Four plead not guilty to Patisserie Valerie accounting fraud

Four people charged with fraud over the Patisserie Valerie accounting scandal that brought down the 90-year-old high-street bakery chain pleaded not guilty.

The Serious Fraud Office charged former chief financial officer of Patisserie Holdings Christopher Marsh, his wife Louise, financial controller Pritesh Mistry and consultant Nileshkumar Lad with inflating the cash in the firm’s balance sheets between 2015 and 2018. 

Christopher Marsh was charged with eight counts, while Lad and Mistry were charged with seven counts of accounting fraud. Louise Marsh was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud. All four defendants entered not guilty pleas to all charges at Southwark Crown Court on Friday with a trial scheduled for March 2026.

The group collapsed into insolvency in 2019 after a forensic investigation revealed thousands of false entries in its accounts, which resulted in hundreds of employees losing their jobs. Once listed Patisserie Holdings, previously owned in part by British restaurant entrepreneur Luke Johnson, had a market value of £446 million ($558 million) before it was suspended.

All defendants were charged with conspiring to defraud the shareholders and creditors including banks by dishonestly agreeing to misstate and inflate the figures for cash on the balance sheets, according to the indictment. The three men are also charged with giving false representations to auditors Grant Thornton LLP, Barclays Plc., and HSBC Holdings Plc.