- Nicholas Couch submitted a fraudulent invoice claiming his company had paid British Gas for gas installation work at an apartment block conversion project in Kent
- When questioned about the payment two years later, the 51-year-old created a false bank statement to maintain the deception and cover up the fraud
- Couch was handed a suspended sentence for fraud and falsifying accounting records following Insolvency Service investigations
A director who submitted a false invoice claiming British Gas had carried out work on a property development his company was working on in Kent has been sentenced.
Nicholas Couch’s Frontier Technical Services Ltd was appointed in July 2016 to oversee conversion work at Epicurus House on Akehurst Lane in Sevenoaks – an office building being turned into six residential apartments.
Couch produced a fake bank statement to show his company had paid British Gas more than £20,000 for gas installation work when questioned by the property owners about the payment.
However, investigations revealed that no payment had ever been made and the work had not been carried out.
Couch, of Wishing Tree Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, was sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended for 20 months, at Lewes Crown Court on Friday 12 December after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and falsifying accounting records earlier this year.
The 51-year-old was disqualified as a company director for four years and ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.
Couch will also have to pay compensation of £5,000 and costs of £2,500.
Chris Wood, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said
Nicholas Couch was appointed to take over as project manager for this development and was in a position of trust which he deliberately abused for personal gain.
His offending was both sophisticated and calculated – he created entirely false documents to cover up the fact that no work had been done and no payment had been made to British Gas, defrauding the property owners of more than £20,000.
Directors like this not only harm their immediate victims but undermine confidence in the construction industry as a whole, making it harder for legitimate businesses to operate and damaging trust with customers and investors.
This case demonstrates our commitment to pursuing company directors who exploit their positions to defraud creditors, particularly when they use elaborate methods to conceal their dishonesty.
Frontier Technical Services Ltd was set up in April 2015 with Couch as its sole director. The company was described on Companies House as being involved in building project development.
British Gas had issued a quotation for gas installation work at the Sevenoaks property totalling £20,869 including VAT.
However, in September 2016, Couch submitted a false invoice to the property owners claiming this work had been completed and paid for by Frontier Technical Services Ltd. He presented a copy of the original British Gas quotation as supposed proof of payment.
Based on this invoice, £20,869 was transferred from the property development company to Frontier Technical Services Ltd as part of a larger payment covering various works.
Concerns were raised in June 2018 that British Gas had not received any payment and that the original quotation had been cancelled.
When questioned about this, Couch maintained that the payment had been made and provided a falsified bank statement which claimed to show the money had been paid to British Gas in October 2016.
Further investigations with both the bank and British Gas confirmed no payment had ever been made.
Genuine copies of Frontier Technical Services Ltd’s bank statements showed the figures on Couch’s falsified documents did not match actual transactions, confirming they had been altered.
Frontier Technical Services Ltd entered liquidation in April 2019.