A ROGUE safety guides salesman - who falsely claimed to be working in partnership with schools - has been given a 10-year directorship ban.

An inquiry by the Insolvency Service, amid claims of misrepresentation and high-pressure sales tactics, had already Matthew Ralphs’ venture closed down.

But after further investigations, question marks over income totalling £480,000, missing sales invoices and tax payments on £926,000 in commission and bonuses has seen Ralphs disqualified from being a company boss until 2030.

Ralphs, of Stand Lane, Radcliffe, who has previously had linked with Prestwich, has been accused of conning customers into paying for adverts as part of Safety Guide Limited (SG) for ‘anti knife crime’ and ‘bullying’ publications.

His staff, or Ralphs, made unsolicited calls to customers, claiming to be working in association with local schools as part of the Ashton-under-Lyne based business.

Ralphs insisted they were a non-profit making entity but this was never the case, say Insolvency Service officials.

Their sales tactics were said to be “oppressive and objectionable” and the magazines were deemed to be sub-standard or not distributed properly.

Insolvency officials say between March 2016 and April 2020, the company’s bank records show £2.5m in receipts and £866,155 in payments to Ralphs.

The Officials Receiver could find no proper accounting records, so the true extent of their sales remained a mystery.

An official said: “There are 17,570 sales invoices that appear to be missing from the schedule of sales invoices produced by SG.”

The lack of records also threw doubt on £480,000 which continued to flow into SG from March 2019. And there was a reported £269.917 discrepancy in a director’s current account associated with Ralphs. No invoices were left to establish why £941,573 was paid to self-employed sub-contractors and employees.

Safety Guide Limited was wound up in June by District Judge Adrian Bever at the High Court in Manchester.