The director of a Wakefield accountancy practice who was jailed earlier this year for a string of fraud offences has been disqualified from being a company director for 14 years.

Darren Upton was the director of Upton & Co Accountants Ltd which was placed into voluntary liquidation 14 October 2011 owing creditors and shareholders £1,795,818. In February 2012 he was convicted of 13 offences of fraud relating to his conduct in the company and sentenced to six years' imprisonment.

Following an investigation by the Insolvency Service, Upton has now been disqualified from being a director until 2017. He admitted obtaining £196,145 from clients of the company by providing clients with false bank account details into which clients made payments properly due to HMRC for corporation tax, which he failed to forward. Upton also carried out unauthorised investment activity involving around £5m of investors' funds paid into a fraudulent currency market scheme, of which over £1m is still to be recovered.

Ken Beasley, official receiver of the Insolvency Service's public interest unit, said: 'The disqualification serves as a protection to the public and demonstrates that the Insolvency Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers to remove dishonest directors from the business environment.'