Bang to rights
NOW SEE what happens. Bang goes my idea that the police should charge Sean O'Semtex not with trying to blow up Canary Wharf but with conspiring to defraud its insurers. The inspectors could then bring him in and bounce him, and if he still refused to answer he could be put in jail for that. Before his attempt on its offices, did Mr O'Semtex by any chance deal in The Telegraph's shares? Let's inves- tigate him under section 177 of the Finan- cial Services Act . Oh, well, we shall have to think of something else. This being the
party conference season, some loudmouth will certainly call for the goalposts to be moved towards the corner flags until the prosecution can contrive to score. (The European Court may then rule it offside.) I am for narrower goals and straighter shoot- ing. Theft, as a crime, ought to mean what it says. Insider trading, as a crime, ought to mean the abuse for personal gain of a posi- tion of trust. Such charges would be straightforward enough to stand up in a criminal court and be proved. Other kinds of misdeed would be judged by civil courts or regulatory tribunals, where the rules of evidence and standards of proof are less exigent. They cannot send people to jail but their sanctions include restitution, penal damages, fines, loss of licence, exclusion from markets and, where appropriate, pub- lic disgrace. That will do.
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