Legal News
Polly Peck boss sentenced to 10 years in prison (24 August 2012)
Date: 24/08/2012
The former Polly Peck boss was sentenced to 10 years in prison at the Old Bailey after jury had found him guilty on ten counts.
Asil Nadir, the former boss of failed textile conglomerate Polly Peck, was found guilty of 10 counts of stealing £28.6m from company funds.
The amount stolen by the multimillionaire, who fled Britain in 1993 but returned in 2010, was the equivalent of £61,829,627 today, the Old Bailey was told.
The 71-year-old former tycoon, had been a hero in the City of London for much of the 1980s, but he fled to Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus three years after the £2bn business empire collapsed in 1990 just before he was to appear for his trial.
Almost 22 year later he returned to Britain in 2010, when the process of bringing him to trial was started. A jury, reduced by two members to three women and seven men, has taken seven months to hear all the evidence.
Immediately after the verdicts, Nadir's wife, Nur, said her husband planned to appeal. She said that it was not like a guilty man comes back to face justice of his own accord. She said that her husband had come back voluntarily. Polly Peck was his life.
Mrs. Nadir beamed at supporters in the public gallery after a judge said her husband would serve only half of his ten-year sentence.
The judge said that despite the prosecution case that the amounts stolen were part of a larger theft, he could only pass sentence on counts on which Nadir had been convicted.
The 28-year-old has been by her husband's side throughout the trial. They married when she was 21.
Another hearing will be held next month to deal with compensation claims. There will also be claims for "substantial" prosecution costs and repayment of legal aid.
Nadir was taken by prison van to Belmarsh high security prison and is expected to be transferred to another jail after being processed.
During the trial, counsel for the Serious Fraud Office, Philip Shears QC, alleged that Nadir had stolen £150m from Polly Peck coffers, using proceeds for himself and his family.
Shears said the lengthy trial had focused only on a small sample of Nadir's alleged thievery, with 13 counts on the indictment relating to the transfer of £34m out of Polly Peck.
Nadir had pleaded not guilty on all counts. Earlier in the trial Nadir had told the court he fled the UK because his hope for a fair trial was in tatters. He had zero hope of receiving a fair trial.
UK Shareholders Association spokesman Brian Peart said Nadir had ‘got off lightly’. There will be disappointment for the shareholders who lost a lot of money.
When Polly Peck, once the Stock Exchange's fastest-growing company, crashed in 1990 it had debts of £550m. Creditors got a fraction of what they were owed and shareholders received nothing.