Creditors including charities have lost tens of thousands of pounds after a mental health support organisation was finally dissolved nearly five years after it went bust.
CoolTan Arts owed £70,000 when it ceased trading in 2018 but liquidators have not been able to return cash to any of its creditors, according to documents filed with Companies House.
This includes its local branch of Age UK in Southwark and Lewisham, which was owed just under £30,000.
Third Sector revealed that CoolTan Arts had gone out of business in June 2018, when its chair of trustees told staff that requests for financial help were “going unanswered” after it hit a “very difficult funding climate”.
This came after a rocky few years for the charity, which had suspended Michelle Baharier, its chief executive, over bullying claims in October 2015. She was sacked in October 2016.
The Charity Commission opened a case into CoolTan Arts at the same time. Third Sector understands that the case was closed in November 2016 after trustees agreed an improvement plan with the regulator.
Baharier subsequently took CoolTan Arts to an employment tribunal, where a judge ruled against her on nine of 10 grounds but upheld claims that she was a victim of sex and disability harassment at the charity.
Baharier said at the time that she was applying for reconsideration of the judgement.
Documents published with Companies House on Monday confirmed that the charity has now been dissolved. A filing in November showed that this was possible because an unspecified tribunal case related to the organisation had been withdrawn.
The liquidator said the charity held assets worth just over £21,000 when it ceased trading, and had received claims worth about £290,000 from both secured and unsecured creditors.
It was not possible to pay any of these claims, the documents said, because the liquidators fees exceeded the available assets.