CITY AND SUBURBAN
After the farce in court, here's how to do the City justice
CHRISTOPHER FILDES
The law allows it and the court awards. My learned brothers McKinnon and Henry have delivered concurring judgments in support of City and Suburban, where I have long argued that our fraud trials are paro- dies of justice. Never again, said Mr Justice McKinnon after the year-long Blue Arrow hearing. There must be a radical solution, said Mr Justice Henry, halting the case against Roger Seelig in what must now be the last of the Guinness trials — and indeed, such solutions are ready and wait- ing. The judges concur even though their cases contrast. Six years have passed since the Guinness affair. Mr Seelig's seniors, willing (in vain) to avert blame from them- selves, had at once dismissed him and never lifted a finger or a wallet to help him. He was left without a job or a salary to face a million-pound lawyers' bill. So he defend- ed himself, and well, but, as the judge recognised, buckled under the strain. The Blue Arrow defendants had silks to defend them because their employers, led by National Westminster, did the decent thing. Even so, the prosecution improved its scoring average, with four convictions out of a possible 12 — though the judge had summed up for acquittals, and all four verdicts will go to appeal. Earlier, he had kept the jury waiting two months while he heard legal argument, and then directed verdicts of Not Guilty on the three compa- nies facing charges. The jury complied with an audible grumpiness, and thereafter showed every sign of having switched off. A wonderful case for the lawyers, though, with legal costs of £40 million, and a job for everyone in the Temple. A sequal trial, provisionally entitled Blue Arrow II, has been scripted, but could scarcely take the stage without being laughed off. This is so obviously no way to do justice.
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