A video game music producer has been jailed for fraudulently applying for two Covid loans during the pandemic
Peter Connolly, 52, has been jailed for 16 months at Durham Crown Court on 17 July after inflating the turnover of his personal service company, Peter Connolly Limited, to claim bounce back loans, one of which he was not eligible for.
Connelly is a well know music composer in the video game industry and has worked on the Tomb Raider series as well as award-winning video games, such as Watch Dogs where he was the audio lead, Driver: San Francisco, and the South Park video game.
At first the music composer applied for a legitimate bounce back loan worth £22,000 but then applied again at a different bank for a higher loan after inflating his company’s turnover.
In this loan he claimed £37,500, inflating the turnover of the company to £150,000 when in reality the company’s turnover was £58,000. Connelly also declared this was the first and only bounce back loan he had applied for.
When the Insolvency Service interviewed him, he said he had been offered the chance to work on Tomb Raider again and reimagine the soundtrack from the late 90s and early 00s, saying the contract ‘had the potential to be very lucrative’.
The original Tomb Raider games were remastered for current generation consoles that released last year.
Connelly said he had taken out personal loans and sold his car to finance himself during the Tomb Raider contract but then the pandemic hit, stalling production.
The company went into liquidation in August 2021 with neither of the loans being repaid. Connelly himself entered into an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) in June 2022 where he agreed to make regular payments to the insolvency practitioner. The IVA is still running.
David Snasdell, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: ‘Peter Connelly blatantly disregarded the rules of the bounce back loan scheme.
‘Connelly not only secured two loans when businesses were only allowed one, but deliberately inflated his company’s turnover to receive more money than he was entitled to.
‘The Insolvency Service is the lead agency for tackling bounce back loan misconduct and we remain committed to ensuring fraudsters who stole from the public purse during a national emergency are brought to justice.’