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The Reform UK Mayor of Basildon – who is also Essex County Council’s Cabinet Member for Education, SEND and Skills – has had one of his companies struck off the official register after it failed to file legally required documents, while another has never filed accounts in more than six years.
On 29 September, Genesis Jewellery Ltd, a company Cllr Sam Journet co-owned and directed, was dissolved via compulsory strike-off by Companies House, the official registrar of companies.
Companies House does this when it has reason to believe a company is not carrying on business. It is nearly always triggered by overdue filings. Compulsory strike-off is an administrative step and is common for companies that are no longer used, but failing to file required documents is a criminal offence (albeit one that is rarely prosecuted).
The firm’s confirmation statement – an annual filing confirming details including who owns and controls a company – was due by 28 March 2026. It was never filed. The company’s only set of accounts, covering the year to 31 May 2025, records ‘nil’ on every financial line and no employees.
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Yet when Cllr Journet submitted a fresh register of interests to Basildon Council on 31 July – a fortnight after Companies House gave public notice that Genesis would be struck off – he listed it as a trade carried on “for profit or gain”. That register was published on 21 September. Genesis appears in the same way on his Essex County Council register, where Cllr Journet is Cabinet Member for SEND and Education following a Reform victory in May.
The same Basildon register declares “None” for shareholdings (“securities”, in the register’s terms). His Essex register, by contrast, declares shareholdings in all three of his companies. Companies House records him as holding 75% or more of two of them, both with Basildon addresses. Basildon’s register requires councillors to declare holdings in companies with a place of business or land in the borough, where the holding is worth more than £25,000 or exceeds one hundredth of the company’s share capital.
Councillors’ registers of interest are legally-required to be up to date within 28 days. Some of Cllr Journet’s entries were added late. His August 2025 Basildon register said “None” to sponsorship and to land. Financial support from Reform UK and a land entry appeared only on the September 2026 version, 13 months later.
Reform has set its own standard on registers. In July 2025 it accused Cllr Gavin Callaghan, then Labour leader of the council, of failing to register a company within the 28-day limit, saying: “Failure to register or disclose within the statutory timeframe is a criminal offence… This matter is now with the police.” The gap then was 36 days.

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Cllr Journet still runs a jewellery shop, trading as Samuel Perry Jewellery, in Basildon’s Eastgate shopping centre. His shop is a tenant of DVS GHL Basildon Ltd, the company that owns Eastgate, which Basildon Borough Council bought in July. The council says the shop is not a direct council tenant. His Essex register lists all three of his companies as renting county council-owned land, but his Basildon one does not.
His company Samuel Perry Jewellery Ltd also faced compulsory strike-off this year. Companies House published a strike-off notice on 17 March over accounts that had been due by 30 September 2025. The company filed them the next day…