A consultant has been sent to jail after funding a gambling habit with £700,000 defrauded from four construction firms before they went bust.

Wesley Grainger-Smith, 66, of Gainsborough Road, Winthorpe, Nottinghamshire, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison by a judge at Lincoln Crown Court, the Insolvency Service said today.

He had pleaded guilty to five counts of fraudulently removing company property.

In a three-year spree, Grainger-Smith took cash out of Eagleport, Smiths Construction, Smiths Construction Services and Smiths Construction Specialists.

While not actually a director of any of the companies, he acted in the role and said he was able to exert influence over the official directors and withdraw money with their knowledge, the Insolvency Service said.

The Insolvency Service’s chief investigator Mark Stephens said: “Wesley Grainger-Smith removed vast sums of money from failing companies to fund his gambling at casinos.

“He cannot have thought he was entitled to recklessly gamble with company money, or that he was acting in the best interests of the four companies where he said he acted as a consultant.

“Directors, or those acting as directors such as Grainger-Smith, will continue to be prosecuted by the Insolvency Service if they deliberately and fraudulently put money out of the reach of creditors.”

According to the Insolvency Service, Grainger-Smith removed £230,810 from Eagleport’s account between April 2014 and May 2015. A winding-up order was made against the company in June 2015.

The fraudster then removed £110,250 from Smiths Constructions between April and November 2015, with the company entering liquidation in December that year.

In the five months to July 2016, Grainger-Smith fraudulently transferred £84,600 from the bank account of Smiths Construction Services. A liquidator was appointed to the firm that September.

His final fraudulent removal of company funds came between August 2016 and February 2017, when he withdrew £276,390 from the account of Smiths Construction Specialists. Winding-up proceedings began in June 2017.

In total, Grainger-Smith fraudulently removed £702,050 from the four companies, with the funds going into his casino gaming account.

The Insolvency Service discovered around £570,000 in cash deposits paid back to the companies, which investigators believe may correlate with Grainger-Smith’s claim that he paid most of the money back from his gambling winnings.

Grainger-Smith was declared bankrupt in March 2017 and was banned as a company director for five years in July that year as a result of his misconduct at Eagleport.

He was disqualified for a further 10 years in June 2019 for his misconduct at Smiths Construction Specialists.