[josephlord]

It sounded from your original article like you were a director, in the UK I believe directors have personal legal responsibilities to ensure that the company is solvent. Without access to the accounts I would resign as a director even if I stayed as a technical lead or at least would get individual legal advice.

I'm sure that you will much wiser next time, I just want to help you maximise the benefit and was focused on an unambiguous red flag rather than the harder to spot issue of convincing people who shouldn't be trusted (and/or are out of their depth).