THE chairman of a Liverpool firm which collapsed with debts of £85m has denied a string of fraud charges.

Terence Lindon, 55, who ran personal injury claim firm Invaro, appeared in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court charged with nine fraudulent trading offences.

Alongside him in the dock was the firm’s former finance chief, Giles Hutchinson, 50, who is facing two allegations.

The charges follow a three-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, after the Princes Dock-based firm collapsed in 2004.

The company, which claimed to be largest of its kind – processing some 2,000 claims a week, with 80,000 cases on its books – went into administration just over two years after it was founded. When the company folded, Lindon was accused by creditors of financial irregularities.

But he appeared in the dock yesterday and denied all the allegations.

Both Lindon and Hutchinson pleaded not guilty to a charge of failing to keep sufficient account records for the firm’s trading between April 1, 2003, and June 23, 2004.