THE former director of a family-run coach firm which went bust months after being taken over by businessmen linked to a mystery Barbados outfit has called for tougher regulation over who can buy into Scotland's bus industry.

John Henderson, who founded Henderson Travel with his brother 30 years ago, has spoken for the first time of the "nightmare" as his once successful Lanarkshire bus company unravelled within six months of selling up to Staffordshire-based Bakerbus Ltd, in a deal brokered by Coventry coach dealership Kinglong Direct.

Mr Henderson said he has recruited a forensic accountant believing he may have lost up to £160,000 in the debacle.

Hundreds of staff faced redundancy when Henderson Travel suddenly ceased trading on October 30 last year, although the bulk of the staff and all 20 of Henderson's subsidised bus contracts - worth more than £9 million - have been transferred to McGill's.

The firm's collapse has provoked a bitter war of words, with both Mr Henderson and the new owners blaming one another.

However, The Herald can reveal that the businessmen who led the Henderson Travel buyout have criminal records for drug smuggling and robbery, raising serious questions about their links to the public transport industry.

Kinglong's marketing director, Paul Bicknell, was jailed for three years for swindling £220,000 from a previous employer to fund his gambling addiction, while sales director Ray McNally served seven years for organising a West Midlands cannabis ring.

Kinglong Direct is owned by Island Fortitude Incorporated (IFD), a Caribbean offshore investment fund which has purchased a string of bus companies in England in recent years, tying them into contracts which require them to buy Kinglong coaches.

IFD is also the third director behind Kinglong Direct and has owned a number of Bicknell and McNally's previous companies, but Bicknell said he has no idea who is behind it.

"There are two directors in Barbados," he said. "I don't know who they are - I only ever deal with them through their attorney."

Mr Henderson, 59, said he first became aware of interest in Henderson Travel from an "international investor" when his wife, Linda, was contacted in summer 2013 by a Hamilton accountancy firm with links to Kinglong Direct staff.

The couple had decided to sell the business and retire after John's brother and business partner quit due to ill health. After months of negotiations with representatives from Kinglong, they were surprised when the eventual buyer in April 2014 was revealed to be Bakerbus Ltd. Its director, Mark Ready, is also director at Bakers Bus & Coach Ltd, a travel firm headquartered at the same Stoke-on-Trent depot as Bakerbus Ltd, but ultimately owned by IFD.

"It was all very secretive," said Mr Henderson. "We didn't know until the very end that the buyer was Bakerbus Ltd. It had all been 'Kinglong' until then."

Mr and Mrs Henderson remained the only signatories to the Henderson Travel account, however, which received monthly taxpayer subsidies of around £270,000 from Transport Scotland and SPT.

However, on October 13 Mr Henderson was told by Kinglong that he was being placed on gardening leave until his contract expired in March 2015, and was asked to make John O'Meara - a Kinglong salesman - a signatory to the account.

Mr Henderson says he felt uneasy about giving Kinglong access to large amounts of public money.

Both Bicknell and McNally stress that no one at Kinglong or Bakerbus Ltd ever had access to Henderson Travel funds, and blame Mr Henderson's "obstructiveness" over money for the company's downfall. They claim Mr Henderson ran up debts which have left them out of pocket.

McNally said: "We didn't get one penny. All we did was support Mark Ready in his bid to buy it."

He has also written to Transport Minister Derek Mackay demanding tighter rules on who can buy into Scotland's bus industry.

Mr Henderson said: "I think it is imperative that new procedures are adopted by public bodies to ensure that a company cannot just buy an important supplier of public transport without being prepared to take their responsibility seriously."

Insolvency practitioners, MLM Solutions, are currently leading a probe into the company's liquidation. A public inquiry is also ongoing through the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, with the next hearing expected in late February or early March.

A spokeswoman for Transport Scotland said: "Due diligence of company ownership is not a matter for Transport Scotland and we cannot comment on individual cases."