• Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home)
• If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times
• Wash your hands as soon as you get home

Do not meet others, even friends or family.

You can spread the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.

• Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home)
• If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times
• Wash your hands as soon as you get home

Do not meet others, even friends or family.

You can spread the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.

Mohammed Tufail (59) and Mohammed Umair (27) both signed 7-year disqualification undertakings and from 6 April 2020, father and son are banned from directly or indirectly becoming involved, without the permission of the court, in the promotion, formation or management of a company.

Car Place Birmingham Limited was incorporated in January 2015 and traded as a second-hand car dealership in Small Heath, central Birmingham.

But two years later, Birmingham Trading Standards seized 6 vehicles from Car Place Birmingham in March 2017 after they were found to be unroadworthy.

Trading Standards brought criminal proceedings against Car Place Birmingham and both directors – even though Mohammed Tufail had resigned as a director in January 2017 two months before the cars were seized – and in March 2018 the courts fined the company just over £33,000.

At the same hearing, Mohammed Tufail received a fine of £11,345, while his son, Mohammed Umair, was fined £8,726. The courts also made a forfeiture order for the 6 cars to be destroyed.

Following the court proceedings, Car Place Birmingham entered into a Creditors Voluntary Liquidation in May 2018 which brought the second-hand car dealership to the attention of the Insolvency Service.

At liquidation the company still hadn’t paid the fine and in the public interest, the Insolvency Service elected to pursue directorship disqualifications against the two second-hand car salesmen.

Tony Quigley, Head of Trading Standards at Birmingham City Council, said:

These individuals supplied unroadworthy and dangerous vehicles with complete disregard for the safety of their customers or other motorists. Both failed to take on their responsibilities and obligations as company directors, and now this ban has come into effect, they are unable to set up, manage or promote any business. Birmingham Trading Standards works in partnership and supports actions taken by all other agencies to protect the public from rogue traders.

Martin Gitner, Deputy Head of Insolvent Investigations for the Insolvency Service, said:

Both second-hand car dealers failed in their basic duty of care to their customers when they sold unroadworthy and potentially dangerous vehicles. These were serious offences and removing Mohammed Tufail and Mohammed Umair from the corporate arena will protect the public from further harm.

Mohammed Tufail is from Birmingham and his date of birth is October 1960.

Mohammed Umair is from Birmingham and his date of birth is February 1993.

CAR PLACE BIRMINGHAM LTD (Company number 09384680)

Disqualification undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings. Persons subject to a disqualification order are bound by a range of restrictions.

Further information about the work of the Insolvency Service, and how to complain about financial misconduct.

You can also follow the Insolvency Service on:

The donation follows a plea from the NHS to organisations around the UK to send what vital equipment they are able to in order to address potential shortages during the current crisis.

The result has seen UKAEA, based at Culham Science Centre near Abingdon, donate 800 facemasks and 10 boxes of surgical gloves to the John Radcliffe Hospital and the Oxfordshire Community Nursing Service.

UKAEA’s Nigel Furlong, Richard West, Mike Stead and Nigel Mott were able to source as much equipment as possible from the organisation’s stores at Culham – without compromising equipment needed to cover UKAEA’s contingency arrangements.

Mechanical engineer Jeff Stephens delivered the first 500 of the facemasks to the John Radcliffe Hospital.

After this initial donation, Mechanical Technician Karl Beacham spotted a call for help on Facebook from a nurse at the Community Nursing Service. Staff then were able to locate the further PPE equipment, searching different facilities on site. The further 300 facemasks and 10 boxes of surgical gloves were then donated.

UKAEA typically uses 400-500 facemasks a month and currently has a back order of a further 500 facemasks, which means a further donation of PPE is possible as and when the order is delivered.

UKAEA’s Nigel Furlong, who led the co-ordination effort, said everyone involved was more than pleased to be able to support the NHS with critical equipment.

“For myself and colleagues this activity is important as we felt we were contributing to the national response to the pandemic, while also helping our community and ultimately our friends and family.”

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working with some of the UK’s leading games companies to feature the government’s clear ‘Stay At Home, Save Lives’ instruction in some of their most popular games to help stop the spread of coronavirus.

