Nightclub owner Franco Lumba will face trial next year after he denied a string of financial offences, including money laundering.

The 44-year-old owner of Essence and the derelict Gala Bingo Hall denied 11 charges when he appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.

He was accused of trying to defraud the taxman by failing to account for income tax, national insurance and capital gains tax and failing to submit full and accurate tax returns.

Nine of the charges relate to allegations he dishonestly filled in mortgage forms for eight separate homes.

The forms related to the mortgaging or remortgaging of properties in St Margarets Road, Twickenham, York Avenue, Hayes, Pembroke House, Virginia Water, Park View Mansions, Knightsbridge, Osterley Park View Road, Hanwell, Bedford Road and West Mead, both in Ruislip.

According to the charges, he gave the banks different accounts of where his income came from and failed to reveal he had a previous conviction for cheating the public revenue.

Mr Lumba denies filling in different sources of income on the forms, allegedly claiming he made money from a jewellery business called Sheikh 1, car trading, from being a landlord and from his employment as a manager in a sales business.

A final charge related to money laundering by concealing, disguising, converting, transferring or removing criminal property between April 1, 2003 and June 9, 2011.

Essence, a bar by Kingston’s riverside, was temporarily closed last summer after Mr Lumba was arrested on suspicion of money laundering on June 8, 2011.

But Kingston Council’s licensing committee later allowed it to re-open with restricted opening hours.

Mr Lumba, who lives in St Margarets Road, Twickenham, will face trial at Southwark Crown Court on Monday, February 25, next year.