A director of recruitment company accused a man, who said he wanted to bring her company to the stock market, of ruining her business, a court has heard.

Estella Meeds, who was a director of Boston, Lincolnshire-based Allied Staff Management (ASM), said in a written statement read out at Southwark Crown Court yesterday: “Tim Hench has ruined everything for me. It was going to be my retirement scheme.”

In her statement Meeds said that ASM recruitment went into voluntary liquidation on 21 April 2008, within three or four months of Hench agreeing to pay her and fellow director Paul Hurst £120,000 each for the £4m turnover company, as well as £30,000 each in salaries.

The court later heard from Paul Hurst, a fellow director of ASM with Meeds, that Hench’s real name was Tim Baker. In May 2009, Baker, previously of Wolverhampton Road, Walsall, was sentenced to six years in prison for two invoice factoring frauds costing RBS and HSBC banks £700,000.

Meeds said that after Hench got a majority stake in the company and control of the company “things dramatically changed”. 

“I was always in the dark. Everything revolved around money. He wasn’t interested in meeting staff and customers.”

Meeds said that she became increasingly concerned about payments made from the ASM bank account. This included a payment of £41,125 to MR Kite. “I had never heard of MR Kite,” she said.

They also included a payment of £19,128 to MRS Stone Contractors.

“I didn’t know who this company was. I later found out this company was to do with Alan Baker,” said Meeds.

Alan Baker, of Lydbury North, Shropshire, who is the father of Tim Baker, is accused of money laundering. On Monday, Alan Baker pleaded not guilty to this charge.

Hurst told the court how the company collapsed after the man he believed at that time to be Hench took a majority stake in the company in early 2008.

He said that within three days of a tax and VAT audit announced by Hench on 18 April, the company went into liquidation: “It was a big shock. We thought it was just a routine audit of the accounts.”

Arrangements to pay outstanding tax and VAT had been operating well for seven or eight months, said Hurst. He said that as a result of the collapse of the company he and Meeds were left with joint debts of £295,000, including £256,000 to HSBC’s invoice finance arm.

Hurst said that in May 2008, Hench asked him to meet “to explain a few things”. Hurst told the court that it was at this meeting that Hench revealed that he was not actually Tim Hench, but Tim Baker, and that Alan Baker was his father.

Hurst said that Tim Baker told him that Hench was a family name that he was using. Hurst said that Baker also revealed that “he was also being interviewed in a fraud case with RBS for a significant amount of money £600,000 to £700,000”.

Hurst told the court that Baker’s admission that he been hiding his true identity changed everything. “If it was father and son then it was father and son, but obviously using a different name rang alarm bells,” Hurst told the jury.

Hurst said that Tim Baker never told him that he was a declared bankrupt. Hurst added that had Tim Baker been honest, and given his correct name to Knightsbridge [the business sales company which introduced Baker to ASM], the initial meeting between Baker and ASM would probably never have taken place.

The trial continues.