‘NatWest Three’ face jail for Enron fraud says The Daily Telegraph reporting the probable result of a plea bargaining effort by their lawyers which might see them jailed for thirty seven months instead of a possible thirty five years after they agreed to admit to one count of fraud instead of four.
The DT then explains out that the three men were extradited to the USA “amid much public protest”……what the paper fails to point out was that the “public protest” was mainly cheerled by the DT itself. Over a period of several months we were drip fed a skilful PR campaign of sob stories and family photo ops portraying the three as innocent victims of an American witch hunt.
This didn’t cut much ice with many of us who realised that a lot of UK suits (some of them well known to the media on this side of the Atlantic) who sailed a little close to the financial edge were terrified that, instead of the ponderous investigation and genteel slap on the wrist usually given to “respectable”fraudsters by British courts, they would face an American judicial regime which acts swiftly and hands out draconian prison sentences and massive fines……………

How can they sink so low? “Servicemen from Headley Court rehabilitation centre near Leatherhead were about to begin their weekly swim at Leatherhead Leisure Centre, which helps with their therapy, when they were verbally abused by a group of regular swimmers” reported the Leatherhead Advertiser on November 21st.

Apparently a number of regulars objected to them using a roped off area of the pool claiming that they paid to use it and should have prority. The leader of the Headley Court party withdrew the group from the pool to avoid further confrontation. It would have been gratifying to hear that the Leisure Centre staff had told the men to get back in and banned the complainers from using the Centre again but this is England 2007 – the reaction was supine and clearly the complainers felt vindicated………….if ever there was a justification for a tabloid “name and shame” this must be it…….