Hashmukh Shah, a 63 year old accountant for a London cafe, has become the first person to fined by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) for pensions auto-enrolment offences related to working on behalf of an employer.

TPR says Mr Shah admitted to falsely claiming to the regulator that his client’s staff had been enrolled into pensions.

The fine sends a “clear warning” to accountants and advisers, says the TPR, that providing it with misleading information risks a criminal conviction.

He was ordered to pay £6,857 for the offence. It is the first time that TPR has prosecuted a third party working on behalf of an employer.

Gran Caffe Londra in Knightsbridge, run by Primadell Ltd, missed its deadline to automatically enrol staff into a workplace pension in October 2015.

TPR launched an investigation and arranged an inspection but cancelled it when Mr Shah declared that the company had met its duties.

However TPR later discovered that the declaration was false, no staff had been enrolled into a pension scheme and no contributions had been paid.

When interviewed by TPR, Mr Shah, of Richmond, Surrey, admitted purposely misleading the regulator thereby preventing an inspection of the business which would have uncovered the employer’s failure to automatically enrol its staff.

On 15 August Mr Shah pleaded guilty at Brighton Magistrates’ Court to “knowingly or recklessly providing false or misleading information to TPR”, an offence under section 80 of the Pensions Act 2004.

Today, Mr Shah appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court where he was fined £3,937 and ordered to pay £2,800 in costs and a £120 victim surcharge.

District Judge Teresa Szagun said: “In firefighting the financial crisis of the company, Mr Shah in fact chose to ignore the individuals who actually, as the casual workforce, were probably the least well off.

“The false information he provided was deliberate and with the knowledge of the risks that involved, including the potential harm it could cause.”

She added that Shah was “remorseful and mortified about the error” he had made.

TPR’s Director of Automatic Enrolment, Darren Ryder, said: “This case sends a clear warning to accountants and advisers tasked with completing an employers’ automatic enrolment duties - providing TPR with false or misleading information may land you with a criminal conviction and a fine.”

Gran Caffe Londra eventually became compliant in March and the company has backdated pension contributions for its staff.