A TYCOON whose gas empire collapsed, owing more than £45m, is being forced to repay £1m.

Liverpool Crown Court heard former Alta Gas managing director Peter Bradley, ran a “gargantuan” fraud scam and pocketed £13m from the proceeds.

The Recorder of Liverpool, Judge Henry Globe, this week ordered £1m of the Birkdale businessman’s assets be confiscated so victims can be paid compensation.

If he fails to pay, he must spend another five years in jail – on top of the four-year sentence he is already serving for fraud and false accounting.

The Knowsley-based firm’s former finance director, Peter Stott, was also jailed for two years and must pay £69,433.

Bankrupt Bradley, 60, the former North of England Entrepreneur of the Year, was convicted at a trial in 2008.

A Serious Fraud Office (SFO) probe discovered, while he was leading a Champagne lifestyle, the gas firm was actually “haemorrhaging money” and had been insolvent for years.

The self-made millionaire, of Selworthy Road, Birkdale, massively exaggerated sales of gas cylinders, invented dozens of fake customers and claimed real companies owed him hundreds of thousands so his firm appeared to be thriving and could borrow huge amounts of cash.

Alta looked as if it was growing at a huge rate and was buying up competitors.

But when it went into receivership in 2001, creditors included city investment firm Mezzanine Management Finance which was owed £11.8m and another firm which petitioned for a £10.9m repayment. The Inland Revenue was also £257,000 out of pocket.

At a proceeds of crime hearing last year, Bradley’s legal team claimed the fraudster did not have a “bean to his name”.

But prosecutor Peter Clarke, QC, said Bradley was being “economical with the truth” about his finances.