£250K Wedding venue boss who cashed in and left brides to be in the lurch banned for three years
Castle director slated by Insolvency Service
THE former boss of a popular Scots wedding venue which went bust leaving couples’ big days in tatters has been banned from acting as a director over the firm’s collapse.
Ty Crossley, former director of Broomhall Castle, near Stirling, has been rapped by the Insolvency Service over the handling of the business’s accounts before it went into liquidation – which reveal he was paid £250,000 but failed to pay HMRC more than £470,000. The venue, now under new ownership, ceased trading in 2022, blaming Covid for leaving 18 brides and grooms-to-be with nowhere to go. Crossley, 53, has now been disqualified from acting as a company director for more than three years. Mike Smith, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said Crossley failed to ensure Broomhall Castle submitted returns and payments to HM Revenue and Customs, leaving debts of more than £475,000 to HMRC from a total debt of more than £512,000 at liquidation.
He added: “His conduct falls below what the Insolvency Service expects of company directors which is why we are pleased to have secured this disqualification undertaking lasting for the next three-anda-half years.”
The venue, in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, was put in liquidation in August 2022 with the loss of 12 jobs, with brides who had been left in the dark forced to scramble for replacements.
The castle, which dates to 1874, operated as a hotel for almost 40 years.
Begbies Traynor, which was appointed as joint liquidator, said at the time that the business had “suffered from the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns” with debts accrued making it “unviable”.
It said there had been 18 weddings booked when the firm collapsed, with deposits only reimbursed via clients’ own credit card companies. Jennifer Currie, from Stirling, who was set to marry partner Rachel Jenkins in a Harry Potter-themed wedding, said they were “flabbergasted”.
They said: “There was no indication something like this was going to happen and it left us having to scrape around for a venue to get married.”
Local businesses rallied around and helped many couples, including Jennifer and Rachel, salvage their weddings.
Now details released by the Insolvency Service show Crossley, director of Broomhall Castle Management Ltd, caused the business to trade “to the detriment of HMRC” over a period of almost three years.
It said the business failed to submit returns and payments from November 2019 until the the firm ceased trading in respect of more than £397,000 in VAT and more than £71,000 in PAYE, from February 2020.
It said analysis of the bank account over this period showed income of £1,071,272 and withdrawals of £1,088,903.
Among the withdrawals were payments of £248,391 to Crossley, sums for goods and services, rent payments and bounceback loan repayments, with £304,000 paid in wages. The Insolvency Service said in its report that no payments were to HMRC for VAT in the period and six trade creditor claims came to £500,418, of which HMRC claimed £475,647.
It said a total of 42 customer creditor claims submitted at liquidation, for deposits taken and bookings not honoured, totalled more than £12,000.
Crossley was appointed director of the firm in 2011, but was previously listed as a director of Broomhall Castle Ltd since 1998. We tried to contact Crossley for comment but he could not be reached.
It left us having to scrape around for a venue Jennifer Currie bride to be at time of collapse