BDO manager blames boss in forgery case

A BDO Stoy Hayward tax manager who forged a client signature has said that he was unable to turn to his line manager for help when faced with the impending deadlines.

Timothy Dennis forged a client’s signature on letters and accounts in order to meet tight deadlines.

Dennis said at an ICAEW tribunal that he committed the forgeries on behalf of his client because he ‘felt unable to turn to his line manager’, and had ‘taken it upon himself to act as he did’.

In a statement BDO said that it has a number of formal and informal procedures in place and it ‘always encourages close working relationships between employees and their line managers and we have a culture of taking personal responsibility’.

‘Individuals have access to lead partners independent of line partner and access to senior central management. Work is managed in an open way with deadlines agreed with individual senior team members’ it added.

BDO stressed that it had reported Dennis to the ICAEW.

The tribunal found eight separate forgeries on eight separate documents, but it decided not to exclude Dennis as it believed this was an ‘isolated incident’.

They have instead severely reprimanded Dennis, who left BDO in 2006, fined him £10,000 and ordered him to pay court costs of £4,249.50.

The situation came to light when HM Revenue & Customs asked for copies of the tax returns for the company represented by BDO. Before filing them, Dennis sent them to the director who then discovered that his signature had been forged.

BDO was also unsuccessful in a bid to have its name excluded from the report on the grounds that, being a large firm, it would attract media interest. The tribunal said the argument might ultimately mean big firms would receive a higher level of privacy than small firms.

‘This was completely contrary to the purpose of public hearings, that is, greater transparency and openness,’ it said.

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