Jail warning for £64k debts Stourbridge lap-dance boss

A lap-dancing club boss from the Black Country who owes more than £64,000 in council tax and business rates has been warned he faces jail.

Alistair Rose, who runs Heaven in Stourbridge town centre, has been given three weeks to either make a first payment of £1,000 or declare himself bankrupt.

Otherwise the 52-year-old will be sent to prison for 90 days, a judge at Dudley Magistrates Court said. Rose, of St Giles Row, Stourbridge, has not paid off any of the £64,535 he owes since the charges were first brought in July last year.

During that time he failed to hand over any financial records despite being asked for more than a year, said Mrs Janette Bonaccorsi, prosecuting. And he has also not paid two £4,000 instalments that he agreed to hand over by October 5 when he last appeared in court in September.

Rose admitted six charges of non payment of business rates and three charges of non payment of council tax.

The debts, which date back to April 2008, relate to the Lower High Street club, which he has run for four years, and a neighbouring fitness centre he used to manage.

The club – which employs 16 dancers and eight bar and security staff – has not been open for the last six weeks after a licence with Dudley Council expired, Rose said.

He told District Judge Graham Wilkinson he also owes £7,000 water bills and had not made any personal profit from the business in recent years. But the judge ruled he had shown "culpable neglect" in paying his rates and told him: "I am not necessarily convinced by your claim to effectively be penniless.

"You have been operating as a business for a considerable period of time but claim to have come out of it with nothing and have not been able to discharge your debts."

Judge Wilkinson committed him to 90 days in prison but suspended the sentence for three weeks. He added: "I don't completely believe you will declare yourself bankrupt, as I suspect you may be buying yourself more time, but this is your last chance before I send you into custody."

Rose said: "I have buried my head in the sand and I did not realise my financial problems had got so bad."