A couple who took £7m from thousands of customers who sought help from their debt management firm but spent much of the money on lavish holidays and cars have been banned from the UK financial services industry for life by the sector’s regulator.
Adrian and Christine Whitehurst, nicknamed the “vampires of debt”, set up First Step in 2007, promising to help hard-pressed families bring their debts under control with easy monthly payments.
But by the time the firm was placed in administration in 2014, £7m was missing from client funds, according to the Financial Conduct Authority – and the 4,000 people who paid in have little chance of seeing any of their money returned as it is not covered by a financial services industry compensation scheme.
The couple, from Stockport, spent more than £500,000 on holidays, including luxury hotels in Marbella, Venice, Vienna and Greece. Another £200,000 went on a string of top-of-the range vehicles, including a Bentley, Range Rover and a Ducati motorbike, while £50,000 was lavished on Hermès and Louis Vuitton clothes and bags.
In total, Adrian Whitehurst received more than £1.1m in cash, with the FCA declaring that £2.75m was “misappropriated”.
Adrian, 55, and his wife, Christine, 54, shared images on social media of game drives in Kenya watching lions and giraffes, while their clients were struggling to pay off overdrafts and credit cards.
Cash and loans taken from client accounts by the Whitehursts to buy shares in a speculative overseas development were sold back to the company to cover much of the shortfall in clients’ accounts. But administrators said the share valuations were questionable and have not been able to realise their value.
Problems at First Step first emerged in November 2009, just two years after it was granted a consumer credit licence by the Office of Fair Trading. The OFT visited the firm following customer complaints, and in 2010 told First Step it was minded to revoke its licence.
But the firm’s licence was not fully revoked until October 2013. During the period between the OFT’s first warning and the company being forced to close, the shortfall in client accounts ballooned by several million pounds.
The FCA said the shortfall was £466,134 in November 2009, £3,869,472 by 2011 and £6,119,716 by October 2013. When the firm was formally placed into administration in 2014 the shortfall exceeded £7m.
“From 1 December 2009 to 18 October 2013, Mr Whitehurst, together with Mrs Whitehurst, misappropriated more than £2.75m of client money. Mrs Whitehurst made or authorised drawings through her director’s loan account to facilitate this misappropriation and they used the client money to fund a luxury lifestyle,” said the FCA.
The regulator described the Whitehursts as “reckless and dishonest”, as they knew that the money should have been used to repay their customers’ creditors.
The Whitehursts told desperately indebted customers that they were building up a ringfenced pot of money for each customer, and that they would challenge the enforceability of debts against the customers while starting mis-selling claims to recover cash. But First Step made no – or token – payments to creditors.
The FCA said: “The firm’s customers are unable to recover their money as these losses are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and as such were left with continuing debts.” The regulatory oversight of First Step was the responsibility of the OFT, although powers have since been transferred to the FCA.
Mark Steward, FCA executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “The Whitehursts were trusted by their customers, who were extremely vulnerable, to help them with their debt problems. They abused this trust, living a luxury lifestyle at the expense of people who could not afford to lose their money.
“They showed complete disregard for the consequences of their actions and we have taken the strongest action possible in preventing them from operating in financial services again.”
The FCA said it had passed its findings to the City of London police.
