Desmond Pheby

Introduction

Desmond Pheby is a Welsh businessman who ran the franchise operation behind the Wok & Go noodle takeaway chain and who was sentenced at Chester Crown Court on 5 October 2026 for managing a company while disqualified as a director and for using a false employment document in civil court proceedings. Pheby, 57, had accepted a seven-year director disqualification in July 2019 after the liquidation of a food company he directed, but continued managing Wok & Go Franchise UK Limited anyway; the court handed him a suspended prison sentence, 200 hours of unpaid work and a fresh ten-year ban. His wife, Sharon Pheby, 51, admitted aiding and abetting him and received a twelve-month community order, 100 hours of unpaid work and a five-year disqualification of her own.

Background Information

Pheby’s original ban stemmed from the collapse of T.P.F Limited, another food company he had directed. He accepted the seven-year disqualification in July 2019 after investigators found he had failed to ensure the company maintained adequate accounting records, or alternatively failed to preserve and deliver them up. The missing records meant it was not possible to account for more than £200,000 in current assets shown in the company’s accounts, or to properly account for almost £800,000 of expenditure. Investigators were also unable to verify Pheby’s explanation for why the company failed, or to explain how its financial position deteriorated from net liabilities of £13,084 to a deficiency of £164,956 by the time it entered liquidation in September 2017. Wok & Go Franchise UK Limited sold franchises for the Wok & Go noodle takeaway chain, and Pheby managed the company from 2019 onwards despite the ban.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Criminal convictions for breaching a director disqualification and using a false document. Pheby pleaded guilty to acting in the management of a company while disqualified and was convicted by a jury of using a false instrument; the sentences described here are court outcomes, and confiscation proceedings remain ongoing.

Rather than learn from the 2019 ban, Pheby disregarded it entirely and continued acting in the management of Wok & Go Franchise UK Limited while disqualified, behaviour the Insolvency Service said he knew was prohibited. He pleaded guilty in August 2025 to acting in the management of the company in breach of his disqualification. Separately, he was prosecuted over a false employment document that was provided during civil court proceedings involving a franchisee’s claim for damages — a case in which Pheby’s own role within the company was one of the issues in dispute. The document presented him as a £12-an-hour “Franchise Relationship Manager”, a description wildly at odds with his actual position running the franchise company. A jury at Chester Crown Court unanimously convicted him in August 2026 of using a false instrument with intent that it be accepted as genuine.

Sentencing him on Monday 5 October 2026, the court imposed twelve months in prison, suspended for two years, ordered him to complete 200 hours of unpaid work, and disqualified him as a director for a further ten years — a ban that runs to 2036. Sharon Pheby’s guilty plea to aiding and abetting was entered on the basis that she did not actively aid or abet him until 1 August of the year in question, and she received the community order and her own five-year ban alongside the unpaid work requirement. Confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 are ongoing.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The Insolvency Service’s Chief Investigator, David Snasdell, said: “Desmond Pheby knew he was banned from running companies but continued managing his business regardless.” “His original ban followed serious failures over company accounting records, but rather than learn from that, he ignored the restrictions placed on him,” Snasdell said, adding that Pheby then “used a false employment document in civil court proceedings where his role in the company was one of the issues in dispute”. The agency framed the case as a warning that director disqualifications protect the public and the business community, and that “those who ignore them risk prosecution and, as Pheby has discovered, being banned for even longer”. The ten-year disqualification bars Pheby from acting as a director or taking any part in the promotion, formation or management of a company without permission from the court, and the conviction now sits on his record alongside the 2019 ban it was meant to succeed.

Current Status

Pheby, of Flintshire, North Wales, is a convicted company-law offender serving a two-year suspended sentence, and he is disqualified from acting as a company director until 2036 under the ban imposed at Chester Crown Court on 5 October 2026. The original seven-year disqualification from 2019 would otherwise have expired in 2026; the new order restarts the clock and extends it. His wife Sharon remains subject to her five-year disqualification and community order. Confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 were still ongoing at the time of the sentencing announcement, meaning further financial orders against Pheby remain possible.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The convictions ended Pheby’s ability to run the Wok & Go franchise business he managed in breach of the 2019 ban, and the ten-year disqualification removes him from company management for what is effectively the remainder of his working life. The false-document conviction is the more damaging stain professionally: a jury found he deliberately deceived a civil court about his own role in a company, the exact category of dishonesty that destroyed his standing the first time around. The Insolvency Service publicised the case nationally as an example of enforced director bans, and it invites disqualified directors who breach their restrictions to be reported anonymously to Crimestoppers. For the Wok & Go brand, the spectacle of its franchise company being run by a banned director who forged an employment document to hide that fact in court is the kind of publicity a takeaway chain does not recover from easily.

Sources

• The Insolvency Service (GOV.UK), “Noodle bar boss sentenced after ignoring company director ban and using false employment document,” Oct 8, 2026 — source