THE FINANCE boss of a company making Peppa Pig bubble bath and other novelty children’s products scammed the bank out of £628k – in order to hide his mismanagement of the firm.

Bruce Cox, a former British Army lieutenant colonel who while a serving officer routinely helped organise the stewards at Wimbledon Lawn Tennis tournament, got the job with Abingdon-based firm Kokomo in 2011 after a long career in the armed forces.

Oxford Crown Court heard the company, which makes themed children’s toiletries under licence, had an arrangement with HSBC that saw the bank advance 80 per cent of invoices upfront. The remaining fifth – minus the bank’s fees – would be paid when the customer paid their invoice.

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By 2018, 62-year-old Cox was said to have ‘badly mismanaged’ the firm’s affairs. The business was holding too much stock in the warehouse, with 18 months’ worth of its products in the warehouse whereas they should only have been holding three or four months’ worth.

“It seems that Mr Cox tried to hide his incompetence by taking the money from HSBC to float the company through that period,” prosecutor James Bruce said.

“He admitted to his fellow directors that he had produced a false invoice or two to HSBC but he expressed to his fellow directors that he hoped to get away with it because there had been an audit, it hadn’t been discovered and HSBC could, he hoped, be paid back through the directors or assurance of credit before they realised their payments of the 80 per cent of those invoices were discovered.”

The directors were asked to stop taking money from the business and they organised a stock clearance sale.

Mr Bruce noted that one character reference described Cox as being able to ‘manoeuvre in any environment’.

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“Well, he did just that. He persuaded the other members of his team who worked for him that documents needed adding and amending before [being] sent out – so his fraud would remain undiscovered.

“He persuaded Mr and Mrs Little [the company owners] that he would speak to the bank and put things right, whereas in fact he put off speaking to the bank and had no intention of doing so.”

The total figure put on the fraud was £628,558, although none of that money went to Cox personally.

When the bank found out about the finance director’s false invoices, the consequences to Kokomo were significant.

The upfront payment of invoices was stopped, their credit rating damaged and Mr and Mrs Little were made to ‘step aside’ as directors as a condition of HSBC continuing to work with the firm.

It was estimated that the consequences of the fraud had ‘pushed the company into debt of over £2m’, Mr Bruce said.

Cox, of Idmiston, Salisbury, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to fraud by abuse of position. He had no previous convictions.

Jonathan Underhill, mitigating, said his client served eight operational tours – including to Iraq and Kosovo – while in the army.

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He was a man of ‘exemplary’ character and among his references was one from retired general Sir James Everard, who was present in court via the video link on Friday.

“As [Mr Cox] says, this is a catastrophic lapse of judgement and decision making, which is going to affect him for the rest of his life,” his barrister said.

Jailing him for three years and four months, Judge Michael Gledhill QC told Cox: “The effect of your actions on Kokomo Ltd were horrific. It almost went to the wall. The effect upon Mr and Mrs Little and the other directors involved, again, was very substantial.”

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