Dragons’ Den Entrepreneur Used Covid Business Loans to Buy £1.8 Million Mansion – But Avoids Jail

A business owner who appeared on BBC’s Dragons’ Den illegally pocketed two COVID-19 business loans to buy a £1.8 million mansion – but has avoided jail despite the £100,000 fraud. The Telegraph has more.

Rick Beardsell, 46, who is also a world sprinting champion, fraudulently used £100,000 of taxpayers’ cash to finance the purchase of a five-bedroom property in Prestbury, Cheshire.

Beardsell, who secured a £75,000 investment from Dragons Tej Lalvani and Deborah Meaden for his protein shake bottle business ShakeSphere in 2017, had applied for the loans for his other business, Sports Creative, which sold sportswear, but put none of the money towards it.

Under the loan rules, Beardsell was only entitled to one Bounce Back loan of a maximum £50,000. However, he fraudulently applied for two and inflated his annual turnover by up to 23 times.

At Chester Crown Court, Beardsell – who won seven gold medals for GB in World Masters Athletics Championships – was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, for two charges of fraud.

Beardsell had appeared on Dragons’ Den to get investment for his shaker bottle manufacture firm ShakeSphere. He claimed the support of Meaden and Lalvani subsequently helped him get sales of over one million shakers worldwide.

Geoff Whelan, prosecuting, said Beardsell made fraudulent applications for Bounce Back Loans to HSBC in December 2020 and then to the NatWest in January 2021 for Sports Creative.

He said: ‘‘The defendant stated on the HSBC form that the turnover of Sports Creative was £485,000 and on the NatWest form said it was £320,000 – but unaudited financial statements showed turnover for the year end February 2020 was £20,622.

The court heard the HSBC and NatWest money landed in Sports Creative’s account in January 2021 but was then transferred to other bank accounts, including Beardsell’s personal account.

In September 2021, a sum of £431,160.80, which included the remaining bounce back loan funds, was transferred to a firm of solicitors for the purchase of a house.

Mr Whelan said he had “in effect” used the loan for the house purchase and added it was Beardsell’s “intention to use the bounce back loans for this purpose at the time he made the application for it”.

Worth reading in full.