Alexander Stewart Cooper, 70, from Glasgow, has been disqualified as a company director following an investigation which found he had made a false claim in order to receive a Bounce Back Loans (BBL) for his businesses.

Mr Cooper was appointed as a director of Traprain Homes Ltd in August 2016, becoming sole director in October 2019. The company traded as a construction company until it went into liquidation in June 2021.

He applied for a BBL for Traprain Homes in June 2020, stating that the company’s turnover was £1,014,930. Traprain Homes received the maximum loan of £50,000.

The company later went into liquidation, owing the full amount of the loan, which triggered an investigation by the Insolvency Service.

Investigators discovered that Traprain Homes Ltd had been insolvent at the time Mr Cooper applied for the loan. Company accounts to January 2020 had shown a loss of more than £113,000, and the company had not been actively trading since February 2020. The business bank account had shown a balance of just £96 when the loan was received.

They also discovered that once the loan had been received, Mr Cooper paid more than £9,400 to himself from the firm’s account, and later transferred more than £40,000 of the money between the company’s different bank accounts before paying it out to himself.

In October 2022 the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy accepted disqualification undertakings from Mr Cooper.

Mr Cooper did not dispute he had caused his company to breach the rules of the BBL scheme by claiming the loan when he knew, or ought to have known, that Traprain Homes Ltd was not eligible, and later misused the funds, resulting in him being banned for 10 years from 14 November 2022.

Mr Cooper has fully repaid the loan for Traprain Homes following recovery action by the company’s liquidator.

Steven McGinty, investigation manager at the Insolvency Service, said: “Bounce Back Loans were an emergency measure made available to help British businesses trading through the most testing of times.

“Mr Cooper breached the eligibility criteria and then took the money for personal gain.

“This abuse of government support has led to lengthy bans and should serve as a warning to others that we will not hesitate to take action against directors who have abused Covid-19 financial support.”