Pre-paid funerals company boss disqualified for 12 years

The director of a pre-paid funerals company that collapsed with a large sum of customer funds unaccounted for has been disqualified as a director for 12 years.
Liquidators were appointed at Not For Profit Funeral Plans after the Financial Conduct Authority began to regulate the market, leading to investigations into the company.
The liquidators at Quantuma Advisory discovered a hole in the plan-holders’ funds and investigated a “number of matters” in the bank statements. They submitted a report to the Insolvency Service, which led the government agency to disqualify John Lecomber, the sole director, late last year, according to an update to creditors filed at Companies House.
Lecomber, 56, was found to have failed to safeguard customers’ money totalling £1.7 million, “contrary to representations made to clients”.
The company’s marketing material had stated that “you may rest assured that your money is safeguarded in the trust fund until the time it is required to be released to the funeral director to administer the funeral plan”.
At least £2 million of customers’ payments for funeral plans was received between June 2019 and July 2022, when liquidators were appointed and the FCA began regulating the market, according to his disqualification. However, only a total of £150,000 was paid to the trust fund manager. At the time of liquidation, according to the director’s statement of affairs, the company had outstanding funeral plans of £1.9 million.
Lecomber, whose company was registered in Liskeard, Cornwall, was also disqualified for failing to ensure that the company maintained adequate accounting records or issuing them to the liquidators. It meant it was not possible to verify whether hundreds of thousands of pounds of payments to a third party, credit card companies and an unknown bank account were for the benefit of the company.
Many plan-holders have been able to recover their losses by applying for a chargeback from their card provider under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
Kelly Mitchell, a managing director of Quantuma and the joint liquidator, said: “This has been a highly emotional and unpleasant situation for the plan-holders, many of which were vulnerable and unwell. I am pleased that the director has been held to account for his dishonesty and prevented from repeating this behaviour in the future.
“The majority of plan-holders have been able to recover their losses from their card providers and we are continuing to investigate avenues to recover funds for the benefit of creditors with our legal team.”
The FCA began regulating the pre-paid funeral market after a review by the Treasury and amid long-running concerns about practices in the market, including cold-calling and the management of customer trust money. Several companies have entered insolvency, most notably Safe Hands Plans, whose collapse left about 47,000 people with a combined £60 million shortfall and which is now the subject of a Serious Fraud Office investigation.
A legal representative for Lecomber said he was in “negotiations with the liquidator and their legal representatives to determine a settlement figure”.