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A WOMAN who ran scam publishing firms that raked in more than £1million from victims who believed they were supporting good causes has been banned from acting as a company director.

Ashley Dawn Thorley, 39, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, was a boss of the Teenage Information Bureau, which persuaded businesses to sponsor the production of booklets about sexually transmitted infections. It gave the impression of being a charity but was actually a commercial firm that banked over £400,000 from donors. I warned against it in 2013, after a Mail on Sunday reader was asked to pay £199 for 31 small booklets to be distributed to schools. After an investigation by the Insolvency Service, the High Court ordered the company into liquidation.

Thorley went on to run Data Northern Ltd. It cold-called small businesses, falsely implying that it was a charity connected to the police. I reported in 2017 that Thorley’s company was asking for donations of £179 a time to supply schools with booklets warning teenagers against taking drugs, pictured right. Once a donation was made, the firm was told it had entered a contract to carry on paying, with the threat of bailiffs if it refused.

The booklets were written by Thorley, and investigators from the Insolvency Service found that most of the schools that were supposed to receive them actually received nothing, while those that did receive the booklets felt they were so poor that they threw them away.

In February last year, the High Court in Manchester ordered Data Northern to close down. By then, the company’s bank account showed it had received £949,282 from donors, with Thorley pocketing £152,860. She is now banned from setting up or controlling any limited company until September 2029.