Darren Upton goes down for 6 years

[mudskipper]

Yeah, it was his boyish good looks that attracted her.

The free car, apartment, handbags and allowance had nothing whatsoever to do with it, she lurved him - long time.

Yeah, right.

So a woman's not allowed to fancy a bloke who's got money? Sounds like he was quite persuasive and charming - he managed to pull the wool over a lot of people's eyes and convince them the implausible was true.

You may be right - she may be a moneygrabbing career girlfriend, but not really fair to jump to conclusions just because she's a model and he's rich.

[Churchill]

So a woman's not allowed to fancy a bloke who's got money? Sounds like he was quite persuasive and charming - he managed to pull the wool over a lot of people's eyes and convince them the implausible was true.

You may be right - she may be a moneygrabbing career girlfriend, but not really fair to jump to conclusions just because she's a model and he's rich.

Fair? Where does that come into the equation?

Grow up, love and while you're at it put the kettle on.

[Craic]

Leeds Utd fans had a lucky escape -
Strong rumour - LUFC talk

[cojak]

I'm merging this thread into the one in General. This isn't business or contracts....

[MarillionFan]

I'm merging this thread into the one in General. This isn't business or contracts....

But is it Accountancy?

[Churchill]

But is it Accountancy?

Not as we know it!

[DimPrawn]

So a woman's not allowed to fancy a bloke who's got money? Sounds like he was quite persuasive and charming - he managed to pull the wool over a lot of people's eyes and convince them the implausible was true.

You may be right - she may be a moneygrabbing career girlfriend, but not really fair to jump to conclusions just because she's a model and he's rich.

Hey, your hair looks nice today k2p2. You interested in looking round the Maserati showroom later today? I've got some money burning a hole in my pockets.

[Churchill]

Hey, your hair looks nice today k2p2. You interested in looking round the Maserati showroom later today? I've got some money burning a hole in my pockets.

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

[shaunbhoy]

His brief ought to be leaning heavily on the "not of sound mind" argument, and citing the amount of time spent at Elland Road as compelling proof.

[philip@wellwoodhoyle]

What galls me most is that this happened why do the 'professional bodies' that Darren was a member of not protect against this? If he was a solicitor that cost us this money we would have some recourse but accountants - no. Most of the payments were made using on line transactions which do not validate account names - had the amounts been paid by crossed cheque or in person - the transactions would have been automatically questioned / blocked? And finally of course 'professional indemnity insurance' does not cover outright fraud.

These loopholes must be tightened up before this happens again...

Darren had actually been expelled from his professional body, ACCA, a year or two before the fraud because he hadn't complied with their practicing certificate regulations. But the ACCA can do nothing else. The accountancy professional bodies have no teeth - their only punishments are fining or expelling their members. Anything beyond that is a matter of civil or criminal proceedings which the accountancy bodies can't get involved in.

But, as we all know, the word "accountant" isn't protected in UK law, so all he did was remove the words "chartered certified" from his letterheads and website and continued as before. I bet many clients never even noticed and probably never cared! I'd suggest that all contractors on these boards look at their accountant's letter head and website to see whether the words "chartered" appear before accountant - if not, then the firm is very unlikely to have any regulation at all.

Until we get proper "protection", i.e. that those preparing accounts and tax returns are properly regulated, supervised, etc., by a regulatory body with some teeth, then this kind of thing will be all the more common. And no, I don't mean the ACCA, ICAEW etc - they're little more than membership associations. I'm meaning a proper regulator that regulates everyone who purports to offer accountancy, book-keeping and tax return preparation services. And I also want "proper" regulation, i.e. checking of files etc - at the moment the accountancy bodies (ACCA in particular) don't ask to see client files at all - they only care about letters of engagement, PI insurance certificates, etc - it's more about complying with the ACCA rules rather than complying with the law, which is completely wrong.

This will only get worse as more and more is done electronically between HMRC and the agent. We've got "live" payroll coming soon, "self serve", etc. Darren's is going to be the first of many fraud cases unless something is done.

For my firm, for client protection, we never allow clients to use our address, neither for registered office, payroll or VAT communications, etc., and we never act as nominee director - so the client gets corporation tax demands directly and gets VAT and PAYE communication directly - at least then they know what's going on. I'd advise everyone else to do likewise - get your official HMRC and Co House addresses changed to your own home/office and it would drastically reduce the chance of the Darren fraud being repeated on you.

Back to Tina and Darren. They both seemed very involved in the accountancy practice(s) and client companies. Tina is on record as having over 40 directorships/Co Secretary and Darren over 70. Tina was an officer of Darren's first firm, 1st Accountancy, both Upton accountant companies, not to mention a book-keeping company and a tax return preparation company - and plenty of what appear to be client companies. Tina is hardly innocent in all of this - as a director of some of the accountancy related companies (past and present), she surely has a legal responsibility for what happened - director's can't just shirk responsibility to others by pretending they didn't know what was going on - it's part of the job of being a director to know what's going on. It makes you wonder why they were involved in so many other companies, and also makes you wonder why they had so many accountancy related companies. Why did they keep forming and closing accountancy companies and change their "trading" style from one to another, taking clients with them - what else have they been doing or hiding?