{"id":4871,"date":"2009-09-22T15:22:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T13:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=4871"},"modified":"2009-09-22T15:22:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T13:22:21","slug":"why-is-corporate-fraud-punished-so-lightly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2009\/09\/22\/why-is-corporate-fraud-punished-so-lightly\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is corporate fraud punished so lightly?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.financialdirector.co.uk\/accountancyage\/news\/2249799\/mcalpine-directors-jailed\">Former McAlpine directors jailed after accounts scandal - Financial Director<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Three former executives of Welsh Slate Ltd, previously owned by McAlpine plc were hit with jail sentences after being found guilty of overstating the company&rsquo;s production and sales accounts.<\/p>\n<p>Around 44%, or more than \u00a310m of Welsh Slate's reported debtors were fiction in a deception which included showing auditors a stockpile of crates of roofing slate in which the outer crates were full, but the inner crates were empty.<\/p>\n<p>Customer letters were created to give impression that debtors&rsquo; payments were in the pipeline, while delivery notes and transportation invoices for non-existent consignments were forged.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Law, managing director, Geraint Roberts, operations director and Paul Harvey, sales chief, were sentenced to two and a half years, 16 months and 10 months respectively at Caernarfon Crown Court last week, the Serious Fraud <a class=\"iAs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.financialdirector.co.uk\/accountancyage\/news\/2249799\/mcalpine-directors-jailed#\" target=\"_blank\">Office<\/a> announced.<\/p>\n<p>Directorship bans, payment toward prosecution costs also apply and confiscation proceedings will follow, the SFO added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But why such light sentences? One will only serve a few months. You can get more for stealing a few videos.<\/p>\n<p>The attitude to fraud has to be much tougher. This was not a victimless crime: pensioners lost out for a start. Punishments must reflect that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former McAlpine directors jailed after accounts scandal &#8211; Financial Director. Three former executives of Welsh Slate Ltd, previously owned by McAlpine plc were hit with<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2009\/09\/22\/why-is-corporate-fraud-punished-so-lightly\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}