A RESTAURANT accused of “actively and systematically” avoiding taxes in Brighton is part of a wider business which owes more than half a million pounds to at least six local authorities nationwide, The Argus can exclusively reveal.

According to its website Jimmy’s World Kitchen in the Marina was part of a chain and outlets of that chain have racked up at least £639,000 in outstanding business rates across the country over the last three years.

The restaurant group has had a complex corporate history in recent years, with consecutive or overlapping interests held by companies which have connections through shared directors, shareholders or corporate addresses.

After the closure of the Brighton branch on July 31, to the surprise of staff and customers who had bookings for the coming days, a spokesman for Brighton and Hove City council said the business owed more than £200,000 in unpaid business rates dating back to its opening in November 2014.

Following the closure, the council’s lead member for finance, Councillor Les Hamilton, said: “The proprietors of Jimmy’s restaurant have been actively and systematically avoiding payment of local taxation, and have ignored our efforts to reach a reasonable accommodation regarding payment.”

The Argus has now confirmed that of the chain's 11 locations, at least six local authorities including Brighton and Hove are owed money or have written off debts.

In Watford, Jimmy’s closed this summer owing £101,000 - but had previously racked up debts of £27,000 under previous ownership much of which has already been written off by the council as bad debt.

Elsewhere the restaurants continue to trade, having been passed from the ownership of a now-defunct company into the hands of a new one.

In Epsom the restaurant is still open, but over the course of 2015 Epsom and Ewell Borough Council wrote off debts totalling £62,000 from the previous incarnation of the business. The council will not confirm if any debts have been accrued by the current corporate entity.

Bath and North East Somerset Council is owed £114,000 and Peterborough City Council is £95,000 out of pocket.

Meanwhile Spelthorne Borough Council is working with insolvency specialists to recover approximately £40,000 from the Staines restaurant.

Regarding the chain’s O2 venue, a Greenwich council spokesman said: “The Royal Borough of Greenwich is liaising with Jimmy’s World on the issue of business rates. As this is an on-going matter, it would not be appropriate to comment further.”

And in Luton a spokesman said: “Matters relating to taxation between the Council and individual businesses are confidential.”

The Argus is still awaiting reply from Swansea, Brent and Morden councils as to whether any monies are owed by the chain’s Swansea, Wembley and Wimbledon branches respectively.

Jimmy’s World Restaurants has not responded to The Argus’ repeated attempts to contact it via email, telephone and social media.

WE TRIED IN VAIN TO GET ANSWERS FOR STAFF AND DINERS

THE FRONT doors were locked and the lights were off inside when Matt Heath, 20, arrived for his Tuesday lunchtime waiting shift at Jimmy’s World Kitchen in the marina on August 2.

Three heavy-set men loading restaurant furniture and equipment into a van told him that the restaurant was closed but when he texted his manager he was told the closure was a surprise and that the manager was “trying to get to the bottom of it”.

Customers who had booked were equally shocked when they turned up for their reservations to find the Palm Drive restaurant empty.

Those were the scenes of confusion that immediately followed the closure of the 500-seat “world cuisine” venue a month ago, with staff unsure if they still had jobs and diners turned away from bookings they had made in good faith.

On the Brighton page of the company’s website a simple notice appeared saying: “We apologise for any inconvenience caused but our Brighton restaurant will be closed until further notice.”

A few days later it emerged that the business owed Brighton and Hove City Council in excess of £200,000 in unpaid business rates.

In fact it had been building up the debt ever since it opened in November 2014 and had only weeks earlier made its first and only payment – of £9,000 – when threatened with enforcement officers.

A councillor accused the owners of deliberate tax avoidance and the council promised to take all steps in its power to recover the losses.

Jimmy’s has now removed the “Brighton” page from its website, but Brighton is not the only city to be left out of pocket by this mysterious company.

The Argus now knows that at least five other local authorities are owed rates totalling more than £600,000, either by the current company or by one of several other corporate entities which have owned or had links with the chain in recent years.

The same men’s names appear and reappear as directors or shareholders in connection with the business, including Kuldip Singh, Amandeep Uppal, and Zulfiqar Ali.

A spokesman for one council that has lost money to Jimmy’s advised the Argus that its debt was accrued by a business which went into liquidation, while a new corporate entity then carried on trading in the same location and with the same trading name.

