With Sir Philip Green facing calls to have his knighthood taken from him after being accused of plundering his former company BHS at the expense of thousands of workers, the Cabinet Office disclosed it was reviewing the accolade.

From being a sex offender to bringing a bank to the brink of collapse, there are plenty of precedents for losing honours ranging from CBEs to knighthoods.

Here we take a look at ways in which you could become one of the growing number of black sheep in the honours system.

Nearly destroy a bank

James Crosby, the former HBOS chief executive, was stripped of his knighthood at his own request after a scathing parliamentary report into the bank’s collapse. Crosby was given a knighthood after leaving HBOS in 2006.

Similarly, Fred Goodwin lost the knighthood he received for services to banking under the Labour government after guiding the Royal Bank of Scotland to the brink of collapse in 2008.

While honours are usually only removed from those convicted or jailed, the Cabinet Office said the scale of the RBS disaster – necessitating a £45bn bailout from the taxpayer – made the case “exceptional”.

Lie to protect your husband’s political career

Vicky Pryce was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2009 in recognition of her contribution as head of the government economic service. But in March 2013 she and her ex-husband, Chris Huhne, the former Liberal Democrat minister, were both jailed for eight months for swapping speeding penalty points a decade earlier so he could avoid a driving ban, which only emerged when Pryce approached newspapers after Huhne left her for another woman.

She was released from prison after two months but after her conviction her name was removed from the Order of the Bath register.

Be guilty of nepotism and financial management

The “super-head” Jean Else was made a dame in 2001 in recognition of having transformed Whalley Range high school in Manchester. But in January 2009 she was banned from running a school after the General Teaching Council found her guilty of failing to observe minimum standards in recruiting and promoting staff. Her honour was revoked in 2011 after she was found guilty of misconduct.

Be an abusive dictator and tyrant

The Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, was stripped of his honorary knighthood in 2008 over his ‘abuse of human rights’. Photograph: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP

The Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was stripped of his honorary knighthood in 2008 over his “abuse of human rights” and “abject disregard” for democracy.

The Queen approved the annulment of Mugabe’s knighthood, awarded in 1994, on the recommendation of the then foreign secretary, David Miliband.

Mugabe was the first foreigner to be stripped of an honorary knighthood since the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, the day before his execution by firing squad.

Drive dangerously

Naseem Hamed, the former WBA world featherweight champion known as Prince, was jailed in 2006 for 15 months and disqualified from driving for four years after a crash in May 2005 that left another man with fractures to “every major bone in his body”.

Hamed was driving at about 90mph on the wrong side of the carriageway as he approached a blind dip on a road on the edge of the Peak District, smashing into the Volkswagen Golf of a painter and decorator, Anthony Burgin. Burgin’s wife, Claire, was also seriously injured. Hamed was stripped of his MBE in January 2007.

Spy for the Russians

Anthony Blunt was stripped of his knighthood in 1979 for being a part of the infamous Cambridge spy ring. Photograph: PA News

The art historian Anthony Blunt was a professor of art history at the University of London and surveyor of the Queen’s pictures. What was not known was that in 1964 he had confessed to having been a member of the infamous Cambridge five Soviet spy ring, passing information to Moscow while they worked for MI5 during the second world war.

His secret was closely guarded for many years, but Margaret Thatcher publicly revealed his status in November 1979 and he was immediately stripped of his knighthood.

Be a predatory paedophile

Rolf Harris was stripped of his CBE by the Queen after being jailed for almost six years for a string of sex attacks on girls as young as seven.

Harris, 86, was made a CBE in 2006 by the Queen, a year after painting her portrait to mark her 80th birthday. He had previously been awarded an MBE and an OBE. But his honour was annulled – alongside those awarded in his native Australia – after he was unmasked as a predatory paedophile and found guilty of 12 indecent assaults.