Fat cat couple lived luxury lifestyle of safaris and weekends in Cannes as their firm collapsed owing clients’ £7MILLION

THESE pictures show the luxury life of a shameless fat cat couple whose frivolous spending condemned their debt management firm to crash with shocking debts itself of more than £7m.

Pot bellied Adrian Whitehurst, 54, and his 53-year old wife Christine were nicknamed the "vampires of debt" after enjoying the trappings of wealth off the back of hard-up customers needing help with paying off credit cards and overdrafts.

Pictures on social media showed the Whitehursts watching lions, zebras and giraffes on a safari in Kenya, posing with TV star Simon Cowell on the set of Britain's Got Talent and enjoying lunches at a luxury resort in Spain.

Mr Whitehurst is seen on the terrace at a top boutique hotel in Manchester and enjoying a corporate day at Manchester City's Etihad stadium.

One picture posted by Mrs Whitehurst is of a mobile phone weather app showing the 30 C temperature at a beach hotel in La Cala de Mijas. She added the bragging caption: "Hot hot hot."

Another snap apparently taken during a weekend trip to Cannes shows an empty bottle of Chateau Minuty rose wine with the message: "The girlies favourite wine all weekend, definitely one to look out for."

The pictures were taken in the months before the couple's firm First Step Finance Ltd crashed into administration on May 28, 2014.

Experts discovered the firm had debts of up to £7,354,030 and assets of just £236,332 after the couple, who have three grown up children, illicitly used client accounts to fund their lifestyle.

None of the outstanding money has been recovered.

Today the Whitehursts, who live in a £527,000 detached house in Stockport, Greater Manchester, were banned from being company directors for a total of 24 years.

Robert Clarke, investigations group leader at The Insolvency Service, said: "Customers who are forced to use debt management companies are particularly vulnerable individuals which is why the sector is subject to stringent regulation.

"The actions of Mr and Mrs Whitehurst in deliberately misrepresenting the basis on which funds were held and then taking these monies to fund their lavish lifestyle are reprehensible and therefore disqualifications towards the top period allowed by law are entirely appropriate.

"The Insolvency Service will work with partner agencies to pursue such individuals to the full extent of the law."

The company was formed in 2007 with Mr Whitehurst as a director until 2009 before his wife succeeded him until she resigned in October 2013.

The firm was supposed to help people in debt by agreeing take regular monthly instalments and build a lump sum which would be used to negotiate settlements with creditors.

The Insolvency Service said the firm's 3,500 clients should have been protected if the company failed but the Whitehursts drew "significant sums" from the client accounts and treated the clients' money as their own.

Funds taken from client accounts were also loaned to companies owned and controlled by other family members and was used to buy shares in different firms which were later dissolved.

The Insolvency service said: "Client money must always be kept in a client account not usable by the debt management company for the purposes of its own business, and must always be available immediately for the benefit of the client.

"First Step had clients and handled client money but did not operate a client account.

"Client money was paid into First Step's current account and First Step therefore did not keep client money ring-fenced, and utilised it for non-client matters making it unavailable for the benefit of the clients, causing a shortfall on the client ledger owing to First Step's clients."

Mr Whitehurst was banned from being a company director for ten years. He is currently disqualified for five years in respect of his conduct in another company.

He admitted causing his firm to breach guidance issued by the Office of Fair Trading in relation to client accounts by using the money for the benefit of himself and his wife.

Mrs Whitehurst was banned from being a company director for 14 years.

The firm's former finance manager Darren Newton, 45, who took over as director from Mrs Whitehurst, was banned for three and a half years.

It is is believed clients of the firm who have lost out might not be able to get back their money as the Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not cover debt management companies.

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