The UK’s prosecution against three former executives at a G4S Plc unit collapsed on Friday before it could reach trial, nearly a decade after the investigation was first opened.
(Bloomberg) — The UK’s prosecution against three former executives at a G4S Plc unit collapsed on Friday before it could reach trial, nearly a decade after the investigation was first opened.
A lawyer for the SFO told a judge at a London criminal court that it would not offer evidence against the defendants and asked the judge to enter not guilty verdicts due to difficulties in disclosure, time, costs and the impact on the defendants.
Richard Morris, Mark Preston, and James Jardine, former executives in G4S’s care and justice businesses, were charged in 2020 with seven fraud offenses by the Serious Fraud Office for false representations made to the UK’s Ministry of Justice between 2009 and 2012. The trial start date was originally set for January 2022 but had been delayed multiple times until a date in 2024.
“It is no longer in the public interest to proceed with this case,” said Crispin Aylett, the SFO’s lawyer. “We recognize that the defendants, all men of good character, have been under suspicion for 10 years and the prosecution is only too aware of the impact that these proceedings would have on them and their families.”
The SFO first opened its case into G4S’s electronic monitoring contracts in November 2013 and G4S entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the SFO in 2020. G4S accepted responsibility for fraud offenses against the government and was ordered to pay nearly £40 million ($47.9 million). G4S also paid out compensation to the government in a separate 2014 civil settlement.
‘Shocked’
“I was shocked when I learned that G4S had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement accusing me of wrongdoing — a wholly untrue allegation,” Morris said in a statement after the hearing. “This amounted to G4S signing a false confession, plain and simple.”
The collapse adds to a a long list of missteps by the white-collar crime prosecutor in the last few years. It has been accused of botching investigations, seen trials collapse, and a government-requested review that found the SFO’s failure in its Unaoil bribery case were caused by “cultural issues” in the agency. Its case against Serco Group Plc fell apart because the prosecutor failed to disclose evidence.
It once again brings into focus the effectiveness of the settlement tool because of the challenges posed by securing convictions against executives or managers after reaching a deal with the company. High-profile agreements with Tesco Plc, Rolls Royce Holdings Plc and Airbus SE all failed to lead to convictions of individuals.
A spokesperson from the SFO said that the public prosecutor has to make difficult decisions including ending prosecutions when it is right to do so.
“Yet again the SFO has wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money while three men’s lives have been ravaged and put on hold for nearly a decade,” said Joanna Dimmock, a lawyer representing Jardine.
Preston said in an emailed statement he was pleased with the outcome of the case and glad it has come to a successful conclusion.
(Updates with comments from the defendants throughout)
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