HM Government

Mr Khan was the director of Colne Valley Restaurant Limited, which traded as Colne Valley Indian Restaurant in Earls Colne, Colchester.

He has been disqualified from acting as a company director for 8 years after an investigation by the Insolvency Service found he had employed an illegal worker, understated profits for tax purposes, and failed in his duty to ensure the company either maintained or preserved adequate accounting records.

Mr Khan’s disqualification from 11 April 2017 means that he cannot promote, manage or be a director of a limited company until 2025.

Prior to the cessation of its trading in February 2014, officers from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) had visited the premises and discovered that some of the restaurant takings were excluded from its takings records. Further investigations undertaken by HMRC also found that some of the restaurant’s sales had been underpriced, while some ingredients had been overpriced, leading to understatements of profits for Corporation Tax purposes.

Officers from Home Office Immigration Enforcement (HOIE) also visited the restaurant premises on 4 October 2013 when the company was found to be employing an illegal worker. Mr Khan was as a result served with a Notification of Liability for a Civil Penalty of £5,000. The fine was not paid and Mr Khan took steps to place the company into Creditors Voluntary Liquidation, which took place on 19 May 2015.

Robert Clarke, Head of Insolvent Investigations North at the Insolvency Service, said:

The Insolvency Service rigorously pursues directors who fail to deal properly with a company’s taxation affairs and to pay fines imposed for breaking employment and immigration laws. We have worked closely in this case with our colleagues at HM Revenue & Customs and the Home Office to achieve this disqualification.

The director sought unfair advantages over his competitors by failing to ensure that profits were properly recorded and by employing individuals who did not have the right to work in the UK, in breach of his duties as a director.

The public has a right to expect that those who break the law will face the consequences. Running a limited company means you have statutory protections as well as obligations.

If you fail to comply with your obligations, then the Insolvency Service will investigate you.

Notes to editors

Colne Valley Restaurant Limited (CRO No. 06527924) was incorporated in 2008. The company’s trading address was 110 High Street, Earls Colne, Colchester, Essex, CO6 2QX.

Colne Valley Restaurant Limited entered liquidation on 19 May 2015 with no assets and liabilities of £38,514. Moulana Mohammed Abdul Goffar Khan is from Halstead and his date of birth is June 1973.

The disqualification undertaking was accepted by the Secretary of State on 21 March 2017 and will come into force on 11 April 2017.

A disqualification order has the effect that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

1. act as a director of a company
2. take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership
3. be a receiver of a company’s property

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings.

Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of other restrictions.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct, is available.

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

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The Queen has approved the nomination of the Very Reverend Peter Jonathan Wilcox, MA, DPhil, Dean of Liverpool, in the diocese of Liverpool, for election as Bishop of Sheffield in succession to the Right Reverend Steven John Lindsey Croft, MA, PhD, on his translation to the See of Oxford on 6 July 2016.

The Very Reverend Dr Pete Wilcox, aged 55, studied history at Saint John’s College, Durham.

He trained for the ordained ministry at Ridley Hall, Cambridge and served his title at Preston-on-Tees, in the diocese of Durham from 1987 to 1990.

From 1990 to 1993, while completing a doctorate at St John’s College, Oxford, he was Non-Stipendiary Minister at Saint Margaret with Saint Philip and Saint James, with Saint Giles in the Diocese of Oxford. From 1993 to 1998 he was Team Vicar in the Parish of Gateshead, in the diocese of Durham, and Director of the Cranmer Hall Urban Mission Centre. From 1998 to 2006 he was Priest-in-Charge at Saint Paul’s at the Crossing, Walsall in the diocese of Lichfield and then Canon Residentiary at Lichfield Cathedral between 2006 and 2012. Since 2012 he has been Dean of Liverpool.

Pete is married to the novelist Catherine Fox, who lectures in creative writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. They have 2 adult sons: Jon, who is married to Izzy, and Tom, who is engaged to Rosa.

He has a mildly obsessive interest in all ball sports, especially (as a fan of Newcastle United) football. He is the author of 3 books, including ‘Living the Dream: Joseph for Today’ (Paternoster, 2007).

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Thousands of sea trout have been released into rivers in Northumberland to stock rivers for anglers and help protect the future of a critically endangered species, the freshwater pearl mussel.

Pearl fishing and water pollution from industry have led to worldwide decline of the pearl mussel.

A healthy population of endangered freshwater pearl mussels is important for water quality – each mussel filters 50 to 70 litres of water. They improve the quality of the habitat, increasing the ecological diversity, which includes juvenile trout and salmon numbers.

The Environment Agency’s Kielder Salmon Centre staff Richard Bond and Jess Anson have developed a technique to enable pearl mussel larvae to attach to the fish gills, replicating their natural life cycle in the wild.

The larvae will drop off the sea trout gills towards the end of May where they will settle on to the river bed. Given the right conditions, these juveniles could survive into adulthood and live for up to 100 years.

Close up of pearl mussel larvae (white dots) attached to the sea trout gills

Around 12,000 one-year-old sea trout, which have been bred at Kielder Salmon Centre, were released this week into North Tyne tributaries of the River Tyne.

The larvae attached to them were harvested from 80 adult mussels which are cared for at the centre.

Kielder Salmon Centre breeds 360,000 salmon and between 10,000 and 20,000 sea trout every year to stock rivers.

Complex life cycle

Richard said:

The pearl mussel has a complex life cycle which begins as larvae. These larvae, called glochidia, requires salmon or sea trout to host them for the first stage of their development.

They attach to the gills of trout in the River Tyne between late July and early August, where they remain until the following spring when they drop off the fish’s gills. They need clean water and gravel, and well oxygenated water where they continue to grow.

The survival rate for juveniles has declined over the years, which has led to an ageing population, with few mussels under 50 years old.

This means they are a critically endangered species with only around 30,000 adult mussels in the wild in the North Tyne area, and 500,000 across the country.

This work at the hatchery is to try to increase the numbers of juveniles in the river, boost future numbers, natural reproduction and survival rates in efforts to halt the population decline.

Water quality improvements

After considerable investment, water quality has improved dramatically across the UK and rivers in England are the healthiest they have been for 20 years.

The improvements in water quality of the River Tyne and its tributaries has been excellent, and along with the continued work of the Environment Agency and partners, has resulted in improved conditions for natural breeding in the rivers, and a flourishing ecology.

Kielder Salmon Centre pearl mussel project

Richard added:

In 2010 we first managed to successfully get freshwater pearl mussel larvae to attach to the gills of sea trout. Since then we have released sea trout every spring to the River Tyne tributaries.

Over the next two years we will be carrying out surveys, looking for the first of these juvenile mussels that were released to see if or where they have survived.

Even at 7 years old they will be less then 3cms long, most of which will be buried under the river bed. In another 7 to 10 years they should be old enough to breed.

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