Steven Brookes

Introduction

Steven Brookes is a Cornish man who was jailed for three years and banned as a company director for ten years after fraudulently claiming six Covid-era Bounce Back Loans worth £300,000 — applying for them all in his wife’s name without her knowledge while he himself was already disqualified as a director. Brookes, 40, of Bude, spent the money on a Disneyland trip, a Tenerife holiday rental, an Audi with personalised number plates, £7,000 in private school fees for his daughter and a string of personal purchases. He appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday 18 June 2026, where the judge described his actions as “calculated and greedy”.

Background Information

Brookes had been disqualified as a company director since April 2010, when he received an eleven-year ban following a conviction for stealing mobile phones. The Bounce Back Loan scheme was designed to help businesses survive the pandemic, with companies entitled to one loan each based on a percentage of their turnover. Between May and October 2020, Brookes made six loan applications across five companies, in every case submitting them in his wife’s name without her knowledge and opening company bank accounts in her name to receive the funds. He inflated or fabricated the turnover figures used to support the applications, and made a second loan application for the same company when he was only entitled to one. His first application was for a £50,000 loan for Blind Pig Media Limited, for which he declared a turnover of £218,865 when the actual figure was £119,215.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted fraudster. Brookes pleaded guilty to eleven charges of fraud and acting as a director while disqualified; the jail term, the ten-year ban and the facts below are court findings and convictions, not allegations.

Brookes’s final fraudulent application came in October 2020, when he obtained a £50,000 loan for The Blind Pig Group Limited by declaring a turnover of £800,000 — a company that had never traded, and whose loan was transferred to Blind Pig Media Limited. Funds from the loans were spent on personal consumption: the Disneyland trip and school fees came from the first loan, with later money spent at a florist, at lingerie retailer Boux Avenue, on paint to decorate his rental property, and on transfers into the joint expenses account he held with his wife. Less than £7,500 of the £300,000 was repaid. He pleaded guilty to eleven charges of fraud and acting as a director while disqualified at Southwark Crown Court in November 2025, and was sentenced on 18 June 2026 to three years in prison with a ten-year director ban. All of the applications were made while his 2010 disqualification was in force, using his wife’s identity to conceal his involvement throughout the entire period of the fraud.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The Insolvency Service’s Chief Investigator, David Snasdell, said: “Steven Brookes cynically hid behind his wife’s identity to steal £300,000 in Covid support funds.” “Bounce Back Loans were not a personal bank account for company directors to use on paying for holidays, school fees and other luxury items,” Snasdell said, noting Brookes “broke almost every rule going” — submitting false turnover figures, securing two loans when companies were only allowed one, and criminally misusing the funds, all while ignoring a ban that had been in place for a decade. The agency used the case to underline its pursuit of Covid fraudsters and its willingness to enforce director bans, and the ten-year order bars Brookes from acting as a director, or taking part in the promotion, formation or management of any company, until the mid-2030s.

Current Status

Brookes is serving a three-year prison sentence imposed at Southwark Crown Court on 18 June 2026, and is disqualified from acting as a company director for ten years from the same date. His 2010 ban would otherwise have been the limiting feature of his business life; the new order replaces it with a fresh term running well past his release. The Insolvency Service has not announced any confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and the release notes that less than £7,500 of the stolen £300,000 had been repaid.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Brookes now has two director disqualifications and a fraud conviction on the public record, the second disqualification running ten years from 2026 and effectively ending any lawful company role for the foreseeable future. The case is also a caution for the family members whose identities get borrowed: the loans were taken out in his wife’s name without her knowledge, and the fraud’s paper trail runs through accounts she did not open. For the Insolvency Service, Brookes is the template case of “phoenix” Covid-loan abuse — a banned director who treated a pandemic support scheme as a personal fund — and his sentencing was publicised nationally as a warning that the agency pursues disqualified directors who abuse the scheme even a decade after their original bans.

Sources

• The Insolvency Service (GOV.UK), “Banned director who spent Covid loans on Disneyland, school fees and Audi jailed for £300,000 fraud,” Jun 19, 2026 — source