The restrictions, which also disqualify them from being directors, started on 25 July 2013, following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Mr Collins and Mr Bone gave the bankruptcy restrictions undertakings to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovations and Skills, following earlier bankruptcy orders made on 9 May 2012 and 31 May 2012 respectively. They each owed over £4.5 million to creditors.
Investigators found that from January 2010 to April 2011, Mr Collins (34) of Covent Garden, London, who danced on the TV show as one half of the act “Faces of Disco” and his cousin, David Bone (31) of Middleton, Greater Manchester, took £874,000 from investors promising returns of between eight and ten percent, but instead used the funds to pay business expenses.
At the time, the two dancers already owed over £3 million to creditors following the failure of a similar property business. Between November 2010 and April 2011, they also took a further £187,500 from the public despite being warned not to do so by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Mr Collins and Mr Bone failed to carry out any of the investment activity that investors would have reasonably expected them to do. When investors sought explanations they were misled and the true state of the partnerships finances were kept from them.
Commenting on the case, Ken Beasley of the Insolvency Service’s Public Interest Unit said:
“At a time when they were already heavily indebted Collins and Bone took substantial sums of money from members of the public with the promise of high returns on property investments with no reasonable expectation that they would ever be able to meet the repayments promised to investors."
The Insolvency Service investigates the circumstances of all bankruptcies and will use its enforcement powers to tackle serious misconduct of this kind.”
