Fraudster kicked out of English institute
A chartered accountant jailed for stealing #60,000 from his employer has been thrown out of the English ICA.
Cyril Clifford, from Tonbridge, Kent, was sentenced to six months in prison after admitting the theft in February at Maidstone Crown Court. Company secretary Clifford, 61, took the money from cosmetics business Beauty Without Cruelty to ‘spite his boss’, the court heard.
An institute disciplinary committee heard that Clifford had repaid the money with interest, but excluded him from membership and ordered him to pay #1,200 costs.
Geoffrey Birch, from Walsgrave Road, Coventry, was severely reprimanded and fined #2,000 with #650 costs by the committee for failing to help with two enquiries by the institute’s investigation committee.
Birch, fined by the institute in 1990 and 1995 for similar offences, was warned that any further complaints could lead to his expulsion.
Anthony Shiffers, from Taunton, was reprimanded and fined #2,000 with #750 costs for acting as a cheque signatory on an audit client’s company bank account. Shiffers also admitted collecting fees for professional work without issuing invoices.
Other cases dealt with by the investigation committee included: Ronald Hewitt, from Chester, reprimanded and fined #250 with #250 costs for failing to deal promptly with a client’s affairs; and Alexander Norman & Co, of Grosvenor Gardens, London, reprimanded and fined #750 with #250 costs for breaches of investment regulations.
Mathie Neal Dancer & Co, of Ruislip, Middx, was reprimanded and fined #750 with #250 costs for ‘numerous’ breaches of investment regulations, while D’Abreo Hussein & Co of Wimbledon Park, London, was reprimanded and fined #250 with #250 costs for breaching investment regulations and having inadequate professional indemnity insurance cover.
David Coates & Co, of Hexham, Northumberland, was reprimanded and fined #250 with #250 costs for failing to follow auditing standards, and Sureshkumar Bhatt from College Close, Harrow, Middx, was reprimanded and fined #500 with #250 costs for accepting a #20,000 loan from a client to assist with a house purchase.
Brian Stovold from Station Road, Epping, Essex, was reprimanded and fined #500 with #250 costs for failing to comply with audit regulations.
