A High Court judge has refused to disqualify an accountant from involvement in the management of any company despite certain adverse findings against him.

Patrick McCann was auditor of Kentford Securities Ltd, a company controlled and used by the late accountant Des Traynor for controversial bank account withdrawals and tax evasion.

Mr Justice Michael Peart said yesterday his decision not to make the order disqualifying Mr McCann (48) was based on the matters complained of against Mr McCann having occurred so long ago, between 1988 and 1994, when Mr McCann was a recently qualified accountant employed by Chartered Secretarial Company, which provided secretarial services to Kentford.

Nor had Mr McCann made any financial gain from the illegal activity of Kentford, "even if his failure to observe proper standards as an auditor facilitated the scheme of tax evasion of which Mr McCann was not aware".

While he found against Mr McCann in relation to all the matters about which the Director of Corporate Enforcement complained of, the judge said whatever "irregular and improper conduct" Mr McCann "was mixed up in all those years ago at the behest of his employer and Mr Traynor is a thing of the past" and Mr McCann did not currently represent a danger from which the public ought to be protected.