Saunders, Ernest

Ernest Saunders was convicted in August 1990 of theft, false accounting, and conspiracy to contravene section 13 of the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act 1958.

Mr Saunders received a sentence of five years’ imprisonment, reduced on appeal to two years and six months.

Mr Saunders was convicted alongside Isidore Lyons, Gerald Ronson and Anthony Parnes.

Each defendant was accused of dishonest conduct in a share support operation during Guinness Plc’s take-over bid for the Distillers Company Plc in early 1986.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in January 2001.

At trial, the prosecution had directed the jury’s attention to alleged changes of story by Mr Saunders in his Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) interviews, pointing out inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

The trial judge also referred extensively to the DTI interviews in his summing up and invited the jury to take them into account when assessing Mr Saunders’ honesty.

Following unsuccessful appeals, the case was considered on two occasions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

In the first of these, Saunders v UK (1996), the ECtHR found there had been a violation of Mr Saunders’ human rights under Article 6(1) of the Convention of Human Rights regarding the use made by the prosecution of the DTI interview transcripts, in that there had been an infringement of the right of the defendant not to incriminate himself.

The use of those interviews by the prosecution was identified by the ECtHR as having given rise to unfairness in the trial.

Before the second ECtHR decision, the UK Attorney General issued guidelines to prosecutors in February 1998 instructing them not to rely on evidence obtained in the course of DTI interviews.

This was given statutory effect in 1999, coming into force in April 2000.

In September 2000, the ECtHR considered cases brought by three of Mr Saunders’ co-defendants, reaching a conclusion similar to that in his own case.

Following review, the CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility the Court of Appeal would not uphold the convictions on the basis of the ECtHR decisions and on the grounds that the jury should not have heard the interview evidence.

The CCRC referred the conviction in February 2001.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction December 2001.