A ROSS-on-Wye man has been handed a disqualification after he had a significant role at nine separate companies which went into some form of insolvency.

An investigation was carried out by the government's Insolvency Service after the latest company CS Fundraising Limited (CSF), where he was a director, was placed into creditor’s voluntary liquidation.

The investigation found that Christopher John Stoddard, 68, had misled the public and held on to funds collected on behalf of charities.

He has now been disqualified from directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership, for nine and a half years.

CSF started to trade in late 2012 in Ross as a professional fundraiser for charities.

The company took over the assets and contracts of an associated fundraising company that had entered into formal insolvency proceedings in June 2012.

At its peak CSF was sending out approximately 150,000 mail donation letters each month on behalf of charities.

Under sustained pressure from various sources, Mr Stoddard decided to stop the company trading in November 2014 and on December 19, 2014 the company was placed into creditor’s voluntary liquidation.

This brought to nine the number of companies where Mr Stoddard had a significant role to have gone into some form of insolvency.

The investigation found and Mr Stoddard admitted to causing CSF to solicit money from the general public in a way that was contrary to laws governing charities; and causing and/or allowing CSF to mislead the public in that the solicitation statement of the company did not comply with the requirements of charity laws.

The investigation also found that between July 2013 and September 2014 he caused CSF to retain public donations of at least £125,634, which the company had received in its capacity as a professional fundraiser on behalf of a charity.

He was also found that between July 2013 and December 2014 he breached the duty of trust owed to CSF in that he failed to act in the best interest of the company. He did so by allowing a conflict of interest to arise which caused a separate company, which he controlled, to earn revenues from the renting out of the mailing list of CSF without accounting for money due to CSF for the income earned. It had not been possible to ascertain the income received by the associated company.