UNSECURED creditors of the collapsed butchery chain Gerald David and Family - including a number of West Somerset businesses - have been warned they are unlikely to receive a penny of the money owed to them.

Exeter-based administrators Kirks, appointed to take over the affairs of the business, which had eight shops in Somerset and Devon, including Minehead and Dulverton, held a creditors meeting shortly before Christmas.

And those attending voted to put the company, which previously had a turnover of £4 million a year and 59 staff on its books, into liquidation.

Documents lodged at Companies House have revealed the business, which was founded by Mr David and his wife Jenny more than 40 years ago, had debts of just over £1.68m when it collapsed in October last year.

It was put into administration after winding-up proceedings were threatened by Revenue and Customs - the biggest creditor with more than £820,000 PAYE and VAT outstanding.

The company's assets are said to stand at just £68,000.

But Kirks has said it is "actively pursuing" the repayment of a £364,000 directors' loan run up against the business by Mr and Mrs David.

Documents show it was being extended at the rate of £30,000 a month - £1,000 a day - in the early part of last year.

Action has also started to recover another £82,000 in loans to other family members.

Six of the company's shops were rented but those in Minehead and Dulverton were personally owned by Mr David, who also owns the company's abattoir in Porlock, and were "informally leased" to the business.

Putting the business into liquidation will allow the investigation, which has already started into the way the company was run, to be widened and give greater scope for any legal action.

Just over a year ago Gerald David and Family Ltd was fined a total of £3,000 and ordered to pay £12,000 in costs after pleading guilty to six counts of misleading labelling and advertising in a prosecution brought by Somerset Trading Standards.

The charges arose from claims on the company's website, in its stores in Dulverton and Taunton and in a parish magazine that its lamb came from Exmoor and its beef from Devon when it had actually been sourced more than 100 miles away in the Midlands.