Mario Lourides's 'deplorable' £20million scam discredited the accountancy profession

Mario Lourides, the crooked former boss of the Jongleurs comedy club chain, has been drummed out of his professional body.

Chortle can reveal that in a damning ruling, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants branded Lourides – who is already serving ten years for fraud – ‘deplorable’.

The ACCA’s disciplinary committee hearing made their decision after hearing details of his dodgy Ponzi scheme that came to light during his criminal trial, including the estimate that it cost victims £20million or more.

Members of the ACCA’s disciplinary committee found it would pose a ‘continuing risk to the public’ if Lourides remained a member, finding him guilty of misconduct that ‘brought discredit upon the accountancy profession as a whole’.

Lourides had tried to postpone the professional hearing, arguing that he could not defend himself while behind bars, that he had no money to afford proper representation, and that he was appealing to have the conviction quashed.

The former Jongleurs boss said his lawyer thought his pending appeal  had a ‘high likelihood of success’, but  Alex Mills, the barrister bringing the case against Lourides to the ACCA, said there was ‘no evidence’ for such optimism.

In his closing remarks at Isleworth Crown Court in December, the judge told Lourides and his business partner Mark Ablitt: 'You have both been found guilty of conspiracy to defraud after a trial lasting over six weeks. You were partners in the setting up and managing of a Ponzi scheme [a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors] in the name of a company registered in Singapore as Sears Morgan Asia. 

‘That company continues to trade apparently, though recent financial statements contain heavy reservations by the auditors. On the indictment the scheme ran for just over two years before it collapsed. On the indictment and the evidence heard at the trial you took about  £8 million from 17 investors in two and half years. 

‘It is clear from the evidence heard at the trial that you had set up this bogus investment scheme as long ago as 2007, and by the time it collapsed there may have been up to 90-odd losing investors, and a total loss of perhaps approaching or even over £20 million.’

In a handwritten letter sent from his jail cell, 54-year-old Lourides tried to have the comments excluded from the ACCA hearing, arguing: ‘They are simply the judge’s  own view and they cannot be relied upon, other than to confirm the fact that I was convicted and sentenced.’

But the committee ruled that since Lourides was claiming that he was an honest man running a legitimate scheme that failed through no fault of his own, the comments of a judge who heard weeks of detailed testimony  were certainly relevant.

The ACCA struck Lourides off over allegations that he dishonestly offered personal guarantees for money that he could not honour; that he failed to maintain proper accounts for money entrusted to him by clients; and that he repeatedly failed to co-operate with the inquiry into his conduct.

‘Given the entire scheme was a fraud, it is unsurprising that Mr Lourides had not accounted for the monies received or maintained accurate records,’ the minutes of the disciplinary hearing note.

The committee said that in assessing the seriousness of the misconduct, they considered that ’in relation to each allegation, there was an element of repetition and sustained duration; that he giving of guarantees that could not be honoured was very serious and that the loss to investors was on a substantial scale’.

They also said that he took advantage of his status as a member of ACCA to reassure his victims that he was legitimate.

The minutes of the hearing – which finally concluded  on June 19 after three years of to-ing and fro-ing – note: ‘The committee could not conclude that there was no continuing risk to the public, indeed quite the opposite, and there was no evidence of Mr Lourides’ understanding and appreciation of the conduct found proved. Mr Lourides’ behaviour reflected extremely poorly upon the profession and ACCA.

‘The committee was in no doubt that for an ACCA member and ACCA regulated firm to give guarantees for cumulative sums that were so large that he did not have the resources to honour them, would be considered deplorable by other members of the profession. It involved a fundamental breach of trust and, given the scale and amounts involved, was very serious.’

Lourides, from Rickmansworth in Hertfordshire, was excluded from the body’s membership immediately, and cannot reapply for at least five years.

He has been the director of 43 companies over the years, and became finance director of Jongleurs after its ownership changed in 2009.

The comedy club chain was founded by Maria Kempinska in 1983, from a venue in Battersea, South London. Two years later she met her business partner John Davy and they expanded the empire across the country. The pair sold the business in 2000 to pubs operator Regent Inns, making multi-millionaires of them both. 

They regained control of the brand in 2009, after the collapse of Regent, with them each owning a third of the new company, alongside Lourides.

Lourides resigned from a suite of companies connected with Jongleurs in December 2014, the month after his company, Sears Morgan, went into administration. Within a year Jongleurs had called in the administrators too.

At the time, the list of creditors – primarily comedians and their agents – ran to nine pages.  The hardest-hit comedian was Patrick Monahan, who was owed more than £5,700 while others owed more than £2,000 included Barry Castagnola, Wayne Deakin,Tony Hendricks, Gary Little, John Ryan and Rhodri Rhys.

Several attempts to revive the brand in conjunction with various nightclub operators all floundered and the Jongleurs companies were formally dissolved in December 2017.

Lourides was also disqualified from being a company director for 12 years at the Isleworth Crown Court hearing, where his conviction was exclusively revealed by Chortle earlier this year.

A separate company called Sears Morgan Accountancy Ltd operates from the same Pinner address as the shuttered Sears Morgan Ltd, which was at the centre of the Ponzi scheme but Lourides was never a director of this company.

Published: 28 Jun 2019