Getting through the crisis will require a collective national effort and every generation has a role to play, everyone’s actions right now can have a direct impact upon the lives of others. Young people spend more time playing video games than the rest of the population (UKIE), which is why in-game messaging represents a creative, targeted, and immediate way to help reinforce the government’s Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives message, to gamers.

Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowden, said:

It is absolutely vital that we all follow the simple government advice to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. I’m delighted to see the UK’s brilliant video games industry stepping up to strongly reinforce this message to gamers across the UK.

Support from UK video games companies to date include:

Activision Blizzard King are inserting ‘Stay At Home’ messaging in their network of mobile games, most notably Candy Crush Saga. The firm has also donated more than 230 ‘digital poster’ advertising spaces in London, where they would normally advertise their own products, to be used for crucial public health messaging.

‘Stay At Home’ posters are already being featured in Codemasters’ DiRT Rally 2.0, played by millions of unique users since its launch in February 2019, and the company is now looking at ways to roll out more essential health messages in games across Europe and the U.S. in the coming weeks.

Rebellion will be including ‘Stay At Home’ messaging on their games landing page launch sites (the landing page when you load up a game) for their games, with the capacity for these messages to link to relevant gov.uk pages where appropriate. As well as developing games, Rebellion also publish comic books and have also offered advertising in these.

Humam Sakhnini, President of King said:

Everyone at Activision Blizzard, and the King team I lead, are delighted that we’re able to play a small part and help with the delivery of vital public health information. Through our millions of players we’re able to assist Public Health England and the NHS spread their life saving message: stay at home, protect our NHS, and save lives.

Jason Kingsley OBE, Co-founder and CEO of Rebellion:

We’re delighted to be working with the DCMS on this excellent initiative. We know how fundamentally beneficial video games, like Sniper Elite and Strange Brigade, and comics, like 2000 AD, have been and will continue to be for many of us during this extraordinary time. It makes total sense for us to help promote important public health messaging while keeping those fans entertained in the safety of their homes.

Toby Evan-Jones, VP Business Development at Codemasters:

At Codemasters we came to realise that technology within our games, which enables the remote updating of banners within the virtual environment, could be repurposed to assist with the Coronavirus communication effort. This week, through collaboration with Bidstack Group PLC (providers of the ad-replacement infrastructure), we began delivering a version of Public Health England’s ‘Stay Home Save Lives’ message into DiRT Rally 2.0. It’s fantastic to see conversations already being sparked amongst our community.

Approximately 37 million people in the UK play games, and there are around 2,277 active video game companies in the UK. Any company wishing to support the fight against coronavirus through in-game messaging and other initiatives should contact DCMS on enquiries@culture.gov.uk.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

The UK games industry directly employs 20,430 FTEs in development, publishing and retail roles, which contribute £1.52bn to the UK economy. (Olsberg SPI / BFI, Oct 2018)

Rebellion:

• Founded in 1992, Rebellion is one of Europe’s biggest independent multimedia studios. Its flagship Sniper Elite series is renowned for its authentic stealth and sniping gameplay with more than 20 million players worldwide. 2000 AD is synonymous with the absolute finest in British comic book art.
• With the acquisition of a $100m film studio and the world’s largest archive of English language comics, Rebellion continues to grow from strength to strength.
• Rebellion now operates across books, comics, TV and film, but at its core it’s still a leading developer and publisher of games.
• The Oxford-based studio is revered for creating stand-out games designed to thrill, such as Sniper Elite 4, Aliens vs Predator and the Zombie Army series.

Codemasters:

• Codemasters (AIM:CDM) is an award-winning British video game developer and publisher with over 30 years of heritage. The company specialises in high-quality racing games including DiRT, GRID, and the BAFTA award-winning official F1® series of videogames.

Activision Blizzard

• Activision Blizzard, Inc. connects and engages the world through epic entertainment. A member of the Fortune 500 and S&P 500, Activision Blizzard is a leading interactive entertainment company. We delight hundreds of millions of monthly active users around the world through franchises including Activision’s Call of Duty®, Spyro®, and Crash Bandicoot™, Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Hearthstone®, Diablo®, StarCraft®, and Heroes of the Storm®, and King’s Candy Crush™, Bubble Witch 3™, and Farm Heroes™. The company is one of the Fortune ‘100 Best Companies To Work For’ Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard has operations throughout the world. More information about Activision Blizzard and its products can be found on the company’s website: www.activisionblizzard.com