Court documents allege that more than $13.6 million were fraudulently misappropriated from Westpac by aged care operator George Snowden.

Nursing homes in Mr Snowden’s Cambridge Aged Care portfolio are already under investigation by the Department of Health and Ageing for serious concerns about pain and wound management. It has also been alleged that financial mismanagement meant one home had run out of funds for basics, including bread at breakfast.

Fairfax Media reported that while Mr Snowden, a former bankrupt, had paid back six of the nearly $14m he had acquired through an electronic loophole, no instalments had been paid in the last year.

Westpac has now taken Mr Snowden to the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Meanwhile Mr Snowden has launched a defamation case against the Herald Sun for allegations that his aged care staff ignored the screams of a patient and that he paid himself $1m in one day while the company was on the brink of collapse.