How prolific lies and a missing £13.7m resulted in 22 month jail sentences for Inc trio

As three Manchester-based “entrepreneurs” were sentenced to jail terms for contempt of court, questions remain as to how their activities remained unchecked over a prolonged period.

In the High Court in London, on the 30th of October, Judge Rajah handed down a sentence of 22 months in jail to Scott Dylan, Dave Antrobus and Jack Mason after his earlier July ruling that they were in contempt of court when they moved business assets offshore in breach of a freezing order granted to Barclays Bank, which further alleges that they are the victims of a £13.7m theft.

In sentencing he said “all three have lied to the Court on a prolific scale”.

The three had been principals in a business called Inc & Co, which presents as a group structure and which had been provided with investment into distressed businesses through another of their businesses, Fresh Thinking Group.

Barclays has an additional case against the trio, and others, scheduled for a court date in January 2025, over the missing £13.7m which court documents reveal was used to fund private jet trips, to acquire business assets, including a travel agency and a hotel in Turkey, but also for the personal enrichment of Scott Dylan and his partner.

Although he eventually admitted transferring asset, and thus the contempt breach, Dylan has always protested his innocence and claims the transfer of monies was legitimate business expenditure and within the terms of his banking arrangements with Barclays.

However, Barclays successfully applied to the court to obtain a number of freezing orders in November 2021 after the bank discovered what it believes was an “unlawful conspiracy to take advantage of automated decision making at Barclays” to make unauthorised borrowings through group companies. This they did through multiple withdrawals below a £50,000 threshold, over which they would have had to seek credit approvals.

The bank claims loss of at least £13,734,716.57 and thought it had prohibited Dylan and his associates from disposing of, dealing with or diminishing the value of any assets within England and Wales up to that value.

However, in 2022, about 60 companies ultimately owned and controlled by Dylan, Antrobus and Mason, were transferred to the British Virgin Islands.

In his ruling the Judge said the three all “obfuscated and created false stories and explanations” in their denials that the transfers breached the freezing orders.

He also described how valuations procured by Scott Dylan in September 2023 contained “significant discrepancies” between the information used in the valuations and the information known from publicly filed accounts and records.

For example, he said, Fresh Thinking Group’s last filed accounts for the year ending 30 June 2020 disclosed shareholder funds of over £2.7 million with assets including investments valued at over £3.8 million. In a witness statement served on behalf of Fresh Thinking Group and Inc Travel Group by Dylan on 8 February 2022, it was said that the group had a turnover of more than £130 million.

The Judge described their actions as “a deliberate and planned flouting of the freezing order” to move assets. He also refused to accept the far-fetched accounts provided by Dylan, Mason and Antrobus and ruled that the action of moving the assets was “a joint enterprise by all three Respondents, who were the founders, owners and leaders of this group of companies.”

The planned transfer of assets out of the jurisdiction to new vehicles, which they were each interested in, was also, he said “a not unsophisticated plan – the complexity was in making it hard to prove what had occurred.”

He said that although Dylan appeared to have been the “brains” who cooked up this plan the others “have all gone along willingly with it.”

Following the transfers administrators were put in place across different companies which served to “provide a further buffer between Barclays and the Respondents in the provision of information.”

He also pointed out that documents and filings at Companies House were manipulated.

In his final judgement, Rajah said: “They all profess to be sorry but nevertheless the assets remain hidden somewhere offshore and not returned to the jurisdiction.

“There is no sign that they have any intention of returning the assets to this jurisdiction. This is, in substance, a continuing breach.”

But it is only Dylan who is currently sitting in jail. Antrobus had moved to Ireland and told the court he had an anxiety attack and couldn’t board an aeroplane to London to attend the sentencing hearing.

Barcelona-based Mason, who had been required to surrender his passport, had appealed that ruling, but then failed to appear in court for sentencing. He told his lawyers he wouldn’t be attending but he has been told he will be arrested on his return to UK.

Of Antrobus, the Judge said: “He is in Ireland but has refused to disclose his address to his solicitor. The explanation I have received today …  is that he is suffering from panic attacks and anxiety and he does not feel able to get on an aeroplane and attend court, even if I adjourned the hearing to this afternoon.”

The sentencing has proved to be a bittersweet moment for the large numbers of people who claim to be “victims” of them over the years.

Typical of the messages received by people who have “sold” businesses to them, only to have not been paid, is one that read: “Seen today they have been sentenced but will see how that sticks. Fingers crossed they get what they deserve. Also still haven’t been paid.”

Dylan also swung his reputational management skills into overdrive, with paid-for posts professing him as the victim, including on his own blog in a post uploaded by Dave Antrobus.

Another said: “Good news though feel like Dylan has got off lightly there tbh.”

One person who has had several run-ins with Dylan has been former City PR man Justin Downes, the founder of Financial Dynamics. His son purchased a sofa from Maker&Son, the luxury furniture business that Inc acquired in 2021. “It was a substantial amount of money and delivery was never made. We then heard that

Maker&Son had been acquired by Inc&Co who made various promises none of which materialised.”

Justin Downes

Downes later discovered there many other victims who had lost their deposits or had issues with product quality and he helped form an action group who protested on Trustpilot. Having lost thousands, Dylan threatened them with legal action and costs of £15,000.

Well-connected in the City and on the financial desks of major newspapers, Downes has been relentless in his pursuit of Dylan ever since.

“This was the moment I decided to involve the national media. It was made easier as two business-focused media in Manchester had been digging into Dylan and Inc in previous years.”

As a result, many national newspapers covered the Maker&Son story.

“This brought me into confrontation with Dylan,” says Downes. “Dylan put up a blog about me claiming I was harassing him and instructed two sets of solicitors, Manley Law and Whiterose Blackman to write to me.

“Both claims in both sets of legal letters were false and I ignored them.

“This ‘brush’ with Dylan and gang led me deeper into what TheBusinessDesk.com describes as the ‘Murky world of Inc….’

“I found evidence of multiple corporate victims. This hardened my resolve to work with others to halt Dylan in his tracks.”

However, Downes is now disappointed that it has taken a private prosecution by a major bank of the scale of Barclays to bring any kind of justice following a prolonged period of corporate wrongdoing.

“The bank’s attempt to freeze the transfer of those assets has failed. So, who is ultimately to blame for this situation?

“In my opinion, three organisations are to blame. The Insolvency Service failed to pursue a court case against Scott Dylan, which would have struck him off as a director. Action Fraud received multiple requests for action and did nothing. The City of London Police equally refused to take seriously past frauds masterminded by Dylan but much more importantly the heist of Barclays £13.7m.”

His sentiments are consistent with Judge Rajah’s comments about fictitious Companies House filings which went uncorrected, and upon which suppliers and business partners then relied.

Multiple reports from insolvency practitioners have indicated a lack of co-operation in their investigations. Though Dylan resigned his directorships, he was a consistent presence running operations at Inc & Co. A sanction from a public body may have made further breaches more difficult.

Downes, and others, are convinced that these weaknesses in corporate regulation, and a lack of resources amongst law enforcement agencies, have enabled their actions. These will be the subject of further stories on the Rainmakers platform and TheBusinessDesk.com, because they carry clear warnings about the vulnerabilities of businesses.

When contacted by TheBusinessDesk.com, a spokesman for The Insolvency Service said they were unable to comment on the progress of an ongoing investigation.