Dean Wilson, director of the Olive Tree Brasserie chain, has been disqualified from being the owner of any business including his successful branch of restaurants for exactly 10 years and six months after he exploited a Covid-19 business support scheme during the pandemic.
As a way to support businesses at threat of crumbling during lockdowns and closures over the course of the pandemic, the Conservative government launched a Bounce Back Loan scheme (BBL) that business owners could apply for.
This meant a business could borrow through the scheme between £2,000 to £50,000 for a fixed six-year length and no interest was to be paid on this for the first 12 months, with this increasing to 2.5 per cent interest after that first year.
The restaurant owner has been banned from running businesses for a decade (Image: NQ) The loan did have conditions, some of those being that only one loan could be taken out by one provider and the money must be used for genuine business needs.
Despite these conditions, it has been revealed during an insolvency investigation that restaurant owner Dean Wilson took out multiple BBL loans for several of the restaurant chains on behalf of the Olive Tree Brasserie Lytham Ltd.
This included for one of his current Olive Tree chain based on London Road in Stockton Heath.
A report published by The Insolvency Service confirmed that Wilson applied for a second £50,000 BBL under the business name on May 7, 2020, having knowingly applied for a previous £50k loan from a different lender.
The report said: “On May 4, 2020, Mr Wilson submitted an application form to Bank A, in which Lytham sought a BBL of £50,000 and which contained a declaration which confirmed that this was the only application for a BBL that had been made on behalf of Lytham.”
It continued to state that on May 6 Wilson received the initial loan before submitting an application and signing the same declaration a day later for another loan of the same sum under the business name.
The terrace at Olive Tree Brasserie in Stockton Heath (Image: NQ) And he had replicated this with different lenders for his other three Olive Tree Brasserie branches located in Lytham, Chester, and Stockton Heath, equating to around £200,000 in loans.
Moreover, the Insolvency Agency found no evidence that the funds had been used in favour of the businesses.
Similarly to this case, another Warrington restaurant owner was found to have committed a breach against the BBL scheme back in May 2020.
Ansarul Hoque, who ran the successful Indian restaurant Cardamon, also situated on London Road in Stockton Heath, applied for a £50,000 Bounce Back Loan.
However, breaching one of the terms of the loan, the same day the funds were transferred to the business, they left the account and were sent directly to Mr Hoque’s personal bank account.
A BBL loan was taken out for the Stockton Heath branch of the chain (Image: NQ) And an insolvency investigation found “no evidence” had been provided by the owner to show the money had been used for business purposes.
Hoque was disqualified for five years as a result of his actions and the business went into liquidation in November 2022.
Interestingly, in relation to Wilson’s case, in August 2021, only a number of weeks after Olive Tree Brasserie Preston Ltd had accrued the second Bounce Back Loan he applied for, Wilson announced the closure of said restaurant.
He announced the “sudden closure” on the business Facebook page, determining the reason of the closure being down to “ongoing negotiations with our Preston landlord”.
Since then, a further branch was opened at a site in Leeds.
However, due to his actions of breaching the Covid-19 scheme, he is now no longer allowed to be involved in the running of any of the popular Greek eateries.
All of the Olive Tree Brasserie sites at Leeds, Chester, Lytham and Stockton Heath are continuing to run, business as usual.