When the council sought to reclaim its losses from the assets of the original business, it discovered the business model was based on renting – rather than purchasing – the restaurant’s furniture and equipment, which left the business owning nothing against which creditors could claim recompense once it went to the wall.

Nothing against which its creditors could claim recompense.

The Argus has also been inundated with emails and phone calls from former staff. They have questions over their hourly pay, holiday pay, sick pay, tax deductions and gratuities which we would like to discuss with the company on their behalf.

But despite our best efforts it has not been possible to get in touch with Jimmy’s owners.

Online at jimmysrestaurants.com, nine branches are listed (it was 11 a month ago until the Brighton closure and a similar vanishing act in Watford) but no company information is provided. Nor are a head office address or phone number listed.

By law every UK company must list on its website its name, company number and registered office address.

The Argus has called each of the remaining restaurants to ask to be put in touch with the company’s head office.

Neither when we identified ourselves as reporters, nor on those occasions when our reporters have posed as irate customers, have we been given a number on which to contact the senior management or the owners of the chain.

In fact, we have been told by manager after manager that not only will they not give out a head office telephone number, they do not even know what it is.

We have been advised to email the company at the address feedback@jimmysrestaurants.com, which we have done repeatedly but received no reply.

The firm remains active on social media but seem to be selective when it comes to its topics of conversation.

On Twitter, the account @Jimmys_Official tweets several times a day. Just two days ago it replied to a prospective diner to say: “Yes, we have halal dishes. It’s best to check with the servers once you arrive and they will let you know which dishes are.”

But we received no reply when we tweeted: “An article on Jimmy’s non-payment of business rates will run in The Argus in Brighton tomorrow. Email me by 4pm to comment.”

The business posted on its Facebook account on Monday to encourage bank holiday bookings.

But it does not seem to have replied to an August 17 post from a customer which reads: “So not only have you ignored two tweets about disgusting service and a dirty restaurant, you ignored an email of complaint too! Customer service just gets better!”

As for the missing hundreds of thousands of pounds – professionals are still working hard to find it.

Brighton councillor Les Hamilton said recently: “It is regrettable that enforcement action has had to be taken. However, we have a legal duty to take robust action as a last resort when all other attempts to collect the unpaid taxes, including court proceedings, fail to get the necessary result.”

So taxpayers up and down the country now join Jimmy’s staff in hoping against hope that the necessary result will be reached in the end, while council investigators continue to try to recoup their losses – often from companies which no longer exist.

Former employees, suppliers, landlords or creditors of Jimmy’s in Brighton or elsewhere should contact joel.adams@theargus.co.uk with any information which will help complete our picture of the business’ working practices or ownership.

COUNCIL’S LONG BATTLE FOR CASH

THE experience of Brighton and Hove City Council’s revenue enforcement team in trying to extract rates from the business trading as Jimmy’s World Kitchen in Palm Drive goes some way to explaining just how difficult it has been for authorities to get money out of the restaurant.

According to council officials, after moving into the premises in November 2014 no rates were paid at all until July this year, after officers visited the premises to list goods for removal.

Even then the only payment received was £9,000, only a fraction of the more than £200,000 owed.

According to A spokesman said: “We have been pursuing this since the restaurant opened in late 2014.

“In NNDR valuation terms the premises were listed as undergoing reconstruction and were therefore zero-rated when Jimmy’s opened in late 2014.

“We asked the Valuation Office to look into this, and billed Jimmy’s World Restaurants Ltd in May 2015, soon after receiving the Valuation Office assessment.

“After further to-ing and fro-ing we were then advised in July 2015 by NE1 Catering Ltd that they were the company in occupation of the premises, so we had to re-bill in their name.

“In October 2015 we were advised that there was a new company in occupation, Jimmy’s Restaurants Ltd and it subsequently came to light that NE1 Catering Ltd had gone into liquidation on October 1, 2015.

“So our first bill for the current firm, Jimmy’s Restaurants Ltd, was in October 2015.”

Land Securities, which owns the marina development, would not confirm to the Argus whether Jimmy’s owes rent as well as rates and would not confirm what, if any, checks were done on the business’s creditworthiness prior to granting it the lease.

The council, which does not have any legal responsibility or right to credit check companies which rent property from private landlords, said recently it was currently pursuing a firm called Jimmy’s Restaurants Ltd for the outstanding rate money.

Jimmy’s Restaurants Ltd changed its name in July this year to Grand Regency Ltd.