John, whose full name is Neill Stuart Malcolm John, has been disqualified due to his conduct while acting as a director of Houseprint, the print farming venture that originally brought his activities to the industry’s attention after a string of customers complained that they had been left out of pocket with promised jobs failing to materialise.
Houseprint traded as The Printing House.
John, who has an address in Barry in South Wales, was disqualified as of yesterday (7 May) with the disqualification running until 6 May 2027.
Houseprint went into Creditors Voluntary Liquidation in October 2016. At the time, the statement of affairs signed by Clair Rosina Hunnisett, John’s business associate and fellow director, said that customers and trade creditors were owed £62,503 and £163,068 respectively. Hunnisett is listed at the same address in Barry.
Houseprint was wound up by court order the following month following a petition by creditor Swatt Design.
Since then John and Hunnisett have been involved with multiple print farming guises, mainly using printers on the continent due to their notoriety within the UK trade.
In October last year two other companies associated with the duo were struck off.
And less than two months ago yet more customers came forward to say they had been left out of pocket by the latest incarnations in a string of similar looking website fronts: Case Bound Printers (www.caseboundprinters.co.uk) and Trade Magazine Print (www.trademagprint.co.uk).
Neither website is currently available.
Customer Andrew Chester of Recreation Records was left out of pocket and without his promised books by Casebound Printers.
He said: “Neill John has stolen £283 off me. He is a fraud printer. He has set up many companies using the same picture on the home page. He has delayed the publication of my first novel, which is aptly titled Don't Go Where I've Been.
“The book is now being printed by Biddles, after PrintWeek confirmed to me that they were not a fraud printer. Biddles told me many of their authors had also been ripped off by Neill John. Don't go where we've been!”
John has also been known to use variants of his name, such as ‘Stuart’ and ‘Malcolm’ in his communications with customers.
He resigned as a director of Hardback Printer in February and was replaced by Edward Anil Joseph, now the company’s sole director. Joseph’s address is in Chennai, India. He is also a director of We Print Books (formerly Offset Printers and prior to that Ink Paper), another company where Hunnisett was previously a director. This firm’s maiden accounts should have been filed by 31 August 2018, but are still flagged as overdue.
The print farming firms named above are in no way connected to: Hampshire-based The Printing Press Ltd; specialist letterpress printer and bindery Book Printers Ltd of Finedon, Northamptonshire; Crewe-based The Printing House Ltd; UKPrint.biz, which is a trading name of Ruby Giraffe Ltd of Manchester; www.bookprintinguk.com which is run by Bonacia Ltd in Peterborough, or www.magprint.co.uk which is part of Stephens & George Print Group.
