Is convicted ex accountant Darren Upton practicing?

[Fred Bloggs]

No further comment from FB. Speaks volumes...

The silence is deafening, yes.

[moggy]

bump

[Fred Bloggs]

bump

Can't hear you, I've deen deafened by the silence. I know you shouldn't read too much into it. But the silence the last few days is nontheless, extremely interesting itself.

[SimonMac]

I know many would like to know more, but FB has pretty much said they have told us all they are willing to on the matter.

Unless something comes to light from say a court appearance I doubt we will ever get a conclusion

[Fred Bloggs]

I know many would like to know more, but FB has pretty much said they have told us all they are willing to on the matter.

Unless something comes to light from say a court appearance I doubt we will ever get a conclusion

I'd say, those of us who would like to know have 99% already made their minds up. But sure, that 1% doubt, we'll likely never know.

[Invisiblehand]

I'd say, those of us who would like to know have 99% already made their minds up. But sure, that 1% doubt, we'll likely never know.

Totally.

Are you there Dom? There were some follow up questions you should be able to answer. Does anyone from Generate post here?

[WordIsBond]

My view is that if there had been any fraud we'd have heard of it by now, that DU was trying to get back in the game, perhaps for fraud or perhaps just because it is what he knew how to do, but was providing good advice and service to this point. It was not being upfront, it wasn't the kind of thing that makes you trust your accountant, and he pretty clearly had help with that. Those people aren't going to come clean and might have legal difficulty in doing so anyway.

He's not there now. So a thread about DU is probably not doing a lot that matters anymore. If he gets back into contractor accounting it will be with a different name. If he's secretive about it, he'll be less up-front than he was at FB or Dynamo. Maybe he won't be secretive, maybe he'll do like I suggested earlier. But if he wants to play the same game, we'll find out about it when someone is defrauded by someone using a completely different name.

My point of view is that if there's any reason to keep this thread alive, it is to push for answers from FB and Dynamo (but we already know that isn't going to happen) or to warn people that FB and Dynamo covered up something that they knew their clients would have wanted to know. If that's the purpose of this thread, the title doesn't convey it. So maybe a new thread about 'Can Dynamo Accounting or Fox-Bartfield be Trusted?' might be more to the point.

And maybe one that would be a candidate for being a sticky. Something like 'Protecting Yourself from Fraud by Accountant'. Darren Upton is out, he was apparently practicing under another name, how can you protect yourself from him or someone like him? etc.

There's a lot of speculation in this one, a lot of noise, it might be worth boiling it down somewhere for those purposes. I've put too much time into this already. But I think keeping this one active makes for a long and painful read for someone new coming along. I'd rather see it die if someone wanted to take the time to get the essentials into a more readable format.

[mudskipper]

Executive summary:

Darren Upton was an accountant who defrauded his clients, stealing their corporation tax payments, filing nil corrections with HMRC and pocketing the refunds.

He got caught out, and rightly sent to prison where he served his time.

He was disqualified from acting as a company director for 14 years, incuding taking part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership.

On release, he changed his name by deed poll, enabling him to get new identity documents, to Darren Roberts and secured himself a job at a new 'contractor specialist' branch of Hentons called 'Dynamo'. (AFAIK Dynamo didn't exist before Darren, ICBW)

He appears to have invented a work history for the time he was in prison, working for a company called 'Generate FS' whose MD is Adam Barton.

Dynamo/Hentons did not appear to know his real identity, and this discovery seems to have been the reason for his sudden departure.

He then was a controlling shareholder of a new company, Fox Bartfield, whose sole director is Abigail Murphy, which facebook suggests is Adam Barton's (of Generate FS) partner. Adam Barton is also a significant shareholder. Darren's shares were subsequently transferred over to Abigail Murphy, and he is reported to have now left FB. Dominic Abassi moved from Dynamo to FB shortly after Darren. It is inconceivable that the owners of FB did not know Darren's real identity as Adam had provided his work history when he was in prison. It also seems very unlikely that Dom did not know his identity at the time he joined Darren at FB.

Dynamo have said that they cannot comment due to ongoing legal proceedings. These can take time.

Personal comment - Darren Roberts seemed good - personable, friendly and helpful, and gave sound and accurate advice. I have certainly missed that service since he left Dynamo, and that is why many of his clients (unaware of his identity) followed him to FB. However, if he wanted a second chance, going about it in an underhand and deceitful way has blown it.


How can you protect yourself against his next incarnation?

1) Make sure your accountant has a digital footprint - it was apparent that, apart from a linkedin profile with a cartoon picture, there were no traces of Darren Roberts online.
2) Is your accountant a director of the firm he's representing? (especially for small firms)
3) Is your accountant ICAEW or CIOT registered (many aren't - not necessarily a problem)
4) Register for Companies House alerts when documents are filed - check them and make sure you know what is going on with your business.

[ZARDOZ]

So a thread about DU is probably not doing a lot that matters anymore.

Not so sure about that, the authorities are quite interested!

[jamesbrown]

Register for Companies House alerts when documents are filed - check them and make sure you know what is going on with your business.

This, particularly the latter, more than anything else.