Investigation by Russell Findlay and Sharon Frew

A businessman accused of fraud over a government green energy scheme says he will give away his entire £10m fortune if anyone proves he did anything wrong.

MPs say that Robert Skillen, 57, "ripped off" thousands of homeowners, "leaving a trail of misery and chaos in his wake" before fleeing abroad.

His former company Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd (HELMS) is subject of a report to the Crown Office following a trading standards fraud probe.

And last week Citizens Advice Scotland released a report saying that HELMS was involved in "pressure selling, providing misleading information about repayment, returns on investment, and financing, and selling to people in vulnerable situation".

Mr Skillen was majority shareholder of Cambuslang-based HELMS which went into liquidation in 2016.

But in an exclusive STV News interview, he offered to hand over his personal fortune to his former customers if anyone proves wrongdoing.

He said: "It is everything I've got. I'll need to sell my house, another house I own, my kids' houses, I'll need to sell my sister's house, my cars and every share in every company I own to get £10m.

"But I can get £10m and that is why I am giving you this figure."

As an approved supplier of the UK government's Green Deal, HELMS had 4200 customers across Britain with more than 3000 of those in Scotland - mostly in Ayrshire, Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire.

The flagship initiative was launched in 2012 but shut down in 2015.

It allowed homeowners to make energy saving improvements, including solar panels, which would be paid for through savings on future bills.

Mr Skillen claims he is completely innocent and that the entire problem stems from a mistake made by the UK Government about the price of solar energy.

Customers were told that they would be able to sell excess energy from their solar panels for 13.9 pence per unit.

According to Mr Skillen, the government's 'export tariff' was grossly inaccurate.

Customers who expected to save £339 on their energy bills were shocked to discover it was closer to £80, leaving them in debt.

Many are tied to 25-year finance deals they claim they knew nothing about and may be unable to sell their homes as the debt is tied to the property.

Mr Skillen said: "We done the Green Deal to the letter of the law. The Green Deal was flawed.

"We used a government-approved savings figure which has now been proven to be out by 400 per cent.

"Every Green Deal provider in the UK used the same figures.

"The savings figures for external wall installation, for boilers, for lofts and cavity installation are all correct.

"The only one that is incorrect is the solar savings figure."

During the interview, Mr Skillen read a prepared statement offering to forfeit every penny he has.

He said: "If anyone can demonstrate to me how the solar savings figure on a Green Deal advice report can be realistically achieved, or if someone can demonstrate how HELMS manipulated these figures, I will donate £10m to HELMS customers."

Mr Skillen claims that when he discovered the alleged mistake, he alerted the government and others but was ignored.

He said: "In the summer of 2015 when we started getting a lot of complaints in, when people had seen that they were not making the savings they were told, I went down to our accreditation company and demanded to see the algorithms.

"The day I found out this problem was occurring we stopped selling Green Deal solar. That's a fact. Go find a solar plan that we sold after the summer of 2015.

"The day I found out this was a problem I notified everybody I possibly could.

"For two-and-a-half years I have been trying to get them to justify the savings figure.

"Getting someone to admit that's the problem and pay for it is the hard part.

"They blank everyone. They know there's a problem.

"They're still taking four times the saving out of people's bank accounts. I'm not taking anything out of people's bank accounts."

HELMS was fined £200,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office for nuisance phone calls but paid only £10,000 before going into liquidation in April 2016.

Mr Skillen claims that an agency made the calls and that HELMS had to be liquidated after Green Deal was axed.

He said: "We never made one call. We used an agency. What did they do to the agency? They didn't even interview the agency.

"HELMS was a Green Deal company set up to do the Green Deal, but after a year they cancelled it. HELMS was left with no work."

Mr Skillen was last month the subject of damning criticism in the House of Commons.

SNP MP Dr Philippa Whitford, who represents Central Ayrshire, said "it was fraud".

Glasgow North East's Labour MP Paul Sweeney accused Mr Skillen of fleeing abroad where he "continues to profit from his fraudulent business practices".

Mr Skillen said: "It doesn't look like I fled abroad, does it? I'm sitting in Glasgow with you just now. I was in Glasgow last week, I'm here every week."

Concerns were also raised after Mr Skillen launched True Solar Savings - a website which offers to help debt-stricken Green Deal customers.

The SNP's Gavin Newlands, of Paisley and Renfrewshire North, called him "the man with the brassiest of brass necks".

He added: "He has fleeced us once, but now wants to assist us in getting redress from his own company's mis-selling.

"The man has zero shame, and his outrageous lack of recognition of his culpability is astounding."

In response, Mr Skillen said: "I've built a website to show people how much they have been mis-sold by through the Green Deal. I'm not making any money out of it."

Responding to calls from Mr Newlands welcoming a police investigation, Mr Skillen said: "On you go MPs. If they think I should be prosecuted for fraud they should go to the nearest police station."

Asked if he had any previous brushes with the law, he said: "My answer to that is I'm here to talk about HELMS and the Green Deal and the savings figure that's incorrect."

He added: "I would go anywhere and talk to anyone about this at any time."

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy declined to comment on Mr Skillen's claim about the flawed solar panel data.

They added: "We have put in place a robust process for handling complaints relating to HELMS.

"Where customers believe they have been mis-sold by HELMS they are able to take their complaints direct to the Green Deal Finance Company (GDFC) who can cancel or reduce loans if the evidence supports this."

The Crown Office say the trading standards report submitted in December 2016 "is still under consideration".