Lyons, Isidore

Isidore Lyons was convicted in August 1990 of theft, false accounting, conspiracy to contravene section 13 of the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act 1958, and conspiracy to contravene section 151 of the Companies Act 1985.

Mr Lyons was fined a total of £3 million with five years’ imprisonment in default and was ordered to pay prosecution costs of £440,000, reduced to £300,000 on appeal.

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

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 October 2000.

At trial, the prosecution had directed the jury’s attention to alleged changes of story by Mr Lyons 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 Lyons’ 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 Mr Lyons and two of his co-accused, reaching a conclusion similar to that in the case of Mr Saunders.

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 December 2000.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction December 2001.