Seven Years For Gambling Away £1.4 Billion

[ChillDoubt]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20338042

Beggars belief!

[DTCwordfan]

agree - should have been 70 - but then there was Nick Leeson who set precedent.

[FredPuli43]

His only real gain was that he kept his job for the time until he was caught. He hadn't stolen millions of pounds. The bank must be wondering why he wasn't detected sooner, but the main reason seems to have been that he was experienced and well trusted; at one point he was standing to lose the bank £7 billion, so it could have been worse.

[Zeuhl]

Yes fred

<The court was told that at one point he stood to lose the bank £7.5bn ($12bn).>

so a pretty good recovery really!

call me a financial puritan, but aren't all these people just posh bookies?

and how far would you trust a bookie?

[LazyGun]

What beggars belief is that banks do not have a better system of checks and balances to prevent exposure to potentially billions in losses.

But is these gambles that earn them the big money, so they turn a blind eye until something like this happens.

[Mick-Talbot]

call me a financial puritan, but aren't all these people just posh bookies?


I would say no Zeuhl, they are just posh punters.

[Zeuhl]

LOL M-T
nice distinction

Perhaps i was over-influenced by the Eddie Murphy (Trading Places) hypothesis

[FredPuli43]

Standard practice is to hedge the trade so, that if it turns out badly, the loss is minimal. This man wasn't hedging any trades, so, when they went against him. the bank lost everything on them. But one would have thought that failing to take such precautions would show up somewhere. He only got caught when someone found a deal that didn't tally because, by then, the man was inventing entirely fictional trades .

[McMouse]

There should have been management oversight. It's not good enough that he gave 'assurances' to his management.

[pdq1]

Look on the bright side. Its less than 1/40th Gordon Brown managed when he was gambling with the economy.

[Wharton]

Zeuhl - my granny had a saying, "I would trust him as far as I could throw a dead horse by the arse" - quite appropriate in your analogy I thought :-)

[Zeuhl]

^
excellent wharton!
how else would you throw a dead horse?

[sp1814]

By the legs, surely?

[andy-hughes]

I never cease to be amazed how finacial crime always appears to attract a higher penalty than personal crime - rob a bank = seven years, cosh an old lady = suspended sentence.

Tends to underline where the judiciary is coming from.

[jno]

might be the legislature rather than the judiciary, andy.

[Svejk]

Where there's losers, there's winners. The money doesn't disappear.

[FredPuli43]

What's the authority for saying that gbh with intent, using a weapon of offence, which is what coshing an old lady suggests, gets you a suspended? There is, on the other hand, a curious tendency to pass a suspended, or less, for first offence burglary.

This man very nearly brought down a whole bank. That's a bit out of the ordinary for a bit of fraud; that's a crime with possible far- reaching consequences for the bank and finance.

Times have changed. Thirty years ago the sentencing practice was the opposite way e.g. in the same week at the Old Bailey, a group,all with previous for serious assault who,slashed the face of a motorist scarring him for life, when he protested at their drunkenly throwing bottles at his car, all got 18 months but a professional burglar caught entering, by means of slipping the lock with celluloid, a house in Belgravia, got 7 years( and on a plea of guilty too). That judging crime against property as far more serious than any assault , however grave, was the norm then. And nobody was writing to the papers about it.

[youngmafbog]

The population probably thought it and may well have written to the papers, the papers may have chosen not to publish. There were no other media in which the public could air their views.

I'm not sure he should be judged on the amount especially since he didnt gain personally. £1.4 bn is not a particularly large amount to have 'gambled' but as pointed out it should have been hedged.

I understood that he got away with it due to back office knowledge which is where all the reg reporting tends to be done. Most Banks have tightened up but there are limits if you want to make big money.

[emmie]

he won't do 7 years at any rate, and if some don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things, what about if the bank had crashed, job losses, and down the line effects. I think our judiciary isn't always on the mark when giving sentences. It's absurd that a rapist could get seven years and be out in three, whilst we have this seemingly unregulated jack the lad juggling with the banks and peoples money, he should do 10 years no parole and the rapist 30 years no parole.

[NOX]

the lad made asmistake, possibly with far reaching effects granted, but he didn't kill anyone, didn't set out to hurt anyone, just got carried away on his own ego a bit. the sentence imho was too harsh by miles, he's not a threat to the public, it'll cost a fortune to keep him in there and he could be far better utilised doing other things for the community. Murderers and violent criminals belong in prison, badly managed traders who don't stand to gain personally from a nightmare scenario like this really don't. This just got so badly away him, you can see none of it was intentional- but presumably because the great God ' Money' is involved that really doesn't matter.

[emmie]

he was convicted on two counts of fraud, perhaps that is why he received 7 years, and as i said it's unlikely he will do that, it could be a strong message to some other free for all bankers that do this, you will go to jail and for a long time. I have absolutely no sympathy for this man