Former company director, Lee Bartholomew, has been ordered to pay a total of £15,000 for withholding information legally required in an investigation by The Pensions Regulator (TPR).

The former company director of 1066 Target Sports appeared at Lewes Crown Court on 31 May 2024, where he was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay costs of £7,500.

He previously plead guilty under section 77(5) of the Pensions Act 2004 to intentionally and without reasonable excuse suppressing documents he was required to produce under section 72 of the Pensions Act 2004.

The regulator revealed that it had formally requested the information on 10 June 2020 as part of an investigation into allegations of fraudulent evasion relating to employee pension contributions.

However, the court heard that Bartholomew intentionally failed to provide the information required by TPR by the deadline of 8 July 2020, suppressing the material sought without reasonable excuse.

In his ruling, Judge Mooney told the defendant: “You took the decision to suppress, i.e. deliberately not provide, documentation you should have done because you knew to do so would alert the regulator that you weren’t paying money where you should have done.”

The judge said that as this hadn’t been done, he could not know where the money went at that time.

"This caused a degree of distress to the people affected, as the money they thought was going into their pensions didn’t," he continued. "It caused them real concern.”

Judge Mooney also said Bartholomew's decision not to provide the information required a sentence that serves as both a punishment and as a deterrent to others from doing the same thing.

TPR head of automatic enrolment compliance and enforcement, Joe Turner, highlighted the case as a "clear warning that we do not hesitate to prosecute companies or individuals if they refuse to give us the right information when requested and/or try to frustrate our aim to protect pension savers".

“We attempted to use our civil powers to put things right in this case, but this was ignored," Turner continued.

"Anyone refusing to comply with our requests for information without good reason should take note that they could find themselves in court and with a criminal conviction.”

Following his guilty plea to the charge under section 77(5) Pensions Act 2004, TPR has now confirmed that it is no longer prosecuting Bartholomew for fraudulent evasion of his duty to pay money deducted from the salaries of his employees as pension contributions into a workplace pension scheme within a prescribed period under section 49 of the Pensions Act 1995.

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