British video game composer and sound designer Peter Connelly, known for his work on the Tomb Raider series alongside the likes of Watch Dogs and Dead Island 2, has been jailed for 16 months after being found guilty of fraudulently claiming a second Covid loan.
The news was announced on the UK government’s website by its Insolvency Service agency, which appears to have embarked on a flashy series of press releases in recent months featuring dramatic ink-stamp graphics with words like “JAILED”, “LOAN FRAUD”, and “BANNED”.
According to the agency’s announcement, Connelly overstated his company’s turnover to obtain a second Bounce Back Loan of £37,500 in 2020. Bounce Back Loans were provided to businesses who might otherwise have struggled to access finance during the Covid pandemic, but companies were only entitled to one. Connelly is said to have secured his first loan, for £22,000, at a different bank just a month earlier.
“Peter Connelly blatantly disregarded the rules of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme, designed to support small and medium-sized businesses during the pandemic,” the Insolvency Service’s chief investigator David Snasdell said in a statement accompanying the news.
In interviews with the Insolvency Service, Connelly told investigators he had been given the potentially lucrative opportunity to re-imagine the music for the Tomb Raider soundtrack, and had taken out personal loans and sold his car to complete the project. Things then “stalled” at the start of the pandemic, and Connelly’s company, Peter Connelly Limited, went into liquidation in August 2021 without repaying either loan.
Connelly, who previously signed an Individual Voluntary Arrangement agreeing to repay his debts, was found guilty of fraud and was jailed for 16 months by Durham Crown Court on Thursday, 17th July. The 52-year-old is also banned from being a company director for six years.
Connelly composed soundtracks for a number of Tomb Raider games while the series was under Core Design’s stewardship in the 1990s and early 2000s, including The Last Revelation, Chronicles, and The Angel of Darkness. He’s also provided sound design work for the likes of Watch Dogs, The Crew, South Park: The Fractured but Whole, and 2023’s Dead Island 2.