Richard Courtenay

Introduction

Richard Courtenay is a London hotelier who was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday 3 September 2026 after securing £450,000 in Covid support loans through nine fraudulent applications made across five companies. Courtenay, 62, had pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud and one count of money laundering. His three-year prison sentence was suspended for three years — the maximum which can currently be suspended — and he was ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and attend 10 days of rehabilitation activity. He has repaid the £450,000 in full, but only after Insolvency Service investigations into his criminal conduct began.

Background Information

All nine of Courtenay’s Bounce Back Loan applications were for £50,000 each, the maximum allowed under the scheme, and were made between 7 May and 25 June 2020 for five companies: Hotel Belgravia Limited, Belgravia Rooms Limited, Lebex Limited, Directlingua Limited — now named Belgravia Business Limited — and Belgravia Accommodation Ltd, now named Belgravia Cleaning Limited. In practice the companies were interlinked, and Courtenay himself admitted that his business arrangements, “while clear in theory, often became confused to me.” He said Lebex Limited held the leases on adjoining Belgravia hotel buildings run as one business under the name ‘Belgravia Rooms’, operated by Belgravia Rooms Limited but paying rent to Lebex. Hotel Belgravia Limited, he said, was incorporated after Belgravia Rooms Limited was left with a bad credit rating following a county court judgment against it. He also rented out accommodation in flats in and around central London, advertised online through AirBnB, with the plan for expenses to go through Belgravia Accommodation Ltd, while Directlingua Limited was an online teaching platform.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted. Courtenay pleaded guilty to nine counts of fraud and one count of money laundering in July 2026 and was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for three years. He told investigators he believed the turnover figures were accurate, denied any dishonesty and blamed the banks for not chasing his repayments.

His first fraudulent application was for Hotel Belgravia Limited, a company only incorporated in January 2020 with Courtenay as its sole director. He declared its turnover as £500,000, yet dormant accounts were filed for it in December 2020, and by the end of May the money had been moved into Lebex Limited and to two of Courtenay’s associates. Three days later he applied for a loan for Belgravia Rooms Limited, falsely declaring its turnover as £400,000, with the funds transferred into his personal bank accounts. Exactly one month later he made a second fraudulent application for the same company, again declaring the £400,000 turnover and falsely stating it was the company’s only Bounce Back Loan application; the money again went to his personal accounts and other businesses.

Courtenay fraudulently secured £200,000 for Lebex Limited from four separate banks between mid-May and late June, inconsistently declaring turnovers of £600,000, £500,000 and finally £400,000 and again falsely declaring he had not already received a loan for the company; those funds were moved into his personal accounts, his other companies, and cryptoassets. For Directlingua Limited he declared a turnover of £400,000 when the company had little more than £14,000 in cash, again using the funds personally. For Belgravia Accommodation Ltd, where he was not the official director, he instructed one of the listed directors to apply for the £50,000, declaring a turnover of £250,000, with the funds again being transferred to his own account and that of an associate. Across the scheme he failed to use the money for business purposes, concealing it by swiftly moving it into his personal accounts or those of his other companies.

When he was interviewed under caution by the Insolvency Service, Courtenay responded “no comment” to the questions put to him. In a prepared statement he denied any dishonesty, claiming he believed the turnover figures were accurate but acknowledging he had not checked them. He said he did not realise only one Bounce Back Loan was allowed per company, despite that being clearly stated on the application form, and added that he had assumed the banks would carry out their own checks, blaming them for not chasing him more persistently for repayments.

Public Reaction and Consequences

David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “It is clear he was driven by greed, given the sheer number of Bounce Back Loans he obtained within such a short space of time.” He noted that Courtenay has shown limited remorse, denied any dishonesty and blamed the banks for him not keeping up with his repayments, and that his actions “were dishonest when the scheme relied on the complete honesty of business owners while the country was in the grip of a pandemic.” The Insolvency Service, Snasdell added, has “a proven track record in tackling Bounce Back Loan fraud and we will continue to ensure fraudsters like Courtenay are held to account for taking advantage of support intended to help businesses when they needed it most.”

The suspended sentence — three years, the maximum which can now be suspended, with its unpaid work and rehabilitation requirements — was presented as accountability for exploiting support that depended on the complete honesty of the business owners who applied to it.

Current Status

Courtenay’s conviction and sentence stand: a three-year prison term suspended for three years, with the 150 hours of unpaid work and 10 days of rehabilitation activity still to complete. He has repaid the £450,000 he fraudulently obtained in full — though the Insolvency Service has stressed that this came only after its investigations into his criminal conduct began. Two of the five companies involved have since been renamed: Directlingua Limited is now Belgravia Business Limited and Belgravia Accommodation Ltd is now Belgravia Cleaning Limited.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Snasdell’s verdict framed Courtenay as anything but a confused applicant: “Richard Courtenay is an experienced businessman,” the Chief Investigator said, adding: “It is therefore surprising that he claims he did not read his loan applications carefully or check them for accuracy. The reality is that his actions involved determination in exploiting a scheme vulnerable to fraud.” At 62, he now carries a criminal record of nine fraud counts and one of money laundering from loans taken at the height of the pandemic, with two of his companies renamed and the suspended sentence hanging over him for three years. No immediate custody, but the guilty pleas, the repayment and the Insolvency Service’s account of his conduct now define the public record of how he responded to a scheme intended for businesses that needed it most.

Sources

• The Insolvency Service, “London hotelier sentenced for exploiting Covid support scheme nine times to fraudulently claim £450,000” — source