Woolworths’ directors will be scrutinised by Deloitte, administrator to the collapsed chain, after a creditor questioned whether the retailer should have stopped trading earlier.

At a creditors’ meeting at Alexandra Palace in London, Neville Kahn, administrator to Woolworths, was asked by one creditor to look at whether the board of the company, led by chairman Richard North and chief executive Steve Johnson, should have pulled the plug earlier on the lossmaking business to safeguard more money for creditors.