Covid loan ‘fraud’

A businessman has denied fraudulently applying for a £50,000 ‘bounce back loan’ during the pandemic. Gerald Smith, 67, is charged with fraud by false representation after he made the Covid-19 business loan application on 29 September 2020. Smith claimed his firm Arcana Solutions (UK) Ltd was adversely affected by the pandemic and he needed the government money to ‘meet personal expenditure and liabilities’. Frederick Hookway, prosecuting, said the allegation related ‘to an alleged fraudulent application for a bounce back loan’….