The owner of a children’s home in Bolton shut down for “serious and widespread failures” spent thousands intended for educating marginalised children on drinking, foreign trips and his pub business, the Guardian can reveal.
Between 2015 and 2021, £1.5m was paid by two local authorities to a “community interest company” (CIC) run by Robert McGuinness, the main director of the children’s home. The CIC was set up to provide vocational training to children from years 9 to 11 (ages 14-16) excluded from mainstream schools.
Profits from the CIC should, by law, have benefited the community. Instead, McGuinness, a Lamborghini-driving plasterer turned pub landlord, loaned his bar business £100,000 from the CIC. He also spent thousands from the CIC bank account on his own social life, as well as on foreign trips to Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Thailand, the Guardian has learned.
The…
