Company Fined After Selling Off Clothes Donations

Collection banks were set up across the borough of Ealing

One of the Clothing Banks place by the company. Picture: Around Ealing

February 18, 2025

A company which set up a network of textile donation banks across the borough of Ealing and then sold anything that was placed inside them has been fined over £14,000.

West Drayton-based company 2020 Textiles designed the containers to resemble charity collection points but it was selling on the donations for a profit.

Ealing Council summonsed the company, and its owners, to court for obstructing the public highway without consent after discovering and removing seven of the donation banks in 2023.

At a hearing on 11 February, Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court heard that the company was owned jointly by Michael Hards, of Kneller Road, Witton; and Rajesh Voralia, of Longfield Drive, Sheen.

The day-to-day running of the business was carried out by Voralia, who is currently barred from being a company director after a separate court hearing in 2020.

However, the court determined that Hards took no part in the management or running of the company – only maintenance or handyman work – so, he had no control over the business.

Consequently, the court held Voralia more accountable for the offences connected with 2020 Textiles. He accepted he was the one managing the business, and that it was run for-profit.

2020 Textiles, as a company, was fined £8,000, ordered to pay £1,500 court costs and a victim surcharge of £2,500. Voralia was fined £875, ordered to pay costs of £400 and a victim surcharge of £350 and Hards was fined £227 and ordered to pay £100 costs and a £191 victim surcharge bringing the total amount to £14,143.

Councillor Paul Driscoll, the council’s cabinet member for climate action, said after the sentencing, “Companies like these place textile donation banks out in places just as actual charities do, like the Salvation Army. Residents then donate clothing thinking they are donating to a charity. But they are giving away their items to a for-profit organisation. It is a callous way of taking advantage of residents’ good nature, to make money for themselves. And it takes away donations from the real charities trying to help people in need. So, it is both anti-social and deceitful.

“I am pleased this particular company, and those running it, have been dealt with by the court and that our council officers moved to seize the banks it had placed around our borough. We will simply not tolerate this.”