A fraudster who used money from his construction company to fund his casino gambling has been jailed for two years.
Nottinghamshire construction boss Wesley Grainger-Smith fraudulently removed more than £702,050 from four failing companies and transferred the money to his casino account.
Between April 2014 and May 2015, the 66-year-old removed £230,810 from his company Eagleport’s account.
A winding-up order was made against the company one month later in June 2015.
He then removed £110,250 from Smiths Constructions between April and November 2015, with the company entering liquidation in December that year.
From February to July 2016, Grainger-Smith transferred £84,600 from the bank account of Smiths Construction Services.
A liquidator was appointed for Smiths Construction Services in September of that year.
Grainger-Smith withdrew £276,390 from the account of Smiths Construction Specialists in his final removal of company funds between August 2016 and February 2017.
Smiths Construction Specialists stopped trading after the removal of the funds, with winding-up proceedings beginning in June 2017.
Grainger-Smith declared bankruptcy in March 2017 and was banned as a company director for five years in July of that year as a result of his misconduct at Eagleport.
He was disqualified for a further 10 years in June 2019 for his misconduct at Smiths Construction Specialists.
Wesley Grainger-Smith, 66, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison at Lincoln Crown Court on Friday 28 February.
Mark Stephens, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Wesley Grainger-Smith removed vast sums of money from failing companies to fund his gambling at casinos.
“He cannot have thought he was entitled to recklessly gamble with company money, or that he was acting in the best interests of the four companies where he said he acted as a consultant.
“Directors will continue to be prosecuted by the Insolvency Service if they deliberately and fraudulently put money out of the reach of creditors.”
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