Personal Computer Science boss arrested in Oz

Charles Forsyth, the controversial founder of a string of failed UK computer companies, has been arrested in Western Australia, over the alleged fraud of £1m in the UK.

A warrant for Forsyth's arrest was issued on October in North Yorkshire, the home of Personal Computer Science, a prominent computer builder which collapsed in July 1999 with the loss of 150 jobs.

The warrant for Forsyth's arrest, issued at the behest of the UK's Serious Fraud Office, accuses him of "company fraud, pirated computer offences, deception involving a $1.5 million credit facility and a £750,000 overdraft, false accounting and lying about his banking qualifications", the York Evening Press reports.

Forsyth was also the founder and owner of Multiplex, a PC builder in East Lothian, which collapsed in the early 90s, weeks after he sold the business to managers for £1,000. Famously, Forysth paid himself a salary of £1m in the first year of trading, an astonishing sum for a company which was turning over a little more than £4m at the time.

And his first venture, an Apricot Computerworld franchise in Edinburgh collapsed, in the mid eighties. Gossip at the time was that Forsyth's guarantor, his father, was forced to pay off the creditors. According to the Evening Press, Forsyth has been estranged from his parents for 17 years.

More recently, Forsyth was a director and the major shareholder with Zentel Telecom Group Plc in Edinburgh. This business, if it still exists, no longer operates a web presence. ®