In move described by the Insolvency Service as ‘bizarre’ a man who ran a sham TV company, which he claimed had a turnover of £4.7bn, got a friend to claim he had died, in order to avoid disqualification for dishonest attempts to obtain credit made through a limited company
Bradley Silver, also known as Bradley Silva, has been disqualified for 14 years. He was the sole director of 24/7 London, a sham company wound up in the public interest by the Insolvency Service in September 2016, having been set up four years earlier.
Silver’s company contacted various editing and production companies with forged documents claiming it had worked on contracts on a number of TV shows including Big Brother, Britain’s Got Talent, X-Factor, and The Only Way is Essex.
He also approached a number of banks and credit institutions seeking credit on the back of fictional accounts, and also using forged documents and invoices.
Silver filed fictitious accounts on behalf of 24/7 London, claiming turnover of £4.7bn and assets of £2.4bn, stated to have been audited by Deloitte.
Insolvency Service investigators found that Deloitte had not in fact audited the accounts, which in any event contained basic errors. This included presenting numbers in billions, as Silver had headed columns ‘£’000’ by accident, unwittingly inflating figures by a factor of 1,000.
In the days prior to the disqualification hearing, the Insolvency Service’s lawyers were contacted by someone calling himself ‘Adam Solomans’, who claimed to be a friend of Silver’s, informing them that Silver had committed suicide.
However, ‘Adam Solomans’’ name and signature both featured on a cheque paid into 24/7 London’s bank account which had bounced. In addition he appeared to have shared a mobile telephone number with Silver - who he insisted had died in a car crash - and he stopped responding to emails. In her Judgement, Registrar Derrett said that she did not accept that Silver had died, and that, in all probability Silver and Solomans were one and the same.
Cheryl Lambert, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: ‘This is one of the more bizarre cases of dishonesty and misuse of limited liability I have ever come across.
‘That Mr Silver appears to have tried to fake his own death through suicide in order to avoid disqualification is disgraceful. Directors should be aware that the Insolvency Service will not shy away from confronting dishonesty and removing these people from the marketplace.’
Silver was ordered to pay the costs of the insolvency hearing, which were put at £6,721. 24/7 London’s only known debts in liquidation relate to a bank overdraft of £15,705.
Report by Pat Sweet
