You make your bed, you gotta lie in it, innit. It's uncool to be complicit in hiring of such a dud, laying it on another employer like that. You can either say the statutory minimum and confirm duration/rank etc (which still may be complicit tho). Or you can send the true view - and tell the contractor what you have done and why and he needs to stop p!ssing people's time away. Had something almost identical happen last month, after almost a year, had to call it in and let him go. He was never really in it, just going through the motions of the role, but invoicing impeccably. Shortly before he left I had a note from someone he had applied to for work who's senior I know and told how it would be. Left a nasty taste and wasn't a vengeful action, but had to be done that way.