G4S: Fraud trial against former executives dropped

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has abandoned a trial against three former G4S executives they had accused of defrauding the Ministry of Justice over a prisoner-tagging contract.

Richard Morris, Mark Preston and James Jardine were due to face trial in 2024.

They were charged with seven offences of fraud in relation to alleged false representations made to the Ministry of Justice between 2009 and 2012.

But the prosecutor said the SFO was offering no evidence against them.

The three men all worked in the company's care and justice business,

They had been due to face trial next year - 10 years after the SFO began its investigation

Following his acquittal, Mr Morris said that he was "delighted", adding that the allegations against him were "plainly wrong".

"That it has taken 10 years for the SFO to acknowledge as much is a scandal," Mr Morris said.

He described the Serious Fraud Office's case as "flawed".

Joanna Dimmock, from the law firm Paul Hastings which was acting for Mr Jardine, said: "Yet again the SFO has wasted millions of pounds of taxpayers' money whilst three men's lives have been ravaged and put on hold for nearly a decade."

In court on Friday, the prosecutor Crispin Aylett KC said the reasons for offering no evidence were "multi-faceted" and that a decision to drop the case was "not one taken quickly or lightly".

He added: "The prosecution recognises that the defendants, all men of good character, have been under suspicion for 10 years.

"The prosecution are only too aware of the impact these proceedings will have had on them and on their families."

Mr Aylett KC said he recognised "the potential unfairness" of asking for this to go on for a substantial period of further time, adding: "We regret the way the case has turned out."

The Judge Mr Justice Johnson went on to formally acquit the three men on all the charges.

Mr Morris was managing director at G4S Care and Justice, Mr Preston was commercial director of the electronic monitoring division and Mr Jardine was finance manager and acting commercial director of that unit.

In 2020 the SFO and G4S agreed a £44m deal to settle three fraud offences against the Ministry of Justice between 2011 and 2012 where G4S accepted responsibility for deceiving the government about the true extent of profits it was earning on a prisoner-tagging contract.

The company was able to avoid criminal prosecution but the deal did not address whether any employee was guilty.

The case against the men had been brought by the SFO.

After the men's acquittal, Ross Dixon of Hickman & Rose Solicitors, representing Mr Morris, said the case collapsed because the SFO "failed to understand its own evidence, failed to secure significant evidence… and only at the eleventh hour disclosed key material that undermined its case".

Mr Dixon added: "Ten years is far too long for any individual to have to wait for justice.

"It is deeply worrying that after such a long time, only now has the SFO offered no evidence."

G4S operates in 85 countries, with contracts ranging from defence, health and vehicle parking.

The company has been operating in the care and justice area since the opening of the first private prison in 1992.

In a similar case in January 2019, the last of three former Tesco executives was cleared over a £250m accounting scandal involving the supermarket chain.

That prosecution was also brought by the SFO.

Following Friday's decision an SFO spokesperson said: "As a public prosecutor we have to make difficult decisions, including ending a prosecution where it is right to do so.

"In line with the Code for Crown Prosecutors, we have determined it is no longer in the public interest to continue this prosecution."