BUSINESSMAN John Anthony Walsh has been disqualified from acting as a company director after seven companies with which he was linked went under with debts of more than £1.8million.

Mr Walsh, of Brownhill Farm, Ramsgreave, ran a range of businesses from addresses in Blackburn, Great Harwood and Bolton.

Between June 1997 and November 1999, all seven businesses went into either liquidation or voluntary administration.

The Department of Trade and Industry said Mr Walsh had faced a total of 23 counts of unfit conduct, which he had not disputed.

Today, a spokesman for the DTI's Insolvency Service described the case as highly unusual, involving so many separate but inter-related companies.

"It is very unusual to have seven companies involved all at the same time," he said.

Mr Walsh was not available to comment at his detached farmhouse, which has been put up for sale.

The companies involved were: Browns Manufacturing Ltd, Britannia Works, Great Harwood; Metal Developments and Coatings Limited, Merchandising Display Logistics Ltd, Blakewater Group of Blackburn Ltd, Europa Automatic Systems and Services Ltd and Banfield Manufacturing Ltd, all of Wellfield Mill, Blackburn; and Eagertactic Ltd, Bolton.

Browns, which manufactured wire products, went into liquidation in November 1999 with an estimated deficiency of £879,672.

MDC and MDL, two more wire product manufacturers, went into administrative receivership in 1997, with estimated deficiencies of £289,278 and £120,146 respectively.

Blakewater, a distributor of glass and dishwasher equipment, went into receivership in January 1999 with an estimated deficiency of £104,672. Europa went into liquidation the following month with an estimated deficiency of £147,011.

Banfield was a manufacturer of plastic components. It too went into liquidation in February 1999 with an estimated deficiency of £287,662.

Eagertactic, another glass and dishwasher company, went into liquidation in September 1998 with debts estimated at £40,102.