A COMPANY which shut a care home at six hours notice owed almost £300,000 - but most of it was to its own majority shareholder.

Professor Mohammed Iqbal Memon owned 99 per cent of shares in Brightcrest Ltd, which ran Astley House in Whitehall Road, Darwen.

But he is also the sole director of the care home's landlord, Jason Management Ltd, which is owed £283,656 by Brightcrest.

At a meeting of creditors for Brightcrest Ltd held in Liverpool yesterday, it was revealed that the company owes £15,181 to other creditors, including £4,752 to Blackburn with Darwen Council.

It also owes £194.73 to Careshop Limited of Bolton, which provided Astley House with medical products such as gloves and aprons.

At 2pm on May 29 the families of 15 women, all of whom were suffering from Alzhiemer's Disease and dementia, were told that Astley House would close at 8pm the same day.

Social Services managed to find all the women temporary accommodation although one, Alice Elsworth, has since died aged 84.

Martin Linton, of London-based insolvency pract-itioner Leigh and Co, was officially appointed as liquidator for the company yesterday.

He said Brightcrest Ltd was forced to close because it had to pay £250,000 to the landlord towards the cost of building delapidations and the company had made a loss of £24,756 for the year until May 31.

He said Brightcrest Ltd had seen little point in pouring £250,000 into a company which was making a loss, so it was forced to close.

Mr Linton said: "It would have been wrong for the company to continue to trade and for the landlord to put £250,000 into something when it wasn't working.

"That is why we are putting the company into liquidation.

"The company is making a trading loss with delapid-ations so why not close it down?

"Unfortunately they are not dealing in stock, they are dealing with human beings."

He said he could not comment on why relatives, staff and patients were not given more notice.

A document handed out at the meeting listed low occupancy levels, lack of additional dementia funding and the increasing bad debts, regulatory burdens and overheads as the reasons why Astley House failed after operating for more than 20 years.

Of the £283,656 with £250,000 owed against delapidations, the rest of the money owed was unpaid rent, Mr Linton said.

Mr Linton said it was unlikely that any of the creditors would be getting their money back but said Astley House staff had been paid their wages.

Their redundancy pay, holiday pay and any overtime will be paid by the taxpayer.

The nine creditors will be sent the statutory infor-mation on Brightcrest Ltd, which was given out at the meeting, detailing the company's financial pos-ition.

The Lancashire Telegraph contacted solicitors Pannone working on behalf of Professor Memon for comment but this was unavailable yesterday.

A previous statement issued by Prof Memon through his solicitor said: "The reason for the financial problems of Astley House was a significant drop in occupancy levels over a lengthy period of time and a number of very significant bad debts.

"Unfortunately it was not possible to give residents more notice as it would have been against the law for the company to continue trading once it was insolvent."

In March Astley House was put on the market with planning permission for it to be converted into apartments.