One of the Queen’s portrait painters has been banned from running a business for seven years for unlawfully claiming £50,000 in Covid-19 loans for a charity started in memory of his sister.
Darren Baker, who was director and chair of trustees at the Leanne Baker Trust, exaggerated its income by nearly 1,000 per cent, according to the Insolvency Service.
Baker, an artist from Coventry, hit the headlines in 2011 when he painted a well-received portrait of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
Two years later, tragedy struck when his sister Leanne, 35, took her own life at home a week before she was due to get married.
He subsequently set up the Leanne Baker Trust to raise money in her memory.
In October 2020, at the height of Covid-19, Baker took out a Bounce Back Loan worth £45,000 on behalf of the charity, then secured another £5,000 six months later.
Bounce Back Loans were intended to help companies and charities survive the coronavirus crisis, but the Insolvency Service said Baker used the money for personal spending and to clear his own legal debts.
The Insolvency Service said the charity had no overheads or employees and a turnover of just £26,000 in 2019. This was not enough to make it eligible for a loan, but Baker claimed its turnover was £200,000.
The trust went into liquidation in September 2021. The liquidator said it has recovered the full value of the loans.
Baker, who accepted that the charity had claimed a loan to which it was not entitled, is banned from creating or managing a company for the next seven years without prior legal permission.
Rob Clarke, chief investigator at the Insolvency Service, said: “Bounce Back Loans were offered to businesses that had been negatively impacted by the pandemic, with the money purely to be utilised for the economic benefit of those companies; safeguarding jobs and sustaining entrepreneurial activity.
“That clearly was not the case in this instance, where the funds have been claimed by a charitable enterprise with negligible turnover and no employees.
“Despite the humanitarian purpose of the trust as established, Darren Baker took advantage of the support available during this difficult time for his own personal gain. “
Third Sector tried to contact Baker for comment but the telephone number once used for the charity no longer works and its website appears to have been taken offline.