The former owner of Norton Motorcycles has been ordered to pay back about £14m missing from retirement funds he controlled after the Pensions Ombudsman ruled he acted “dishonestly”. Stuart Garner, who acquired the classic motorcycle marque in 2008, had been investigated following claims brought initially by 30 members of three retirement funds he set up and ran, including that he had repeatedly failed to return their funds when they were due. The Pension Schemes Act requires trustees to transfer pensions within six months of an application. Garner had invested all the members’ funds into Norton, which had been struggling financially for years and slumped into administration on 29 January. The ombudsman’s determination, which was published on Wednesday, stated: “The trustee [Garner] has acted dishonestly and in breach of his duty of no conflict, his duty not to profit and his duty to act with prudence. “The investments made by [Garner into Norton] on behalf of each of the schemes were made in breach of the trustee’s statutory, investment and trust law duties.” The ombudsman ordered Garner to make a “restorative payment” to all the scheme members, which is thought to total about £14m, as well as pay £180,000 to the original 30 applicants for “exceptional maladministration causing injustice”. Stephen Timms, the chairman of parliament’s work and pensions select committee, said: “Mr Garner, whose blunted moral antennae have been so forensically exposed by the ombudsman, must now comply with this ruling and return their savings immediately. “Any further delay will be all the more painful for savers because concerns about this scheme were being raised as long ago as 2014, but somehow even those alarm bells were not enough to prevent this outcome. “This shocking case raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the regulators involved and the protections we have for people who fall victim to pension scams.” The ombudsman’s decision follows a Guardian and ITV News investigation in January that showed how 228 “ordinary working people” had had their entire pension pots invested via Garner’s retirement schemes into Norton shares after they had been duped by a fraudster. Garner was the trustee of the pension funds, as well as running the company in which the schemes were entirely invested. He received the funds from pension holders during 2012 and 2013, after a scam that resulted in its promoter, Simon Colfer, being convicted of fraud in 2018 for the way in which he had sold the scheme. Two further Garner associates involved in setting up the Norton pensions schemes – Andrew Meeson and Peter Bradley – were convicted of a separate tax fraud in 2013, when they reclaimed £5m of tax rebates from fictitious pension contributions. Court documents from that trial state that £990,000 of the proceeds of that fraud were loaned to Garner, which he used to originally acquire the Norton brand in 2008. Garner did not respond to invitations to comment. He denies any wrongdoing and has said he considers himself a victim, as he did not know he was dealing with fraudsters.