Lincoln Covid loan abuser gets 10-year business ban

A total of 1.5 million bounce back loans were granted during the pandemic

A Lincoln student has been banned from running a company for 10 years after abusing a Covid recovery loan.

Georgiana Cercel received £50,000 from the Bounce Back Loan scheme by overstating how much her beauty business earned.

Ms Cercel, who was studying full-time while she ran the business from her home, then gave £10,000 to her sister.

An Official Receiver is working on potential recovery action.

Ms Cercel was one of a number of business owners named by the government who were found to have abused the Covid recovery loan scheme.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service bankruptcy restrictions have been placed on her for 10 years, meaning she cannot act as a company director without a court's permission.

Kevin Read, official receiver at the Insolvency Service, said: "In all of these cases it was obvious, or it should have been obvious, that they either misused the Bounce Back Loan for personal benefit, took a larger loan than they were eligible for, or weren't eligible for a Bounce Back Loan at all.

"This is taxpayers' money they have abused and we will not hesitate to impose bankruptcy restrictions in these circumstances."

The Bounce Back scheme offered smaller businesses a loan of between £2,000 and a quarter of their turnover, as long as this was less than £50,000.

The scheme, which ended in 2021, was designed to help small businesses following the coronavirus lockdown.