7:00am Saturday 4th October 2008
By Jane Reader
TROUBLED businessman Richard Carr will be made personally bankrupt within days, he has revealed.
The controversial former nightclub and property boss was the subject of proceedings at Bournemouth's County Court yesterday.
Mr Carr stayed away from the ten-minute hearing, preferring instead to attend a business seminar.
But he spoke to the Daily Echo on the telephone and said: "This is not the best day of my life. I don't know what I'm going to do next."
He said he had been hoping he would be declared bankrupt yesterday but the hearing was adjourned. "I wish it had just gone ahead to get it out of the way - I will make myself bankrupt next week."
Mr Carr said one of his creditors forced yesterday's hearing by filing a bankruptcy petition but he added: "I was going to do it voluntarily anyway. I have been talking to my advisers for a while and had already come to the conclusion that I had no other way out."
He said personal guarantees to banks approaching £10 million left him with no choice. "They are pursuing me for that money" he said.
Now hundreds of creditors of his companies will be wondering if they will ever see any of the money they are owed.
The Daily Echo was not allowed to attend the hearing, which was held in Chambers at the county court in Deansleigh Road.
It is more than two months since Carr's nightclub business, Future 3000 - Bournemouth's biggest operator - went into administration. Eight venues in Bournemouth and Poole were immediately put up for sale.
Last month, five of them, Bliss, Toko, Crank, Mint and Dundee's, were sold to Yellowhammer Bars.
Days after the announcement about Future 3000, development company Ravine Lifestyle also hit the rocks. The company had eight prestigious development sites in Poole.
Since then Richard Carr has spoken of selling his home and moving away from the south coast but yesterday he appeared uncertain.
"This is a situation that is out of my control - I've got a lot of thinking to do."
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