Court in 2012. At court, France repeatedly and falsely argued that he had sold various items of jewellery, including two Rolexes and a platinum ring, as well as a number of paintings to a colleague for £250,000.

France pleaded guilty to four counts of fraudulently transferring property, three counts of acting as a director while bankrupt, as well as one count each for failing to disclose property to the Official Receiver or Trustee, perjury, fraudulent trading, false accounting and money laundering.

Firth pleaded guilty to helping Jonathan France run a company despite being a bankrupt, while both Firth and Schofield pleaded guilty to money laundering.

Deputy Chief Investigation Officer, John Fitzsimmons, of the Insolvency Service, said:

‘Jonathan France is a fraudster and lied in order to cover up his true activities and fund his opulent lifestyle. But it wasn’t just him who carried out the deception as he was supported along the way by Schofield and Firth, two racing colleagues who were well aware of France’s bankruptcy.

‘We will always seek to tackle those who flagrantly disregard and cynically abuse the insolvency regime, which is there to protect creditors. After a substantial investigation we are pleased to see that France, Schofield and Firth have received significant prison terms.’

Report by Rob Munro