MR Sam KEATING

Disqualified from

2020-09-03

Date of birth on record

February 1992

Between at least 11 October 2017 and 18 February 2019, Sam Keating (“Mr Keating”) caused or allowed Covent House Ltd (“CHL”) to make misrepresentations to businesses in order to induce payments to CHL in respect of advertising, without providing any discernible benefit to those businesses, in that: • CHL cold called businesses in order to sell advertising space in magazines produced by CHL, leading potential advertisers to believe that CHL was a not-for-profit organisation representing or acting on behalf of the emergency services, and/or was a charity. • CHL is not a registered charity and did not make any financial contribution to the emergency services or any other known charity. • Potential advertisers were led to believe, variously, that the magazines would be given free of charge to all retired police officers, to schools, to parents, to public service personnel, and every serving police officer. • The total number of magazines printed in the period was 10,944. Government statistics show that in 2017-2019 the number of serving police officers exceeded 120,000. • Between 11 October 2017 and 18 February 2019 advertisers paid £362,694 into CHL’s bank account. • In the same period, Mr Keating received £26,696, £169,531 was spent on wage costs and £116,579 was withdrawn in cash. £2,970 was paid to HMRC, but it is noted that CHL paid VAT assessments in the absence of submitting VAT returns, so the £2,970 paid cannot be relied upon as being an accurate reflection of the debts to HMRC.